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Under the force of the explosion, everyone was thrown to the deck and lay deathly still. In the wardroom of the rocket cruiser Polaris, Captain Strong, Major Connel, Professor Hemmingwell, and Roger and Astro were sipping tea and calmly discussing the events of the past hour. "Your ship wasn't too badly damaged, Professor," said Strong. "We'll take her in tow and bring her back to Space Academy.
"Professor Hemmingwell and I were down at the far end of the hangar. The men had just left for the day and we were planning the work for tomorrow." "Then what happened?" demanded Connel. "Wait, don't answer yet!" He stopped himself and turned to a Space Marine standing nearby. "You! Can you work an audio recorder?" "Yes, sir," replied the Marine.
"I'll have that line through, and in operation, bringing in the first haul of hangar material in three weeks." Impressed by the young man's confidence, Connel turned to Commander Walters and nodded. "Well, if you can do that, Barret," said Walters, "Professor Hemmingwell will have to begin his operations now, won't you, Professor?" "That's right," said the wiry old man.
He stared in amazement at Tom, then turned to blink unbelievingly at Roger and Astro. "What in the star-blazing ?" "It's us all right, sir!" Tom assured him. "Yeah," chimed in Roger. "And you're not in heaven or er any place else either." As Connel suddenly flushed with anger and sat up, Hemmingwell spoke quickly. "They saved your life, Major," he said. "They did?"
"You certainly deserve an answer to that question," said Commander Walters warmly. "You've contributed your services to this operation absolutely blindly. Now you should know everything." He paused and looked at Hemmingwell and Connel, who nodded in return. "Carter," he resumed, "we are going to create a spaceship that can launch a large projectile filled with cargo and send it to any small area."
If you will examine the exhaust tubes of that ship, you'll see that they're made of standard materials used in all Solar Guard ships." He turned to the board, casually. "No, gentlemen," he continued, "I don't know what these boys are talking about. You can call Professor Hemmingwell in, if you like. I'm sure he'll vouch for what I've said."
Watching the control panel instruments carefully, Connel slammed home the switch that opened the powerful nose braking rockets and brought the ship to a dead stop in space. "On course, Professor, ready to fire!" Connel announced triumphantly, and Hemmingwell took his station before the giant projectile control board.
"He'll swear that you deliberately sent this ship into full drive while I was out on the hull checking the rings." "He can't," protested Barret. "He was on the bridge! He couldn't have seen a thing!" Tom shook his head gently. "Barret, after what you've done to his ship and the projectile operation," he said, "Hemmingwell will swear to anything." "It's a frame-up!" shouted Barret.
"She's junk-jinxed," said the man, using the expression of spacemen who believed a ship with a suspicious accident record should be junked because it was jinxed. "Junk-jinxed!" cried Connel, amazed. "Preposterous," snorted Professor Hemmingwell. "Why, you helped build this ship, Scotty! Do you doubt the work you've put into her? Or the work of your friends?"
"Someone has blown up the whole control panel of the ship!" "It will take weeks to repair it!" Professor Hemmingwell stood on the main deck of the giant spaceship staring sadly at the mess of wires and tubes, controls and gauges, switches and filaments, all shattered and useless. "When did it happen?" demanded Connel. "Less than half an hour ago," replied Dave Barret.
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