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Get this ship to Venusport in the shortest possible time without burning out the pump bearings. And, Manning !" "Yes, sir," replied the blond-haired cadet. "If I so much as hear one wisecrack between you and that overgrown rocket jockey, Astro, I'll log both of you twenty-five demerits!" "I understand, sir," acknowledged Roger lazily.
Connel suddenly stepped before the screen to interject, "And Corbett saw him in Venusport again sometime during the last two days." "Really? Where?" Connel glanced at Tom and then replied hurriedly, "Well, he can't be sure, sir. We rushed him around pretty fast and he saw a lot of people. But at least we know he's in Venusport somewhere." "Yes," nodded Walters.
But once his absence was discovered and the warrant issued for his arrest, it had been necessary for him to assume some sort of disguise to elude the Solar Guard MP's. Roger had wound up on Spaceman's Row in Venusport as a matter of course. Luckily, when he left the station, he had the foresight to take all of his money with him, so he was not yet in need.
Anyway, I went aboard and found the grub all right, but I got nosy about why they had made an emergency touchdown. I looked around the power deck and found they had busted their reaction timer. I got the idea then of fixing it up and bringing it back to Venusport to give them young jerks a surprise. I lifted her off the ground and then figured why should I give it back?
Like a giant silver bullet speeding toward a bull's-eye, the rocket ship pin-pointed the planet Venus from among the millions of worlds in space and was soon hovering over Venusport, nose up toward space, ready for a touchdown at the municipal spaceport.
" ... Estimate the time it would take a 300-ton rocket ship with half-filled tanks, cruising at the most economical speed to make a trip from Titan to Venusport. He thought. He slumped in his chair. He stared at the ceiling. He chewed his pencil.... Five seats away, Tom stacked his examination sheets neatly, twisted them into a cylinder and inserted them in the tube.
Astro turned and looked the major right in the eye. "Major," he said calmly, "this man just made a teleceiver call a transspace call to Venusport." "Well, what about it?" cried Barret. "Sir," said Astro, unruffled by Barret's screaming protest, "this man spoke of getting at something, and that he was unable to do so, because he might be burned to a cinder.
"It always seemed to me nothing more than a group of planters getting together " Connel cut him off. "Possibly, but why didn't you join?" "Well " "Aren't all your friends in it?" "Yes, but I just don't have time. I have a big place, and there's only me and my foreman and housekeeper now. All the field hands left some time ago." "Where'd they go?" "Venusport, I guess.
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?"
"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.
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