"What about that remark about finding an opening?" growled Connel.
"What"s going on here?" called Professor Hemmingwell as he bustled up to the group. "Why aren"t these men working? Dave, why aren"t you up there--?"
"Just a minute, Professor!" Connel barked, and turned back to Barret.
"Go ahead, Barret."
"They can"t make a new timer until I find a way of installing it without taking apart the whole projectile," said Barret, adding sarcastically, "in other words, Major--finding an opening."
"All right," barked Connel. "That"s enough." He turned to the a.s.sembled workers. "Get back to work, all of you." The men moved away and Firehouse Tim led the guards back to their quarters. Professor Hemmingwell, Barret, and Astro remained where they were.
Connel turned to Astro. "Good work, you dumb Venusian," he snorted.
"But so help me, if you had burned this man, I, personally, would"ve buried you on a prison rock." The major then turned to Barret. "As for you--" he snarled.
"Yes?" asked Barret coolly.
"You make one more call like that over a public teleceiver," Connel roared, "especially a transs.p.a.ce call that"s monitored by the idiots in the teleceiver company, and I"ll send _you_ to a prison asteroid!"
"Now, Major," said Hemmingwell testily, "I don"t think you should speak to Dave that way. After all, he"s a very valuable man in this project."
"How valuable would he be if this cadet had gone ahead and blasted him?"
snarled Connel.
"It"s just another example of how these stupid boys have obstructed my work here," replied Hemmingwell angrily. "I can"t see why they have to interfere this way. And they always pick on poor Dave."
"Yes," snarled Barret. "I"m getting pretty tired of being a clay pigeon for a bunch of brats." He turned to Astro. "You"ll have a head full of socket wrench if you mess with me again."
"You"ll get a receipt, Barret," growled Astro. "Paid in full."
"All right, break it up," growled Connel. "Back to your post, Astro. And you get back to work, Barret, and remember what I said about using that public teleceiver."
Barret and Hemmingwell walked off, with the little professor talking rapidly to the younger scientist, trying to calm his anger.
Astro, Tom, and Roger were extraordinarily strict about the exit of the workers that night and there was angry muttering in the ranks of the men who wanted to get home. But the three cadets refused to be hurried and made each man perform the ritual of getting out to the letter. Still later, after they had been relieved by the _Capella_ unit and had told them of the incident between Astro and Barret, they headed back to the Academy dormitory more tired than they had ever been before in their lives. Thirty seconds after reaching their room, they were asleep in their bunks, without undressing or washing. Like whipped dogs, they sprawled on their bunks, dead to the world.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER 6
Sabotage!
Major Connel, Commander Walters, Captain Strong, Professor Hemmingwell, and Dave Barret stared unbelievingly at the tangle of wires and smashed tubes on the main deck of the sleek s.p.a.ceship.
"Get every man that has been in this hangar during the last twenty-four hours and have him brought under guard to the laboratory for psychographs." Commander Walters" face was grim as he snapped out the order.
Professor Hemmingwell and Barret got down on their hands and knees and examined the wrecked firing device carefully. After a long period of silence, while Strong, Walters, and Connel watched them pawing through the tangle of wires and broken connections, Hemmingwell stood up.
"It can be replaced in twelve hours," he announced. "I believe that whoever did this either didn"t know what he was doing, or it was an accident."
"Explain that, will you, Professor?" asked Strong. "I don"t understand."
"This is an important unit," Hemmingwell replied, indicating the wreckage, "but not the most important part of the whole unit. Anyone who really knew what he was doing and wanted to delay the project could have done so much more easily by simply destroying this." Hemmingwell held out a small metallic-looking cylinder.
"What is that, Professor?" asked Barret.
"Don"t you know?" asked Connel.
"No, he doesn"t," snapped Professor Hemmingwell. "This is something I developed that only the commander and myself know about."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"So, if you and Commander Walters are the only ones that know about it,"
said Steve Strong slowly, "then a saboteur would have thought it unimportant and concentrated on the rest of the mechanism."
"Looks that way," mused Connel. "But there is still the possibility that it was an accident, as the professor said."
Strong looked at Connel questioningly and then back to the wreckage. The unit had been hurled from the upper deck of the s.p.a.ceship, down to the main deck, and it looked as if someone had trampled on its delicate works.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"I"ll have a crew put right to work on this," said Hemmingwell.
"Commander," Connel suddenly announced, "I"m going ahead with my trip to Mars to inspect the testing receivers. I don"t think this incident is serious enough for me to delay leaving, and if Professor Hemmingwell and his men can get this unit back in operation in twelve hours, then there"s very little time lost and we can go ahead with the tests on schedule."
"All right, Lou," said Walters. "Do whatever you think best. I"ll have a ship made ready for you at the Academy s.p.a.ceport any time you want to leave."
Connel nodded his thanks. "I think I"ll take the _Polaris_, with Cadet Corbett along as second pilot," he said. "I"m getting too old to make a solo hop in a scout all the way to Mars. I need my rest." He grinned slyly at Walters.
"Rest," Walters snorted. "If I know you, Lou Connel, you"ll be up all night working out standard operational procedures for the s.p.a.ce projectiles." He turned to Strong. "He"s so sure this will work that he"s already writing a preliminary handbook for the enlisted personnel."
Strong turned and looked at the major, amazed. Every day he learned more and more about the s.p.a.ce-hardened veteran.
Connel turned to Strong. "Will you give Corbett the order to be ready at 0600 hours tomorrow morning, Steve?" he asked.
"Certainly, Lou," replied Strong.
As the major turned away, Walters called after him, "Take it easy."
Leaving Hemmingwell and Barret to take care of clearing away the wreckage, Strong and Walters climbed out of the ship, left the hangar, and headed for the Academy.
"Do you think it was sabotage, sir?" asked Strong, as they rode on the slidewalk.
"I don"t know, Steve," said the commander. "If that special unit of Hemmingwell"s had been damaged, I would say it might have been an accident. But the things that were damaged would have put the whole works out of commission if we didn"t have that unit."
"Yes, sir," said Strong grimly. "So the man who did it thought he was doing a complete job."