"We would like to know, sir, under what article of the space code was Sergeant Marshall sentenced to the brig?"
Vidac's eyes sharpened. He spoke quickly and crisply. "I suspected that there was some connection between Marshall looking in the log and your coming here to see me. I don't know what you have in mind, Corbett, but I'm going to lay it on the line. This is the last time you will question my authority. From this moment on, and until you are released from my jurisdiction, I am the space code. Do I make myself clear?"
"Very clear, sir," said Tom tightly. "Then will the lieutenant governor please put in writing any further orders he might have for us?"
"I will not!" snarled Vidac. "But I tell you what I will do. I'll confine you to your quarters for ten days for that impertinent request! And if I so much as see your noses outside your quarters, I'll really get tough! Dismissed!"
CHAPTER 8
"This is highly irregular, Logan," said Vidac to the Venusian farmer, "but I guess you can see the cadets. Perhaps a little advice from you will help them mend their ways."
Logan nodded. "I have a boy of my own, Governor," he said, "and I know how rambunctious they can get."
Vidac smiled thinly. "You'll find them in their quarters. The first ladder to your right and down two decks."
"Thank you, sir," replied Logan. He left Vidac's quarters and two minutes later stepped through the hatch leading into the cadet's room. After seven days of confinement, the three boys greeted Logan with a yell of pure joy.
"We have guests!" bellowed Astro, grabbing Roger who was asleep in his bunk and then banging on the shower door where Tom was taking a shower.
Roger tumbled out of the bunk and Tom came rushing out of the shower wrapped in a towel. They all began talking at once.
"How'd you know we were confined to quarters, sir?" asked Tom.
"It's a wonder Vidac allowed you to come see us!" yelled Roger.
"Never mind the questions, sir," said Astro. "It's just plain good to see a different face besides these two space jokers. One more game of space chess with Manning and I think I'd—"
Logan laughed at the cadets' enthusiasm, holding up both hands to stem their eager babbling questions. After Tom had dressed hastily and Roger had cleared off a bunk, they began to talk calmly.
"I didn't know you boys were in trouble," said Logan, "until I came over to the Polaris to see you. Then Vidac told me all about it."
"Was there any special reason why you wanted to see us, sir?" asked Tom.
"Well, as a matter of fact, there was a little reason. Billy, my son, has been pestering me to get some of your Academy books and audioscripts so he can study to become a Space Cadet when he gets old enough."
The three cadets grinned at each other and soon the Venusian farmer was piled high with manuals, audioscripts, tapes, and general information about the Academy.
"Thank you, boys," said Logan. "That's real nice of you, but—"
"But what, sir?" asked Tom.
"That was the little reason for coming to see you. I have a big reason too."
"What's that, sir?" asked Roger.
"I don't know how to say it exactly," began Logan, his voice low and hesitant, "but do you remember when you three came over to inspect Number Twelve?"
The boys all nodded and Logan continued in a hushed voice.
"Well, I told you then that everything was as nice as it could be. At that time it was. But now—"
"What's happened, sir?" asked Tom.
"What hasn't happened you mean!" snorted Logan. "The very next day we had a visit from Vidac himself. He made a routine check of all the departments, stopped and talked to some of the colonists, and he seemed, in general, like a nice fellow. Then all of a sudden it started."
"What?" asked Astro.
"Our skipper Winters and another fellow, Ed Bush, began treating us like—well, like prisoners!"
"Prisoners!" cried Tom.
"Yes!" said Logan. "They began to tell us when we couldn't go to the workshop and to the stereos, and made us eat our meals together in the main assembly room, with the wives taking turns doing all the cooking. And the schooling has been cut altogether."
"Why, why—" Tom was floored by the information. "But how can that be?"
"I don't know," said Logan, "but that's the way it is. I came over to tell you boys about it, since you were the only ones I knew. You struck me as being honest and I felt I could trust you."
"What else have Winters and Bush done?" asked Astro tensely.
