"Well, looks like we're big boys now," said Tom, as the three cadets
strolled down the corridor away from Captain Strong's office. "They
don't hand out secret and important missions to cadet units unless
they're really on the ball!"
"But we've got Major 'Blast-off' Connel to educate," grumbled Roger.
"What do you mean 'educate'?" asked Astro.
"You know he's the roughest officer in the Academy," replied the
blond-haired cadet. "He eats cadets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
And then has an extra one for dessert. He isn't just tough--his hide's
made of armor plate. But I've got a hunch that if we play dumb at first,
then smarten up slowly, we can make him feel that he's done it for us.
So he'll be easier on us."
"Say, it's after eleven!" exclaimed Tom. "We'd better hurry!"
Suddenly, as if a rocket cruiser were blasting off in the corridors, a
roar, deafening and powerful, filled their ears. And beneath its
ferocity there were four unmistakable words:
"_Polaris unit--staaaaaaaannnnnndddddd toooooo!_"
Every muscle, every bone in their three bodies snapped to rigid
attention simultaneously. Eyes straight, chins in, the cadets waited for
whatever calamity had befallen them. From behind came quick, heavy
footsteps. They drew closer until they passed alongside and then
abruptly stopped. There, in front of them, stood the one and only Major
"Blast-off" Connel!
Though a few inches shorter than Astro, he was what Astro might become
in thirty years, heavily muscular, with a barrel chest that filled the
gold-and-black uniform tightly. He stood balanced on the balls of his
small feet like a boxer, hands hanging loosely at his sides. A bulldog
chin jutted out of his rough-hewn face as if it were going to snap off
the head of the nearest cadet. He towered over Tom and Roger, and though
shorter than Astro, he made up for this by sheer force of personality.
When he spoke, his voice was like a deep foghorn that had suddenly
learned the use of vowels.
"So this is the great _Polaris_ unit, eh?" he bellowed. "You're two
minutes late!"
Tom suddenly felt that he and his unit-mates were all alone in the
corridor with the major. He glanced to one side, then the other,
cautiously, and saw it was empty. And for good reason! No one wanted to
be around when "Blast-off" Connel was blasting. Cadets, enlisted men,
and even officers were not safe from his sudden outbursts. He drove
himself so hard that he became impatient with others who were not able
to match his drive. It was not because of ego but rather to get the job
at hand finished. More than once he had dressed down a captain of the
Solar Guard in the same tone he used on a green Earthworm. It was legend
around the Academy that once, believing he was right, he had broken into
the Council Chamber itself to argue his point. He won by a unanimous
decision. Nothing, but nothing, had been devised or thought of that
could stop "Blast-off" Connel. Every waking moment of his adult life had
been spent in the pursuit of more and more knowledge about space, space
travel, and life on the other planets.
Now, his wrath at fever pitch at their being tardy, he stood in front of
the cadets, turning his anger on Roger first.
"Your name's Manning, isn't it?" he growled.
"Yes, sir!" replied Roger.
"Father got a medal--used to be a Solar Guard officer?"
"That's right, sir. He was killed in space."
"I know. He was a good man. _You'll_ never be the man he was, if you
live ten thousand years. But if you don't _try_ to be a better man than
he was, you won't live five minutes with me! Is that clear, Cadet
Manning?"
"Very clear, sir!" gulped Roger.
Connel turned to Astro.
"And you're the home-grown atomic-rocket genius, Venusian style, eh?"
"Yes, sir," choked Astro. "I'm from Venus."
"Bucked rockets on the old chemical burners as a kid before entering the
Academy, eh?" asked Connel. There was less than an inch and a half
between Astro's face and Major Connel's jaw.
"Yes, sir," answered Astro, "I was an enlisted man before coming to the
Academy."
"Well, get this, you rocket buster," roared Connel. "I want a power deck
that will give me what I want, when I want it, or you'll be back in the
ranks again. Is that clear, Cadet Astro?"
"Yes, sir! Everything she's got, when you want it, sir."
"And I like to have a power deck clean enough to eat off the deck
plates!"
"Yes, sir," stuttered Astro, growing more and more confused. "You like
to eat off the deck plates, sir!"
"_By the craters of Luna, no!_ I don't like to eat off the deck plates,
_but I want them clean enough to eat there if I want to!_"
"Yes, sir!" Astro's voice was hardly above a whisper.
"And you're the tactical wizard that won the space maneuvers recently,
singlehanded, eh?" asked Connel, bending down to face Tom.
"Our side won, sir. If that answers your question," replied Tom. He was
as nervous as Roger and Astro, but he fought for control. He was
determined not to be bullied.
