He looked at the three cadets and felt a tinge of excitement that did not show on his scowling face. "Yes," he thought, "they'll make spacemen. It'll take a little time--but they're good material."
"_Now listen to this!_" he bawled. "We blast off for the Venus space station in exactly thirty minutes. Get your gear aboard the _Polaris_ and stand by to raise ship." He dropped his voice and pushed out his jaw a little farther. "This will be the toughest journey you'll ever make. You'll either come back spacemen, or you'll come back nothing. I'm going to try my best to make it"--he paused and added coldly--"_nothing!_ Because if you can't take it from me, then you don't belong in space! Unit _dis_-missed!"
He turned on his heel and disappeared up the slidestairs without another look at the three rigid cadets.
"Yeah--we'll educate him, all right," said Astro softly, with a wink at Tom. "Make him think he's done everything for us."
"Ah, go blast your jets!" snarled Roger after he had found his voice.
"Come on," said Tom. "Let's get the _Polaris_ ready. And, fellows, I mean _ready_!"
Bill Loring and Al Mason stood near the entrance to the control tower of the Academy spaceport and watched the three cadets of the _Polaris_ scramble into the giant rocket cruiser.
"Every time I think about that Connel kicking us out of space for twelve months I wanta pound his head in with a wrench!" snarled Loring.
Mason snorted. "Well, what's the use of hanging around here?" he asked. "That Connel wouldn't have us aboard the _Polaris_, even if we were cleared and had our papers. There ain't a thing we can do!"
"Don't give up so easy. There's a fortune setting up there in space--just waiting for me and you to come and take it. And no big-shot Solar Guard officer is going to keep me from getting it!"
"Yeah--yeah," grumbled Mason, "but what are you going to do about it?"
"I'll show you what I'm going to do!" said Loring. "We're heading for Venusport."
"Venusport? By the moons of Jupiter, what are we going to do there?"
"But how? I only got a few hundred credits and you ain't got much more. There ain't nobody going to go fifty billion miles on nothing!"
Loring's eyes followed the massive figure of Major Connel on the slidewalk as it swept across the spaceport field toward the _Polaris_. "You just buy us a coupla seats on the next rocket to Venusport and stop asking stupid questions. When we see Major 'Blast-off' Connel again, we'll be giving the orders with a paralo-ray!"