And then, for the first time, Tom saw the hard little spaceman smile.
“I’m glad you made it, boys. All three of you.” He paused and looked at each of them in turn. “And I can honestly say I’m looking forward to the day when I can serve under you!”
He snapped his back straight, gave the three startled boys a crisp salute, executed a perfect about-face and marched out of the room.
“And that,” drawled Roger, strolling to the bunk nearest the window, “is the corniest bit of space gas I’ve ever heard.”
“Listen, Manning!” growled Astro, spinning around quickly to face him.
“Yeah,” purred Roger, his eyes drawn to fine points, hands hanging loosely at his sides. “What would you like me to listen to, Cadet Astro?”
The hulking cadet lunged at Manning, but Tom quickly stepped between them.
“Stow it, both of you!” he shouted. “We’re in this room together, so we might as well make the best of it.”
“Of course, Corbett—of course,” replied Manning easily. He turned his back on Astro, who stood, feet wide apart, neck muscles tight and hands clenched in hamlike fists.
“One of these days I’ll break you in two, Manning. I’ll close that fast-talking mouth of yours for good!”
Astro’s voice was a low growl. Roger stood near the window port and appeared to have forgotten the incident.
The light shining in from the hallway darkened, and Tom turned to see three blue-clad senior cadets arranged in a row just inside the door.
“Congratulations, gentlemen. You’re now qualified cadets of Space Academy,” said a redheaded lad about twenty-one. “My name is Al Dixon,” he turned to his left and right, “and these are cadets Bill Houseman and Rodney Withrop.”
“Hiya,” replied Tom. “Glad to know you. I’m Tom Corbett. This is Astro—and Roger Manning.”
Astro shook hands, the three senior cadets giving a long glance at the size of the hand he offered. Roger came forward smartly and shook hands with a smile.
“We’re sorta like a committee,” began Dixon. “We’ve come to sign you up for the Academy sports program.”
They made themselves comfortable in the room.
“You have a chance to take part in three sports. Free-fall wrestling, mercuryball and space chess.” Dixon glanced at Houseman and Withrop. “From the looks of Cadet Astro, free-fall wrestling should be child’s play for him!”
Astro merely grinned.
“Mercuryball is pretty much like the old game of soccer,” explained Houseman. “But inside the ball is a smaller ball filled with mercury, making it take crazy dips and turns. You have to be pretty fast even to touch it.”
“Sounds like you have to be a little Mercurian yourself,” smiled Tom.
“You do,” replied Dixon. “Oh, yes, you three play as a unit. Competition starts in a few days. So if you’ve never played before, you might go down to the gym and start practicing.”
“You mentioned space chess,” asked Roger. “What’s that?”
“It’s really nothing more than maneuvers. Space maneuvers,” said Dixon. “A glass case, a seven-foot cube, is divided by light shafts into smaller cubes of equal shape and size. Each man has a complete space squadron. Three model rocket cruisers, six destroyers and ten scouts. The ships are filled with gas to make them float, and your power is derived from magnetic force. The problem is to get a combination of cruisers and destroyers and scouts into a space section where it could knock out your opponent’s ships.”
“You mean,” interrupted Astro, “you’ve got to keep track of all those ships at once?”
“Don’t worry, Astro,” commented Roger quickly. “You use your muscles to win for dear old 42-D in free-fall wrestling. Corbett here can pound down the grassy field for a goal in mercuryball, and I’ll do the brainwork of space chess.”
The three visiting cadets exchanged sharp glances.
“Everybody plays together, Manning,” said Dixon. “You three take part in each sport as a unit.”
“Of course,” nodded Roger. “Of course—as a unit.”
The three cadets stood up, shook hands all around and left. Tom immediately turned to Manning.
“What was the idea of that crack about brains?”
Manning slouched over to the window port and said over his shoulder, “I don’t know how you and your king-sized friend here passed the classifications test, Corbett, and I don’t care. But, as you say, we’re a unit. So we might as well make adjustments.”
He turned to face them with a cold stare.
“I know this Academy like the palm of my hand,” he went on. “Never mind how, just take it for granted. I know it. I’m here for the ride. For a special reason I wouldn’t care to have you know. I’ll get my training and then pull out.”
He took a step forward, his face a mask of bitterness.
“So from now on, you two guys leave me alone. You bore me to death with your emotional childish allegiance to this—this”—he paused and spit the last out cynically—“space kindergarten!”
III
“I just can’t understand it, Joan,” said Captain Steve Strong, tossing the paper on his circular desk. “The psychographs of Corbett, Manning and Astro fit together like gears. And yet—”
The Solar Guard officer suddenly rose and walked over to a huge window that filled the entire north wall of his office, a solid sheet of glass that extended from the high domed ceiling to the translucent flooring. Through the window, he stared down moodily toward the grassy quadrangle, where at the moment several hundred cadets were marching in formation under a hot sun.
“—And yet,” continued Strong, “every morning for the last three weeks I’ve got a report from McKenny about some sort of friction between them!”
“I think it’ll work out, Steve,” answered the pretty girl in the uniform of the Solar Guard, seated in an easy chair on the other side of the desk.
Joan Dale held the distinction of being the first woman ever admitted into the Solar Guard, in a capacity other than administrative work. Her experiments in atomic fissionables was the subject of a recent scientific symposium held on Mars. Over fifty of the leading scientists of the Solar Alliance had