"I guess the worst of all is the fact that we're having to pay for everything we eat," said Logan.
"Pay!" exclaimed Roger. "But, but—how can you? You don't have any credits. The Solar Council decided to let the colony work on a barter basis—share and share alike—until it could take its place in the over-all economy of the Solar Alliance."
"I know, I know," said Logan resignedly. "We're having to pay for the things we get by signing over a percentage of our future profit over the next seven years."
The three cadets looked at each other in disbelief. The idea of two men openly violating the laws of the expedition, treating the Solar Alliance citizens as if they were prisoners, was overwhelming.
Tom got up and began to pace the deck. Finally he turned and faced Logan. "Have you said anything to Vidac about this?" he asked.
"Ummmpf!" snorted Logan. "Every one of us signed a petition and had it sent to the governor himself. We didn't even get a reply. Vidac must have heard about it and told Winters and Bush to take it easy, because the next day we were allowed to eat again without having to sign over part of our profit to them. But everything else is the same."
"But how could they force you to pay?" asked Roger. "Couldn't you refuse?"
"Sonny," declared Logan emphatically, "I'm brave as the next man. But you don't argue against a paralo-ray gun, especially when there are women and children to worry about."
Tom whirled around and faced Roger and Astro. "I guess we don't need any more proof now," he said coldly. "Jeff Marshall is thrown into the brig for looking into a logbook; we're relieved of our jobs here on the Polaris; my monthly report to Captain Strong isn't sent to Space Academy, and now this. One of two things is happening. Either Governor Hardy is in on this with Vidac, or Vidac is taking over without Hardy knowing anything about it."
"All right—all right," growled Astro, "but what are we going to do about it?"
"We've got to get word to Space Academy or Captain Strong someway, somehow. We've got to let them know what's going on."
"There's only one way to do that," said Roger. "But with the communications controlled by Vidac's men, we don't have the chance of a snowball on the sunny side of Mercury!"
"Then," announced Tom firmly, "we'll have to build our own communications unit."
"But how?" asked Logan.
"Roger here can make a communicator out of spit and bailing wire," said Astro. "All he needs is the essential parts."
"Look," said Tom tensely, "Jeff Marshall will be getting out of the brig when we do. He'll be working with Professor Sykes, along with us. Why can't we build one on the sly in the observatory?"
Roger thought a moment. "It's the only thing we can do. I just hope that Mr. Logan's coming here hasn't aroused suspicion."
"Don't worry about that," said Logan. "I told Vidac I wanted this information about Space Academy for Billy. That seemed to satisfy him."
"I don't know," mused Tom. "He's pretty smart."
"What else can we do?" asked Astro.
"Nothing," said Tom bitterly. "Not a space-blasting thing until we get out of here!"
* * * * *
"We've got to have that triple vacuum tube," declared Roger. "That's the only thing that will transmit a voice quickly back to Earth from this fix out in space."
The three boys and Jeff Marshall were back in their quarters after their first week of active duty again. They had surreptitiously begun collecting parts for the communicator and were sorting the
m out on one of the bunks when Roger mentioned the necessity for the special vacuum tube.
"How quickly?" asked Astro.
Tom explained. "The equipment we have now is strong enough to talk to the Academy, but it'll take about six hours for my voice to reach it. And then another six hours for the Academy's answer to get back to us. At the end of twelve hours we might not be ready to receive and the communications officer might pick up their answer. Then we'd be in the middle of a space hurricane!"
"I see," said Astro. "You've got to be able to talk directly to the Academy, so that when they answer, you'll be ready!"
"Right," said Tom. "We might only get ten or fifteen minutes of free time, when the professor would be away from the observatory."
"Where do you think I could get one of those tubes, besides on the radar bridge, Roger?" asked Jeff. He had been the main source of supply for the equipment used in the communicator. Since getting out of the brig, his movements had not been as restricted as the cadets'.
"That's just it," said Roger. "I remember distinctly loading all of them in the locker near the main scanner on the radar deck."
