“How’s Tom?” asked Roger. Astro, in his patrol, came in contact with both unit mates.
“Sleepy. He’s having a tough time with that chapter on space law. He didn’t sleep at all last night.”
“He better keep awake,” said Roger. “That little fireman’s got his rockets hot tonight. He’ll blast Tom sure if—”
“Wait a minute,” said Astro suddenly, looking off into the darkness. “What was that?”
Roger spun around, his rifle in his hands, ready to fire. “What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” replied Astro in a whisper. “I thought I saw something move inside the hangar.” He pointed to a large window. “Sort of a shadow against the frosted glass.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“I’ll investigate. You get Tom and call Firehouse.”
“Right,” replied Astro, and raced down the path, alongside the hangar.
Grasping his rifle firmly, Roger inched toward a nearby door. He opened it a crack, then flattened himself against the wall and watched Astro run toward the other end of the hangar. He saw the big Venusian say a few quick words to Tom and then rush off toward the guardhouse and the communicator. Tom waved to Roger, indicating that he would enter the opposite door of the hangar.
Roger dropped to his hands and knees and poked his head through the open door, peering around from one end of the huge dark chamber to the other. Then, taking a deep breath, he rose and stepped quickly inside. He closed the door behind him and stood still, listening for some sound.
Suddenly there was a flash of light from the opposite wall. Roger brought the paralo-ray gun up to his shoulder quickly and was about to fire when he realized that the light he saw was Tom opening the door on the opposite side. He breathed easier and waited until he could distinguish Tom’s moving figure clearly, and then walked stealthily forward on a parallel line.
It was the first time Roger had been inside the hangar since it had been constructed and he was not sure of his way around, but gradually, the moonlight filtering in through the frosted plates of Titan crystal illuminated the huge forms of the machines around him.
He stopped and gasped. Without even realizing it, he emitted a long whistle of astonishment. Before him, reaching up into the shadows of the cavernous hangar, was the gleaming hull of a huge rocket ship. Two hundred feet long, the space vessel stood on its stabilizer fins, ladders and cables running into the open ports on both sides.
Roger waved to Tom, who had also stopped to stare at the giant spaceship, and the two of them met beneath the gleaming hull.
“What’s the matter?” asked Tom. “Astro said you saw someone.”
“I didn’t see a blasted thing,” said Roger in an exasperated whisper. “That big goof said he did.”
“Wow!” said Tom, looking up at the ship. “This is some baby. I never saw one with lines like that before. Look at the funny bulges on the lower side of the hull.”
“Sh!” hissed Roger. “I just heard something.”
The two cadets stood silently, ears cocked for the slightest sound in the huge hangar. They heard a distinct tapping sound from somewhere above them.
“It’s coming from inside the ship!” said Tom.
“You climb in the other port,” said Roger. “I’ll take this one.”
“Right,” said Tom. “And remember, if there’s any trouble, shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Check.”
Tom slipped away from Roger and moved to the opposite side of the ship. Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, he climbed up the ladder silently toward the open port.
Making his way noiselessly through the air lock, he entered the huge main deck of the ship and was able to see his way around by the faint glow of the emergency reflectors in the bulkheads. Tiny, sparkling gemlike pieces of specially coated Titan crystal, they glowed with steady intensity for many hours after having been exposed to any form of light. The deck was a mass of cables, boxes, tools, and equipment. Tom noticed curious-looking machines behind, what he judged to be, the odd bulges on the outside of the hull. Ahead of him, a hatch was partially open and he could see light streaking through the opening. He gripped his rifle tightly, finger on the trigger, and moved forward.
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 spacemen, 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 space-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 assisted 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 space 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 Space Cadets more determined than ever. But they didn’t know they had started a chain reaction that would affect their very lives.
CHAPTER 5
“We passed!”
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 Space 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 passed. Occasionally they fell silent when they saw a boy carrying his gear to the supply building. These had failed to pass 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 passing. 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 passed 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.
“I’m happy that you passed the exams, boys,” he said. “And I want you to know Commander Walters and Major Connel think a lot more of you, though they wouldn’t admit it, for the way you worked to make it.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Astro respectfully.
“You’ll have to excuse us, sir,” said Tom. “We’ve got to get out to the hangar and go on guard.”
“Yes, and you’d better hurry,” said Strong. “After that mix-up with Dave Barret, Firehouse Tim has his eye on you. Barret put up quite a fuss about it.”
“I still don’t see how Mr. Barret got in there,” said Tom. “The fourth side of the hangar faces the hills, and we three covered the other three sides.”
“However he got in,” interrupted Strong, “he had a right to be there. And he also had a right to carry sidearms.”
“Captain Strong,” said Roger, “we’ve talked about it a lot, the three of us. And we decided that regardless of what Major Connel or Firehouse or Barret have said, we’d do the same thing, in the same way again.”
