The Planeteers wore coveralls, gloves, and face masks with respirators,
but that didn't prevent the stuff from sifting through onto their bodies.
Rip, who directed the work and kept track of the radiation with a
gamma-beta ion chamber and an alpha proportional counter, knew they would
have to undergo personal decontamination.
He took a reading on the ion chamber. Only a few milliroentgens of beta
and gamma radiation. That was the dangerous kind, because both beta
particles and gamma rays could penetrate clothing and skin. But the
Planeteers wouldn't get enough of a dose to do any harm at all. The
alpha count was high, but so long as they didn't breathe any of the dust,
it was not dangerous.
The _Scorpius_ had six tubes. Rip divided the Planeteers into two squads,
one under his direction and one under Koa's. Each tube took a couple of
hours' hard work. Several times during the cleaning, the men would leave
the tube and go into the main mixing chamber while the tube was blasted
with live steam to throw the stuff they had scraped off out into space.
Each squad was on its last tube when a spaceman arrived. He saluted Rip.
"Sir, the safety officer says to secure the tubes."
That could mean only one thing: deceleration.
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