Consciousness slid away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Spacefall
Rip was never more eloquent. He argued, he begged, and he wheedled.
The _Aquila's_ chief physician listened with polite interest, but he
shook his head. "Lieutenant, you simply are not aware of the close call
you've had. Another two hours without treatment, and we might not have
been able to save you."
"I appreciate that," Rip assured him. "But I'm fine now, sir."
"You are not fine. You are anything but fine. We've loaded you with
antibiotics and blood cell regenerator, and we've given you a total
transfusion. You feel fine, but you're not."
The doctor looked at Rip's red hair. "That's a fine thatch of hair you
have. In a week or two it will be gone, and you'll have no more hair
than an egg. A well person doesn't lose hair. Your head will shine like
a space helmet."
The ship's radiation safety officer had put both Rip's and Santos'
dosimeters into his measuring equipment. They had taken over a hundred
roentgens of hard radiation above the tolerance limit. This was the
result of being caught unshielded when the last nuclear charge went
off.
"Sir," Rip pleaded, "you can load us with suppressives. It's only a few
days more before we reach Terra.
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