“I think you’re perfectly right, Manning. But don’t quote me,” said Strong, his voice serious. “This is one of the most important projects I’ve ever been connected with and—” He stopped suddenly. “Well, I can’t tell you any more. That’s how tight the security is on it.”
“But everyone knows that it’s a projectile that will home on a target, sir,” said Tom.
“Yes, that was given to the stereos for general news release, but there are other factors involved, factors so important that they could revolutionize the whole concept of space flight.”
“Wow!” said Tom. “No wonder they have this place so well guarded.”
“Humph,” snorted Roger. “I’d give up the opportunity of guarding this revolutionary secret for one night’s good sleep.”
“You’ll get that tomorrow when we go off duty,” said Tom. “And please, Roger, no blunders tonight, eh? Let’s not take any chances of losing the summer cruise in the Polaris.”
“Listen! You want to talk to the Venusian hick about that, not me,” declared Roger. “He’s the one that spotted Barret.”
“But you hit him on the head,” growled Astro. “You and your catlike reflexes.” The big cadet referred to a recent letter he had seen in which one of the blond-haired cadet’s many space dolls referred to his sensitivity as being that of a poet, and his dancing as smooth as the reflexes of a cat.
Roger spun on the big cadet. “You blasted throwback to a Venusian ape!” he roared. “If I ever catch you reading my mail again—”
“You’ll what?” growled Astro. “You’ll do just exactly what?” He grabbed Roger by the arm and held him straight out, so that he looked as if he were hanging from a tree.
Strong laughed and shook his head. “I give you three to the loving, tender care of Firehouse Tim,” he said, hopping over on the moving slidewalk, back to the Academy.
“Put me down, you overgrown idiot,” Roger howled.
“Not until you promise not to threaten me with violence again,” said Astro with a wink at Tom. The young curly-haired cadet doubled up with laughter. Finally Roger was lowered to the ground, and, though he rubbed his shoulder and grumbled, he was really pleased that Astro felt like roughhousing with him. The events of the last few weeks had so tired all of them that there had been no energy left for play.
Lightheartedly they stepped over to the slidewalk and were back on their way to the secret project.
* * * *
Two huge wire fences had been built around the hangar area now, fences carrying a surge of paralyzing power ready to greet anyone that dared touch it. More than twenty feet high, the outer fence was buried six feet into the ground and was some hundred yards away from the hangar building itself, and fifty yards away from the second fence. The entire area was also guarded by radar. Should any unauthorized person or object be found in that area, an automatic alarm sounded and in fifteen seconds a hundred fully armed guards were ready for action. The men who had been cleared by security to work in and around the restricted area wore specially designed belts of sensitized metal that offset the effects o
f the radar. But the fence was still the untouchable for everyone.
Tom, Roger, and Astro had now been moved inside the hangar itself, to stand guard over the only three doors in the cavernous structure. They were armed with powerful heat blasters. These rifles were different from the paralo-ray guns they had used previously. A beam of light from the ray guns would only paralyze a human being, while the blaster destroyed anything it touched, burning it to a crisp.
As soon as the three cadets saw the change in armament, they knew they were guarding something so secret that human life, if it interfered with the project, would be disintegrated. Only once before, on a hunting trip to Venus, had they ever used the blasters, but they knew the deadly power of the weapons.
Nothing was said to them. Firehouse Tim had not posted any special orders or given them any special instructions. Each man who worked inside the hangar had to pass a simple but telling test of identification. On a table at each entrance to the hangar was a small box with a hole in the top. Each worker, guard, and person that entered the hangar had to insert a key into the hole and it made contact with a highly sensitive electronic device inside. The keys were issued only by Major Connel or Captain Strong, and should anyone attempt to enter the hangar without it, or should the key not make the proper contact, lighting up a small bulb on the top of the box, Tom, Roger, and Astro had simple instructions: Shoot to kill.
This form of identification had been employed for some time now, even before the wire fence had been installed, but the really spectacular change was in the heat blasters each guard carried. This, more than anything else, impressed on everyone connected with the project, that to move the wrong way, to say the wrong thing, or to act in any suspicious manner might result in instant death.
It was a mark of trust that Tom, Roger, and Astro had been placed in such a highly sensitive position. They could kill a man and simply explain, “The light didn’t go on!” and that would be the end of it. Neither of them knew that Connel had specifically requested that they be assigned to the day shift, when the hangar would be crowded with workers, who, intent on their assigned jobs, might be careless and leave themselves open to instant action on the part of the guards. Connel reasoned that Tom, Roger, and Astro, aside from their occasional antics in the Academy, would be more responsible than rough enlisted spacemen. The orders were specific: shoot to kill, but there was almost always one poor human being who would forget. In spite of the necessity for tight security, Connel felt he had to allow for that one percent of human failure. Secretly he was very happy that he had a crack unit like the Polaris to place in such a job. And the Capella unit had been entrusted with the same responsibility.
The Tom Corbett Space Cadet Megapack: 10 Classic Young Adult Sci-Fi Novels Page 104
