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"Get a free ride to Tara!" "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.
"Thanks, sir," said Tom. The three boys left the Tower building and hopped on a slidewalk for the spaceport. The Academy was buzzing with activity as Solar Guard officers, scientists, and enlisted men attended to the millions of details of the mass flight of the colonists into deep space.
The three cadets stared after the young man who had bumped them off their ship. "The symbol S.D. on the priority stands for Solar Delegate," said Roger. "Maybe he's a messenger." The young man was joined by two other men also dressed in Venusian clothing, and after a few words, they all turned and stepped onto the slidewalk rolling out to the giant passenger ship preparing to blast off.
"I don't believe that," Gusterson protested while glaring at the hunchbacks around them. The slidewalk was gliding down a low glow-ceiling tunnel lined with doors and advertisements. Rapt-eyed people were pirouetting on and off. "A thing just can't develop that fast, Fay. It's against nature." "Ha, but we're not in nature, we're in culture.
With a hamlike hand Astro suddenly grabbed for Roger's neck, but the wiry cadet dashed along the slidewalk out of reach and the big Venusian rumbled after him. Tom roared with laughter.
"They'll probably be jazzing up those sleek babies and that takes a lot of repair and work." "Come on," said Tom. "We've got to get over to the meeting. Captain Strong said he wanted us to be there." The three cadets turned back toward the nearest slidewalk and hopped on.
Perhaps he would find out something from Al Sharkey or the other plantation owner, Rex Sinclair. When he crossed the slidewalk and waited at the curb for a jet cab, Connel suddenly paused and looked around. He felt a strange excitement in the air a kind of tension. The faces of passing pedestrians seemed strained, intense, their eyes were glowing, as though they all were in on some huge secret.
As the slidewalk carried the three cadets between the buildings that surrounded the grassy quadrangle of the Academy, Tom looked up at the Tower of Galileo dominating the entire area. "You know," he began haltingly, "every time I go near this place I get a lump in my throat!" "Yeah," breathed Astro, "me too." Roger made no comment.
"You think it might be something deeper?" asked Astro softly. "Whatever it is," said Tom, getting up, "we'll need sleep." He rose, stretched, and walked wearily to the exit port. Astro and Roger followed him out, and once again they boarded the slidewalk for the trip back to the main dormitory and their quarters on the forty-second floor.
He's on his way back to the Tower of Galileo and called me from the portable communicator on the main slidewalk. He wants me to report to his office on the double. You three will have to take care of the final details here." "Come down when you can," said Sid to Astro, and turned to leave with Kit. "Something wrong, sir?" asked Tom.
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