At the hatch he paused and looked into the next compartment. From the opposite side, he saw another hatch partially open and the outline of Roger"s head and shoulders. Between them, a man was bending over a makeshift desk, copying information from a calculator and a set of blueprints. Tom nodded across to Roger and they both stepped into the compartment at the same time.
"Put up your hands, mister, or I"ll freeze you so hard it"ll take a summer on the Venus equator to warm you up," Roger drawled.
The man jerked upright, stumbled back from the desk, and moved toward Tom, keeping his eyes on Roger. He backed into the barrel of Tom"s ray gun and stopped, terrified. He threw up his hands.
"What--wh--" he stammered and then caught himself. "How dare you do this to me?" he demanded.
"Shut up!" snapped Tom. "What are you doing here?"
"None of your business," the man replied.
"I"m making it my business," snapped Tom, pressing the gun into the man"s back. "Who are you and how did you get in here?"
The man turned and looked Tom in the eye. "I have a right to be here,"
he stated coldly. "I"ll show you my identification--" He brought his hands down and reached into his jacket, but Roger stepped over quickly and brought the barrel of his gun down sharply on the man"s head. He slumped to the floor with a groan and was still.
"What did you do that for?" growled Tom.
Roger didn"t reply. He reached down into the unconscious man"s jacket and pulled out a small paralo-ray gun stuck in the top of his waistband.
"Some identification," Roger drawled.
"Thanks, pal," said Tom sheepishly. "Let"s search him. Maybe we can find out who he is."
As Roger bent over the fallen man, there was a commotion in the hangar outside the ship, followed by the sound of footsteps clattering up the ladders to the ports. Seconds later, Astro, followed by Tim Rush and a squad of enlisted s.p.a.cemen, surged into the compartment. Rush stopped short when he saw the man on the floor.
"Great jumping Jupiter," gasped the petty officer, then whirled on Tom and Roger. "You s.p.a.ce-blasted idiots!" he shouted. "You good-for-nothing harebrained, moronic dumbbells! Do you know what you"ve done?"
Tom and Roger stared at each other in amazement. Astro, standing to one side, looked confused.
"Sure we know what we"ve done," declared Tom. "We found this guy in here copying secrets from some blueprints there on the desk and--"
"Copying secrets!" screamed Rush. "Why, you ding-blasted idiots, that"s Dave Barret, the supervisor of this whole project!"
The man on the floor stirred and Firehouse ordered the squad of enlisted men to help him up. Just then, there was a bellow of rage from the hatch. Major Connel stepped into the compartment, his face a mask of disgust and anger.
"By the rings of Saturn!" he roared. "I"ve been sitting in the laboratory for the last hour and a half waiting for Dave Barret to come back with vital information, so we could get on with our experiments, and I find that you--you--" Connel was so furious, he could hardly talk.
He faced the three cadets. "There isn"t anything in the books that says you should be disciplined for this--this--outrage, but believe me, Cadets"--his voice sounded like thunder in the small compartment--"this is the very last time I"ll stand for this kind of stupidity."
Tom gulped but stepped forward bravely. "Sir," he said clearly, "I would like respectfully to submit the facts for the major"s honest consideration. Neither of us has ever seen this man before and we found him copying information from these blueprints. When I challenged him, he said he was going to show us his identification. He put his hands in his jacket to get it, but Roger saw a gun in his belt, and thinking he was going to use it, Roger hit him on the head." Tom stopped, clamped his mouth shut, and stared the major in the eye. "That"s all, sir."
Connel returned the stare, his eyes meeting those of the cadet for a full half minute. "All right," he said finally. "I guess it"s just a case of misjudgment. But," he added scathingly, "in the face of the _Polaris_ unit"s record, you can understand my initial opinion."
As Dave Barret was a.s.sisted from the ship by the guards, Connel turned to Rush. "Firehouse!" he barked.
"Yes, sir?"
"See that these cadets don"t cause any more mischief."
"Yes, _sir_."
"Dismissed," snapped Connel.
"All right, you s.p.a.ce brats," bellowed Rush, "back to your patrol!"
Tom, Roger, and Astro left the ship and returned to their posts outside the hangar. Just before they separated to resume their endless march around the hangar, Tom winked at his unit mates. "At least we didn"t get demerits," he said.
"Only because Connel couldn"t find any reason to give them to us,"
sneered Roger. "What a busted rocket he"s getting to be!"
"Yeah," agreed Astro quietly.
The three cadets began their round again, their eyes heavy with lack of sleep, their arms and legs leaden, and their desire to become successful s.p.a.ce Cadets more determined than ever. But they didn"t know they had started a chain reaction that would affect their very lives.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER 5
"We pa.s.sed!"
Tom turned away from the lists posted on the dormitory bulletin board and with his arms around Astro and Roger pushed through the knot of cadets.
"Yeow!" bellowed Astro.
"We made it," murmured Roger with a note of disbelief in his voice. "We made it!" And then, with the realization that he was still a s.p.a.ce Cadet for at least another term, he turned and began pounding Astro on the back. "You big Venusian ape, we made it."
Arm in arm, the three cadets strolled across the quadrangle and shouted to friends they pa.s.sed. Occasionally they fell silent when they saw a boy carrying his gear to the supply building. These had failed to pa.s.s the rigid examinations.
Near the Tower of Galileo, the cadets came face to face with Tony Richards, McAvoy, and Davison. The two units looked at each other silently, remembering what had happened only four short weeks before.
Then they all smiled and pounded each other on the back, congratulating each other on pa.s.sing. Neither of the units had made top honors as a result of their fight and the trial, and having to spend so much time on guard duty, but they had pa.s.sed and that was the most important thing.
The boys all adjourned to the credit exchange and gorged themselves on Martian fruit pies covered with ice cream. Finally the party broke up when Tom remembered that he and his unit mates had to go on guard duty in half an hour.
"Well," said Tony Richards, rising, "we relieve you guys at midnight, so we might as well hit the sack right now. I"ve been waiting for this night for a long time."
"No study," sighed Davison. "What heaven! I feel as if I"ve been pardoned from prison."
The three boys of the _Capella_ crew said good-by to Tom, Roger, and Astro, and walked off. Tom settled back in his chair and sighed. "Sure wish I was in their boots," he said. "I don"t see how I"m going to get through tonight."
"Don"t think about it," said Roger. "Only seven more days to go, and then we go on summer cruise with the _Polaris_."
"I can"t wait to get back on that power deck," said Astro. "It"ll be like going home."
Later, riding the new slidewalk to the area where the huge hangar had been built, they saw Captain Strong returning from the restricted area on the other slidewalk. They hopped off their walk and waited for the young officer.