"Then we have to get it from another ship," said Tom. "The chances of getting one here, aboard the Polaris, are zero."
"Say, Roger," suddenly asked Astro, "do you think you remember enough about that triple vacuum tube to draw me a blueprint?"
"Sure," said Roger. "And you could probably build it too. But how are you going to get the inside tube vacuumized, then the second one, and finally the third. They have to be absolutely clean!"
"How about outside in space?" Astro suggested. "We could take the parts of the tube with us and assemble it out there. You can't ask for a better vacuum than outer space."
Tom grinned and slapped the big Venusian on the back. "Astro, you're the hero of the day. Come on, Roger, start drawing that tube! Astro can make it on the power deck as if he were repairing something. Make it as simple as possible."
"Right," said Roger, "all I need is the vacuum and of course the copper filament inside the inner third tube for sending and receiving. We can make it so the tubes screw together inside of each other and then seal them."
"Right," said Astro.
"Meantime," said Tom, "Jeff and I will get you a set of earphones, if we have to tear them off the head of the radarman!"
Meanwhile, in Vidac's quarters, the second-in-command was facing the irascible Professor Sykes.
"Say that again, Professor," said Vidac. Sykes was standing before him holding a slip of paper in his hand.
"I said," the professor snorted, "that in forty-eight hours and some odd minutes we will be passing through a very thick cluster of asteroids, about ten thousand miles in depth."
"Is it on our present course?" asked Vidac.
"Yes," replied Sykes. "We'll have to go around it. I wouldn't give you a plugged credit for our chances of getting through it."
"I didn't ask you for your opinion!" snapped Vidac. "All right, you've given me your information. Now get out!"
Sykes abruptly turned and left the lieutenant governor's compartment. Alone, Vidac paced the floor. After a moment of deep thought he snapped his fingers in decision and turned on the ship's intercom.
"Corbett! Manning! Astro!" he bellowed. "Report to the control deck on the double."
A few moments later the three cadets stood before Vidac at rigid, stone-faced attention. Vidac turned on the chart projection screen and pointed to their position in space.
"Professor Sykes has just warned me that the fleet is approaching a freakish asteroid cluster," he announced. "He estimates it to be of this size." Vidac swept his arm over the chart, taking in most of the space directly in front of their path. "To go around it, over it, or under it would mean altering the course of the whole fleet and losing about six days' transit time." He turned back to the cadets who had been watching closely. "I want you three to see if you can find a route through the belt and save us the detour time." He glanced at his wrist chronograph. "The belt is about forty-one hours ahead of us now. Take a rocket scout, look it over, and report back to me."
"Yes, sir," said Tom. "Anything else, sir?"
"Yes," said Vidac. He stepped closer to the three boys. "This is not a joy ride. I expect you to find a way through that cluster. You have enough time to explore the greater part of it."
"But you said forty-one hours, sir," retorted Tom.
"That's plenty of time if you travel at full space speed."
"Full thrust!" exploded Roger. "In an unknown asteroid cluster? Why, the odds are better than a thousand to one that we'll be ripped open by a space rock. The best we can do is one-quarter space speed."
"You'll open those jets wide or you'll spend the rest of the trip to Roald in the brig and I'll send a report back to the Academy on your cowardice!" Vidac paused, then added quietly, "Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir," said Tom, tight-lipped. "You make yourself perfectly clear!"
CHAPTER 9
"Do you think it will be safe there?" asked Roger, as he watched Tom and Astro push the half-completed communications set under a workbench behind several large cartons.
"As safe as any place," replied Tom. "If Vidac has any idea we're building it, we could hide it any place and he'd find it. So, as the saying goes, the least hidden is the best hidden. We'll have to take a chance."
"Besides," chimed in Astro, "here in the storeroom, Jeff will have his eye on it all the time. If Vidac starts getting nosy, Jeff will be able to shift it to another hiding place without too much trouble."