"I didn't ask you who won!" snapped Connel. "But you're the one just the
same. Control-deck cadet, eh? Well, you work with me. On the control
deck there's only room for one brain, one decision, one answer. And when
I'm on the control deck, that decision, answer, and brain will be mine!"
"I understand perfectly, sir," said Tom tonelessly.
Connel stepped back, fists on his hips, eying the three cadets. He had
heard about their difficulty in fitting personalities together when they
had first arrived at Space Academy (as described in _Stand By for
Mars!_). And he had heard about their triumph over the Martian desert.
He was impressed with everything he had learned about them, but he knew
that he had a reputation for being tough and that this reputation
usually brought out the best in cadets. Early in his long and brilliant
career he had learned that his life depended on the courage and
ingenuity of his fellow spacemen. When he became an instructor at the
Academy, he had determined that no cadet would ever be anything but the
best, and that, when they blasted off in later years, they could be
depended on.
He looked at the three cadets and felt a tinge of excitement that did
not show on his scowling face. "Yes," he thought, "they'll make
spacemen. It'll take a little time--but they're good material."
"_Now listen to this!_" he bawled. "We blast off for the Venus space
station in exactly thirty minutes. Get your gear aboard the _Polaris_
and stand by to raise ship." He dropped his voice and pushed out his jaw
a little farther. "This will be the toughest journey you'll ever make.
You'll either come back spacemen, or you'll come back nothing. I'm going
to try my best to make it"--he paused and added coldly--"_nothing!_
Because if you can't take it from me, then you don't belong in space!
Unit _dis_-missed!"
He turned on his heel and disappeared up the slidestairs without another
look at the three rigid cadets.
"Yeah--we'll educate him, all right," said Astro softly, with a wink at
Tom. "Make him think he's done everything for us."
"Ah, go blast your jets!" snarled Roger after he had found his voice.
"Come on," said Tom. "Let's get the _Polaris_ ready. And, fellows, I
mean _ready_!"
Bill Loring and Al Mason stood near the entrance to the control tower of
the Academy spaceport and watched the three cadets of the _Polaris_
scramble into the giant rocket cruiser.
"Every time I think about that Connel kicking us out of space for twelve
months I wanta pound his head in with a wrench!" snarled Loring.
Mason snorted. "Well, what's the use of hanging around here?" he asked.
"That Connel wouldn't have us aboard the _Polaris_, even if we were
cleared and had our papers. There ain't a thing we can do!"
"Don't give up so easy. There's a fortune setting up there in
space--just waiting for me and you to come and take it. And no big-shot
Solar Guard officer is going to keep me from getting it!"
"Yeah--yeah," grumbled Mason, "but what are you going to do about it?"
"I'll show you what I'm going to do!" said Loring. "We're heading for
Venusport."
"Venusport? By the moons of Jupiter, what are we going to do there?"
"Get a free ride to Tara!"
"But how? I only got a few hundred credits and you ain't got much more.
There ain't nobody going to go fifty billion miles on nothing!"
Loring's eyes followed the massive figure of Major Connel on the
slidewalk as it swept across the spaceport field toward the _Polaris_.
"You just buy us a coupla seats on the next rocket to Venusport and stop
asking stupid questions. When we see Major 'Blast-off' Connel again,
we'll be giving the orders with a paralo-ray!"
The two disgruntled spacemen turned quickly and walked to the nearest
slidewalk, disappearing around a building.
Aboard the _Polaris_, Tom confronted his two unit-mates.
"Now look, fellows. After the hard time Major Connel just gave us, let's
see if we can't really stay on the ball from now on."
"All right by me, Tom," Astro said, nodding his head.
"You're having space dreams, Corbett!" drawled Roger. "No matter what we
do for old 'Blast-off' we'll wind up behind the eight ball."
"But if we really try," urged Tom, "if we all do our jobs, there can't
be anything for him to fuss about."
"We'll make it tough for him to give us any demerits," Astro chimed in.
"Right," said Tom.
"It won't work," grumbled Roger. "You saw the way he chewed us up, and
for what? I ask you--for what?"
"He was just trying to live up to his reputation, Roger," replied Tom.
"But common sense will tell you that if you're on the ball you won't get
demerits."
"What's the matter, hot-shot?" growled Astro. "Afraid of a little work?"
"Listen, you Venusian clunk," sneered Roger, "I'll work the pants off
you any day in the week, and that includes Titan days, too!"
"O.K." Tom smiled. "Save half of that energy for the _Polaris_, Roger."
"Yeah, use some of that Manning hot air to shine brass!" suggested
Astro.
