"What would you do," Roger would ask an applicant, "if you were suddenly drifting in s.p.a.ce, in danger, and found that you had lost the vacuum in your audio tubes? How would you get help?"

Not one in over three hundred had realized that s.p.a.ce itself was a perfect vacuum and could be subst.i.tuted for the tubes. Roger had turned thumbs down on all of them.

Astro and Tom found their interviews equally as rough. One applicant admitted to Tom that he wanted to go to the satellite to establish a factory for making rocket juice, a highly potent drink that was not outlawed in the solar system, but was looked on with strong disfavor.

When Tom turned down his application, the man tried to get Tom to enter into partnership with him, and when Tom refused, the man became violent and the cadet had to call enlisted Solar Guardsmen to throw him out.

While Tom and Roger made decisions quickly and decisively, Astro, on the other hand, patiently listened to all the tearful stories and sympathized with the applicants when they were unable to tear down a small reactor unit and rebuild it blindfolded. Painfully, sometimes with tears in his own eyes, he would tell the applicant he had failed, just when the would-be colonist would think Astro was going to pa.s.s him.

The three cadets were doing their jobs so well that in the one hundred and fifty-three applications approved by them Strong did not reject one, but sent them all on to Governor Hardy for final approval.

On the morning of the tenth day of screening, Hyram Logan and his family entered Roger's small office. A man of medium height with a thick shock of iron-gray hair and ruddy, weather-beaten features Logan looked as though he was used to working in the outdoors. Flanked by his son and daughter, he stood quietly before the desk as the young cadet, without looking up, scanned his application quickly.

"How old are the children?" asked Roger brusquely.

"I'm nineteen," replied a low musical voice, "and Billy's twelve."

Roger's head suddenly jerked up. He stared past Hyram Logan and a small towheaded boy, to gaze into the warm brown eyes of Jane Logan, a slender, pretty girl whose open, friendly features were framed by neatly combed reddish blond hair. Roger sat staring at her, openmouthed, until he heard a loud cough and saw Logan trying to hide a smile. He quickly turned back to the application.

"I see here you're a farmer, Mr. Logan," said Roger. He stole a glance at the young girl, but Billy saw him and winked. Roger flushed and turned to Logan as the older man answered his questioner.

"That's right," said Logan. "I'm a farmer. Been a farmer all my life."

"Why do you want to go to Roald, Mr. Logan?" asked Roger.

"Well," said Logan, "I have a nice piece of land south of Venusport a ways. Me and my wife developed it and we've been farming it for over twenty-five years. But my wife died last year and I just sort of lost heart in this place. I figured maybe that new satellite will give me a start again. You'll have to have farmers to feed the people. And I can farm anything from chemicals to naturals, in hard rock or muddy water."

He paused and clamped his jaws together and said proudly, "My father was a farmer, and his father before him. One of the first to put a plow into Venusian topsoil!"

"Yes--uh--of course, Mr. Logan," mumbled Roger. "I don't think there'll--er--be any trouble about it."

The young cadet hadn't heard a word Hyram Logan had said, but instead had been gazing happily into the eyes of Jane Logan. He stamped the application and indicated the door to Tom's screening room, following the girl wistfully with his eyes. He muttered to himself, "There ought to be more applicants like Farmer Logan and his daughter for the brave new world of Roald!"

"And if there were, Cadet Manning," roared Captain Strong, standing in the doorway from the hall, "we'd probably wind up with a satellite filled with beautiful women!"

"Yes, sir! Er--no, sir," stuttered Roger, jerking himself to attention.

"I mean, what's wrong with that?"

"By the rings of Saturn," declared Strong, "you'll never change, Manning!"

Roger grinned. "I hope not, sir."

The door to Tom's room opened and the curly-haired cadet walked in holding an application.

"Captain Strong," he said, "could I see you a minute?"

"Sure, Tom. Any trouble?" asked Strong.

Tom handed him the application silently and waited. Strong read the sheet and turned to Tom. "You know what to do in a case like this, Tom.

Why come to me?"

Tom screwed up his face, thinking. "I don't know, sir. There's something different about this fellow. Astro pa.s.sed him with flying colors. Said he knew as much about a reactor unit as he did. Roger pa.s.sed him too."

"Who is it?" asked Roger. Strong handed him the paper.

"Sure, I pa.s.sed him," said Roger. "That guy really knows his electronics."

Strong looked at Tom. "How do you feel about it, Tom?"

"Well, sir," began Tom, "I would pa.s.s him in a minute. He's had experience handling men and he's been in deep s.p.a.ce before. He's logged an awful lot of time on merchant s.p.a.ceships, but--"

"But what?" asked Strong. He took the paper and studied it again. "Looks to me as if he's what we're looking for," he said.

"I know, sir," said Tom. "But why would a man like that, with all that experience, want to bury himself on Roald? He could get practically any job he wants, right here in the system."

"Ummh," mused Strong. He reread the application. In the blank s.p.a.ce for reason for going, the applicant had written simply: _Adventure._ He handed the application back to Tom. "I think I see what you mean, Tom.

It does look too good. Better not take a chance. Seven years is a long time to get stuck with a misfit, or worse, a--" He didn't finish, but Tom knew he meant a man not to be trusted.

"Tell Paul Vidac his application has been rejected," said Strong.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER 4

"You mean Captain Strong has been recalled to the Academy?" gasped Roger.

"That's right," replied Tom. "He had a talk with Governor Hardy last night and this morning he took the jet liner back to Earth. Special orders from Commander Walters."

"Well, blast my jets!" exclaimed Astro. "Wonder what's up?"

"I don't know," said Tom. "But it must be something more important than the Roald project for him to pull out now!"

"It might have something to do with the project, Tom," suggested Roger.

Tom shook his head. "Maybe, but it just isn't like Captain Strong not to say anything to us before he left. I wouldn't have known about it if one of the enlisted guardsmen hadn't asked me if we were going with him."

Astro and Roger looked at each other. "You mean," asked Roger, "Captain Strong didn't tell you he was going?"

"That's just it!" replied Tom. "We've been traveling all over s.p.a.ce together screening the applicants, and then Captain Strong just leaves when we start the final screening."

The three cadets were seated in a snack shop in Luna City on the Moon, sipping hot tea and eating s.p.a.ceburgers. For six weeks they had been interviewing the applicants for the new satellite colony and were getting near the end. Their task had gone fairly smoothly except for some difficulty on Mars when Strong and the cadets had rejected scores of applicants with shady backgrounds; criminals and gamblers; s.p.a.cemen who had had their s.p.a.ce papers picked up for violation of the s.p.a.ce code, and men who had been dismissed from the enlisted Solar Guard for serious misconduct. But now, finally, the quotas of all the colonies and planets but Luna City on the Moon had been filled. Soon the expedition would blast off for Roald.

"Well," said Tom, sipping the last of his tea, "we have a heavy day ahead of us tomorrow. I guess we'd better get back to the _Polaris_ and sack in."

"Yeah," agreed Astro, tossing some credits on the counter and following Tom and Roger out into the street. They walked past the shops, their blue cadet uniforms reflecting the garish colors of the nuanium signs in the shop windows. At the first corner they hailed a jet cab and were soon speeding out of the city toward the munic.i.p.al s.p.a.ceport.