The s.p.a.ce Pioneers.

by Carey Rockwell.

CHAPTER 1

"Go on, Astro," shouted the young s.p.a.ce Cadet. "Boot that screwy ball with everything you've got!"

The three cadets of the _Polaris_ unit raced down the Academy field toward the mercuryball, a plastic sphere with a vial of mercury inside.

At the opposite end of the field, three members of the _Arcturus_ unit ran headlong in a desperate effort to reach the ball first.

Astro, the giant s.p.a.ce Cadet from Venus, charged toward the ball like a blazing rocket, while his two unit mates flanked him, ready to block out their opponents and give Astro a clear shot at the ball.

On the left wing, Tom Corbett, curly-haired and snub-nosed, ran lightly down the field, while on the opposite wing, Roger Manning, his blond hair cut crew style, kept pace with him easily. The two teams closed.

Roger threw a perfect block on his opposing wingman and the two boys went down in a heap. Tom side-stepped the _Arcturus_ cadet on his side and sent him sprawling to the ground. He quickly cut across the field and threw his body headlong at the last remaining member of the opposition. Astro was free to kick the ball perfectly for a fifty-yard goal.

Jogging back toward their own goal line, the three _Polaris_ cadets congratulated each other. Astro's kick had tied the score, two-all.

"That was some feint you pulled on Richards, Tom," said Roger. "You sucked him in beautifully. I thought he was going to tear up the field with his nose!"

Tom grinned. Compliments from Roger were few and far between.

Astro clapped his hands together and roared, "All right, fellas, let's see if we can't take these s.p.a.ce b.u.ms again! Another shot at the goal--that's all I need!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Lining up at the end of the field again, the cadets kept their eyes on the cadet referee on the side lines. They saw him hold up his hand and then drop it suddenly. Once again the teams raced toward the ball in the middle of the field. When they met, Roger tried to duplicate Tom's feat and feint his opponent, but the other cadet was ready for the maneuver and stopped dead in his tracks. Roger was forced to break stride just long enough for the _Arcturus_ cadet to dump him to the ground and then race for Astro. Tom, covering Astro on the left wing, saw the cadet sweeping in and lunged in a desperate attempt to stop him. But he missed, leaving Astro unprotected against the three members of the _Arcturus_ unit. With his defense gone, Astro kicked at the ball frantically but just grazed the side of it. The mercury inside the ball began to play its role in the game, and as though it had a brain of its own, the ball spun, stopped, bounced, and spiraled in every direction, with the cadets kicking, lunging, and scrambling for a clean shot.

Finally Astro reached the tumbling sphere and booted it away from the group. There was a roar of laughter from the _Arcturus_ unit and a low groan from Tom and Roger. Astro saw that he had kicked the ball over his own goal line.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Why, you clobber-headed Venusian hick!" yelled Roger. "Can't you tell the difference between our goal and theirs?"

Astro grinned sheepishly as the three jogged back to their own goal to line up once more.

"Lay off, Roger," said Tom. "How come you didn't get Richards on that play?"

"I slipped," replied the blond cadet.

"Yeah, you slipped all right," growled Astro good-naturedly, "with a great big a.s.sist from Richards."

"Ah, go blast your jets," grumbled Roger. "Come on! Let's show those s.p.a.ce crawlers what this game is all about!"

But before the cadet referee could drop his hand, a powerful, low-slung jet car, its exhaust howling, pulled to a screeching stop at the edge of the field and a scarlet-clad enlisted Solar Guardsman jumped out and spoke to him. Sensing that it was something important, the two teams jogged over to surround the messenger.

"What's up, Joe?" asked Roger.

The enlisted s.p.a.ceman, an Earthworm cadet who had washed out of the Academy but had re-enlisted in the Solar Guard, smiled. "Orders for the _Polaris_ unit," he said, "from Captain Strong."

"What about?" asked Roger.

"Report on the double for new a.s.signments," replied the guardsman.

"_Yeeeeooooow!_" Astro roared in jubilation. "At last we can get out of here. I've been doing so blamed much cla.s.sroom work, I've forgotten what s.p.a.ce looks like."

"Know where we're going, Joe?" asked Tom.

"Uh-uh." Joe shook his head. He turned away, then stopped, and called back, "Want a lift back to the Tower?"

Before Tom could answer, Richards, the captain of the _Arcturus_ unit spoke up. "How about finishing the game, Tom? It's been so long since we've had such good compet.i.tion we hate to lose you. Come on. Only a few more minutes."

Tom hesitated. It had been a long time since the two units had played together, but orders were orders. He looked at Roger and Astro. "Well, what about it?"

"Sure," said Roger. "We'll wipe up these s.p.a.ce jokers in nothing flat!

Come on!"

There was a mock yell of anger from the _Arcturus_ unit and the two teams raced back to their starting positions. In the remaining minutes of play, the cadets played hard and rough. First one team would score and then the other. A sizable crowd of cadets had gathered to watch the game and cheered l.u.s.tily as the players tore up and down the field.