"Come on. Let's get this wagon in shape," said Tom. He turned to the
instrument panel and the great control board.
A moment later the three cadets were busy shining the few bits of brass
and rechecking the many controls and levers. Suddenly there was the
sound of a hatch slamming below and then Astro's voice came whispering
over the intercom, "... watch it, fellows. Here he comes!"
The airtight hatch leading to the control deck slid back, and Major
Connel stepped inside. With one sweeping glance he took in the control
deck and the evidence of their work.
"Unit--_staaaaand to!_" he roared.
Astro climbed into the control deck and snapped to attention with his
unit-mates as Connel began a quick but thorough check of the many dials
and switches and relays on the control panel.
"Ummmmh," he mused. "Been doing a little work, I see."
"Oh, nothing special, sir," said Roger.
"Well, from now on it's going to be special!" roared Connel.
"Yes, sir," acknowledged Roger quickly.
"All right, at ease," ordered Connel. As the three boys relaxed, Connel
stepped over to the astrogation board and snapped a switch. Immediately
a solar chart filled the huge chart screen. It was a black-and-white
view of the planet Venus.
"This is where we're going first," he said, placing a finger on a
ball-shaped satellite in orbit around the misty planet. "This is the
Venus space station. As you know, Venus has no natural satellite of its
own, so we built one. We'll blast off from here and go directly to the
space station where the _Polaris_ will be fitted with hyperdrive for
deep-space operations. While at the station you will acquaint yourselves
with the operation of the new audio communications transmitter. When I'm
satisfied that you can handle it under the prevailing conditions of an
extended space flight, we'll blast off for a test of its range and
performance."
Major Connel paused and faced the cadets squarely. Then he continued:
"This is an important mission--one which I hope will enable the Solar
Guard to establish the first base outside of our solar system. Our
destination is Tara, in the star system of Alpha Centauri. Tara is a
planet in a stage of development similar to that of Earth several
million years ago. Its climate is tropical, and lush vegetation--jungles
really--covers the land surface. Two great oceans separate the land
masses. One is called Alpha, the other Omega. I was on the first
expedition, when Tara was discovered, and have just returned from the
second, during which we explored it and ran tests to learn if it could
sustain human life. All tests show that Tara can be transformed into a
paradise."
Connel paused, took a deep breath, and continued: "I shall expect more
than just hard work from you. I want everything you have to offer. Not
just good performance, but _excellence_! I will not tolerate anything
less, and if I'm forced to resort to extreme disciplinary action to get
what I demand, then you can expect to receive every demerit in the
book!" He stepped closer to the three cadets. "Remember! Spacemen--or
_nothing!_ Now, stand by to blast off!"
Without a word, the three cadets hurried to their stations and began
routine procedure to raise ship.
"All departments ready to blast off, Major Connel," reported Tom,
saluting sharply.
"Very well, Corbett, proceed," said Connel.
Tom called into the intercom, "Stand by for blast-off!" He then opened
the circuit to the teleceiver screen overhead and spoke to the spaceport
control tower.
"_Polaris_ to spaceport control. Request permission to blast off.
Request orbit."
"Spaceport traffic to _Polaris_. Your orbit has been cleared 089--repeat
089--blast off in two minutes ..."
"Orbit 089--blast off minus one fifty-nine fifty-eight."
"You read me clear, _Polaris_ ..."
Tom clicked off the switch and turned to the intercom. "Control deck to
radar bridge. Do we have a clear tangent forward and up?"
"All clear forward and up, Tom," replied Roger.
"Control deck to power deck. Energize the cooling pumps!"
"Cooling pumps in operation," answered Astro briskly.
The giant ship began to shudder as the mighty pumps on the power deck
started their slow, whining build-up. Tom sat in front of the control
panel, strapped himself into the acceleration chair, and began checking
the dials and gauges. Satisfied everything was in order, he fastened his
eyes to the sweeping red second hand on the solar clock. The teleceiver
screen brought a sharp picture of the surrounding base of the spaceship,
and he saw that it was all clear. The second hand reached the ten-second
mark.
"Stand by to raise ship!" bawled Tom into the intercom. The red hand
moved steadily, surely, to the zero at the top of the clock face. Tom
reached for the master switch.
"Blast off minus five--four--three--two--one--_zero!_"
Tom threw the switch.
Slowly the giant ship raised itself from the ground. Then faster and
faster, pushing the four spacemen deep into their acceleration cushions,
it hurtled spaceward.
In a few seconds the _Polaris_ was gravity-free. Once again, Earthmen
had started another journey to the stars.