Stand by for Mars! | Page 3

clear?"
"Yes, sir," was the embarrassed reply.
McKenny turned to Manning who stood listening, a faint smile playing on his lips.
"What's your name, Mister?"
"Manning. Roger Manning," he answered easily.
"So you've got a strained wrist, have you?" asked Mike mockingly while sending a sweeping glance from top to bottom of the gaudy colored clothes.
"Yes, sir."
"Can't carry your own luggage, eh?"
"Yes," answered Roger evenly. "I could carry my own luggage. I thought the candidate from Venus might give me a helping hand. Nothing more. I certainly didn't intend for him to become a marked man for a simple gesture of comradeship." He glanced past McKenny toward the other boys and added softly, "And comradeship is the spirit of Space Academy, isn't it, sir?"
His face suddenly crimson, McKenny spluttered, searching for a ready answer, then turned away abruptly.
"What are you all standing around for?" he roared. "Get your gear and yourselves over on that slidewalk! Blast!" He turned once again to the rolling platform. Manning smiled at Astro and hopped nimbly onto the slidewalk after McKenny, leaving his luggage in a heap in front of Astro.
"And be careful with that small case, Astro," he called as he drifted away.
"Here, Astro," said Tom. "I'll give you a hand."
"Never mind," replied Astro grimly. "I can carry 'em."
"No, let me help." Tom bent over--then suddenly straightened. "By the way, we haven't introduced ourselves. My name's Corbett--Tom Corbett." He stuck out his hand. Astro hesitated, sizing up the curly-headed boy in front of him, who stood smiling and offering friendship. Finally he pushed out his own hand and smiled back at Tom.
"Astro, but you know that by now."
"That sure was a dirty deal Manning gave you."
"Ah, I don't mind carrying his bags. It's just that I wanted to tell him he's going to have to send it all back. They don't allow a candidate to keep more than a toothbrush at the Academy."
"Guess he'll find out the hard way."
Carrying Manning's luggage as well as their own, they finally stepped on the slidewalk and began the smooth easy ride from the monorail station to the Academy. Both having felt the sharpness of Manning's tongue, and both having been dressed down by Warrant Officer McKenny, they seemed to be linked by a bond of trouble and they stood close together for mutual comfort.
As the slidewalk whisked them silently past the few remaining buildings and credit exchanges that nestled around the monorail station, Tom gave thought to his new life.
Ever since Jon Builker, the space explorer, returning from the first successful flight to a distant galaxy, came through his home town near New Chicago twelve years before, Tom had wanted to be a spaceman. Through high school and the New Chicago Primary Space School where he had taken his first flight above Earth's atmosphere, he had waited for the day when he would pass his entrance exams and be accepted as a cadet candidate in Space Academy. For no reason at all, a lump rose in his throat, as the slidewalk rounded a curve and he saw for the first time, the gleaming white magnificence of the Tower of Galileo. He recognized it immediately from the hundreds of books he had read about the Academy and stared wordlessly.
"Sure is pretty, isn't it?" asked Astro, his voice strangely husky.
"Yeah," breathed Tom in reply. "It sure is." He could only stare at the shimmering tower ahead.
"It's all I've ever wanted to do," said Tom at length. "Just get out there and--be free!"
"I know what you mean. It's the greatest feeling in the world."
"You say that as if you've already been up there."
Astro grinned. "Yup. Used to be an enlisted space sailor. Bucked rockets in an old freighter on the Luna City--Venusport run."
"Well, what are you doing here?" Tom was amazed and impressed.
"Simple. I want to be an officer. I want to get into the Solar Guard and handle the power-push in one of those cruisers."
Tom's eyes glowed with renewed admiration for his new friend. "I've been out four or five times but only in jet boats five hundred miles out. Nothing like a jump to Luna City or Venusport."
By now the slidewalk had carried them past the base of the Tower of Galileo to a large building facing the Academy quadrangle and the spell was broken by McKenny's bull-throated roar.
"Haul off, you blasted polliwogs!"
As the boys jumped off the slidewalk, a cadet, dressed in the vivid blue that Tom recognized as the official dress of the Senior Cadet Corps, walked up to McKenny and spoke to him quietly. The warrant officer turned back to the waiting group and gave rapid orders.
"By twos, follow Cadet Herbert inside and he'll assign you to your quarters. Shower, shave if you have to and can find anything to shave, and dress in the uniform that'll be supplied you.