Finally, when both teams were nearly exhausted, the game was over and the score was eight to seven in favor of the _Polaris_ unit. Roger had made the final point after Tony Richards had left the game with a badly bruised hip. A subst.i.tute called in from the bystanders, an Earthworm cadet, had eagerly joined the _Arcturus_ team for the last minutes of play but had been hopelessly outcla.s.sed by the teamwork of the _Polaris_ unit.

Promising a return match soon, Roger, Tom, and Astro hurried to their lockers, showered, and dressed in their senior cadet uniforms of vivid blue, then raced to the nearest slidewalk to head toward the main group of buildings that made up s.p.a.ce Academy.

Whisked along on the moving belt of plastic that formed the principle method of transportation in and around the Academy grounds, Tom turned to his unit mates. "What do you think it'll be?" he asked.

"You mean the a.s.signment?" asked Roger, answering his own question in the next breath. "I don't know. But anything to get out of here. I've been on Earth so long that I'm getting gravity-itis!"

Tom smiled. "It'll sure be nice to get up in the wide, high, and deep again," he said, glancing up at the cloudless sky.

"Say it again, s.p.a.ceman," breathed Astro. "One more lesson on the differential potential between chemical-burning rocket fuels and reactant energy and I'll blast off without a s.p.a.ceship!"

Roger and Tom laughed. They both sympathized with the big cadet's inability to cope with the theory of atomic energy and fuel conservation in s.p.a.ceships. In charge of the power deck on the _Polaris_, Astro earlier had gained firsthand experience in commercial rocket ships as an able s.p.a.ceman and later had been accepted in the Academy for cadet training. The son of colonists on Venus, the misty planet, his formal education was limited, and though he had no equal while on the power deck of a rocket ship, in theory and cla.s.sroom study he had to depend on Roger and Tom to help him get pa.s.sing grades.

The slidewalk moved smoothly and easily toward the gleaming Tower of Galileo, the largest and most imposing of the structures of s.p.a.ce Academy. Made entirely of clear crystal mined on t.i.tan, satellite of Saturn, the Tower rose over the smaller buildings like a giant shimmering jewel. Housing the administration offices of the Solar Guard and the s.p.a.ce Academy staff, it also contained Galaxy Hall, the museum of s.p.a.ce, which attracted thousands of visitors from every part of the Solar Alliance.

Tom Corbett, his eyes caressing the magnificent gleaming Tower, remembered the first time he had seen it. While it hadn't been so long in months or years since becoming a s.p.a.ce Cadet, it seemed as though he had been at the Academy all of his life and that it was his home. In the struggle to develop into a well-knit dependable rocket team, composed of an astrogator, power-deck cadet, and a command cadet, Tom had a.s.sumed the leadership of the unit, and the relationship between Astro, Roger Manning, and himself had ripened until they were more like brothers than three young men who had grown up millions of miles apart.

As they rode toward the Tower, the three cadets could see the green-clad first-year Earthworms getting their first taste of cadet life--hours of close-order formations and drills. The nearer they came to the Tower, the more intense and colorful became the activity as the crisscrossing slidewalks carried enlisted guardsmen in their red uniforms, and the officers of the Solar Guard in magnificent black and gold, across the quadrangle to the various dormitories, laboratories, lecture rooms, mess halls, and research rooms. s.p.a.ce Academy was a beehive of activity, with the education of thousands of cadets and the operational mechanics of the Solar Guard going on incessantly, day and night, never stopping in its avowed task of defending the liberties of the planets, safeguarding the freedom of s.p.a.ce, and upholding the cause of peace throughout the universe.

As their slidewalk glided over the quadrangle, Roger suddenly turned to his unit mates. "Think we might get a.s.signed to that radar project they're setting up on the Moon?" he asked. "I have a few ideas--"

Tom laughed. "He can't wait until he gets his hands on that new scanner Dr. Dale just finished, Astro," he said with a wink.

The big Venusian snorted. "Can you imagine the ego of that guy? Dr. Dale spends almost a year building that thing, with the help of the leading electronic scientists in the Alliance, and _he_ can't wait to _tell_ them about a few of _his_ ideas!"

"I didn't mean that," complained Roger. "All I said was--"

"You don't have to say a word, hot-shot," interrupted Astro. "I can read your thoughts as though they were flashed on a stereo screen!"

"Oh, yeah!" growled Roger. "You should be that telepathic for your exams. Why didn't you read my thoughts when I beat my brains out trying to explain that thrust problem the other night?" He turned to Tom, shrugging his shoulders in mock despair. "Honestly, Tom, if I didn't know that he was the best power jockey in the Academy, I'd say he was the dumbest thing to leave Venus, _including_ the dinosaurs in the Academy Zoo!"