She began handing out the tubes and, one by one, the green-clad candidates stepped to the front of the room to receive them.
“Excuse me, Ma’am,” said one cadet falteringly. “If—if—I wash out as a cadet—as a Solar Guard officer cadet”—he gulped several times—“does that mean there isn’t any chance of becoming a spaceman?”
“No,” she answered kindly. “You can become a member of the enlisted Solar Guard, if you can pass the acceleration tests.”
“Thank you, Ma’am,” replied the boy and turned away nervously.
Tom Corbett accepted the tube and hurried back to his seat. He knew that this was the last hurdle. He did not know that the papers had been prepared individually, the tests given on the basis of the entrance exams he had taken back at New Chicago Primary Space School.
He opened the tube, pulling out the four sheets, printed on both sides of the paper, and read the heading on the first: Astrogation, Communications, Signals (Radar)
He studied the first question.
“… What is the range of the Mark Nine radar-scope, and how far can a spaceship be successfully distinguished from other objects in space? …”
He read the question four times, then pulled out a pencil and began to write.
Only the rustle of the papers, or the occasional sigh of a cadet over a problem, disturbed the silence in the high-ceilinged room, as the hundred-odd cadets fought the questions.
There was a sudden stir in the room and Tom looked up to see Roger Manning walk to the slot and casually deposit his tube in the green-bordered slot. Then he leaned idly against the wall waiting for it to be returned. As he stood there, he spoke to Dr. Dale, who smiled and replied. There was something about his attitude that made Tom boil. So fast? He glanced at his own papers. He had hardly finished two sheets and thought he was doing fine. He clenched his teeth and bent over the paper again, redoubling his efforts to triangulate a fix on Regulus by using dead reckoning as a basis for his computations.
Suddenly a tall man, wearing the uniform of a Solar Guard officer, appeared in the back of the room. As Dr. Dale looked up and smiled a greeting, he placed his finger on his lips. Steve Strong, Captain in the Solar Guard, gazed around the room at the backs bent over busy pencils. He did not smile, remembering how, only fifteen years before, he had gone through the same torture, racking his brains trying to adjust the measurements of a magnascope prism. He was joined by a thin handsome young man, Lieutenant Judson Saminsky, and finally, Warrant Officer McKenny. They nodded silently in greeting. It would be over soon. Strong glanced at the clock over the desk. Another ten minutes to go.
The line of boys at the slots grew until more than twenty stood there, each waiting patiently, nervously, for his turn to drop the tube in the slot and receive in return the sealed cylinder that held his fate.
Still at his desk, his face wet with sweat, Astro looked at the question in front of him for the fifteenth time.
“… Estimate the time it would take a 300-ton rocket ship with half-filled tanks, cruising at the most economical speed to make a trip from Titan to Venusport. (a) Estimate size and maximum capacity of fuel tanks. (b) Give estimate of speed ship would utilize. …”
He thought. He slumped in his chair. He stared at the ceiling. He chewed his pencil. …
Five seats away, Tom stacked his examination sheets neatly, twisted them into a cylinder and inserted them in the tube. As he passed the line of desks and headed for the slot, a hand caught his arm. Tom turned to see Roger Manning grinning at him.
“Worried, spaceboy?” asked Roger easily. Tom didn’t answer. He simply withdrew his arm.
“You know,” said Roger, “you’re really a nice kid. It’s a shame you won’t make it. But the rules specifically say ‘no cabbageheads.’ ”
“No talking!” Dr. Dale called sharply from her desk.
Tom walked away and stood in the line at the slots. He found himself wanting to pass more than anything in the world. “Please,” he breathed, “please, just let me pass—”
A soft gong began to sound. Dr. Dale stood up.
“Time’s up,” she announced. “Please put your papers in the tubes and drop them in the slot.”
Tom turned to see Astro stuffing his papers in the thin cylinder disgustedly. Phil Morgan came up and stood in back of Tom. His face was flushed.
“Everything OK, Phil?” inquired Tom.
“Easy as free falling in space,” replied the other cadet, his soft Georgian drawl full of confidence. “How about you?”
“I’m just hoping against hope.”
The few remaining stragglers hurried up to the line.
“Think Astro’ll make it?” asked Phil.
“I don’t know,” answered Tom, “I saw him sweating over there like a man facing death.”
“I guess he is—in a way.”
Astro took his place in line and shrugged his shoulders when Tom leaned forward to give him a questioning look.
“Go ahead, Tom,” urged Phil. Tom turned and dropped his tube into the green-bordered slot and waited. He stared straight at the wall in front of him, hardly daring to breathe. Presently, the tube was returned in the red slot. He took it, turned it over in his hands and walked slowly back to his desk.
“You’re washed out, cabbagehead!” Manning’s whisper followed him. “Let’s see if you can take it without bawling!”
Tom’s face burned and he fought an impulse to answer Manning with a stiff belt in the jaw. But he kept walking, reached his desk and sat down.
Astro, the last to return to his desk, held the tube out in front of him as if it were alive. The room was silent as Dr. Dale rose from her desk.
“All