"Well, that's all we can do now," said Tom, straightening up. "Come on. Let's get to the scout ship and blast off before Vidac wants to know what we're doing."
Checking the hiding place one last time, the three cadets left the storeroom and headed for the jet-boat deck. In a few moments they were blasting through space toward the rear of the fleet where a rocket scout was waiting for them. The scouts were being carried by the larger space freighters to save fuel. Now one had been fueled and was blasting alongside its carrier ship with a skeleton crew. When the cadets' jet boat came alongside, the crew of the scout transferred into the jet boat and the three cadets took over the scout.
On the control deck, Tom checked his instruments and made preliminary tests on the circuits. Suddenly Roger's voice crackled over the ship's intercom. "Blast that guy Vidac!" he yelled. "He's one jump ahead of us again!"
Startled, Tom called into the intercom. "What do you mean, Roger?"
"The ship's communicator," snorted Roger. "I figured once we got aboard the scout we'd be able to use this set to contact the Academy instead of having to monkey around with the homemade job back on the Polaris. But it's no soap."
"Why not?" boomed Astro over the intercom.
"The only open circuit here is beamed to the Polaris. And the radar is too complicated to change over to audio communications. We haven't got enough time."
Tom clenched his teeth. He had had the same idea about using the communications set on the scout to contact the Academy. Now there was nothing to do but hope Vidac wouldn't find the one they were building. He called into the intercom again. "Is the radar working well enough for us to search the asteroid cluster without plowing into any space junk?"
"Yeah," growled Roger. "He left it in working condition all right, but if we burn out a tube, we're blacked out until we get back. There isn't a spare nut or bolt in the locker for repairs."
"But what happens if something happens to the radar when we're in the cluster," called Astro. "We'll be sitting ducks for every asteroid!"
"That's the chance we have to take, Astro," said Tom. "If we complained, you know what he'd do."
"I sure do," growled Astro. "He'd call us yellow again, because we'd refused to make the trip!"
"That's the way it adds up," said Tom. "So I guess we'd better get started. Stand by to blast!"
"All clear fore and aft," reported Roger.
"Full thrust, Astro," ordered Tom,
"but stand by for emergency maneuvers. This is going to be a tough trip, fellows. Perhaps the toughest trip we've ever made. So keep your eyes and ears open and spaceman's luck!"
"Spaceman's luck!" echoed his unit mates.
Under full thrust the speedy little ship shot ahead of the fleet toward the gigantic mass of asteroids, planetoids, and millions of lesser space bodies, whirling and churning among themselves at an incredible rate of speed. Hardly had they left the fleet when Roger's voice crackled over the intercom again.
"Say, you space monkeys!" he yelled. "I got an idea! How about taking this wagon and heading back for the Academy?"
"Can't," replied Astro, "we've only got forty-eight hours of fuel, water, and oxygen—and no reserves. We couldn't get one-tenth of the way back before we ran out of everything, even if we wanted to go back."
"What do you mean—if?" snapped Roger. "Wouldn't you go back? How about you, Tom?"
"I'd think a long time before I would," said Tom. "Remember, Vidac hasn't done anything we can actually pin on him."
"What about making the colonists pay for their food," sneered Roger.
"Vidac could say it was a precautionary measure," said Tom.
"What kind of precaution?" asked Astro.
The speedy little ship shot ahead of the fleet toward the gigantic mass of asteroids
"Well, Vidac could say that the colonists were using too much of the supplies simply because it was free. And instead of imposing rationing, he's making them pay, but that he wouldn't actually take their profit."
"Yeah," growled Astro. "And there's just enough hokum in that to make everyone back at the Academy happy."
"I'm afraid we'll have to go on with it," said Tom. "Not only this exploration of the asteroid belt, but we'll have to wait for Vidac to really tip his hand."
"From the way he operates," said Roger disgustedly, "that might be never."
Blasting farther ahead through the unexplored region of outer space, the cadets, who had seen a great many space phenomena, were awed by the thickening groups of stars around them. It was Tom who finally realized that they were getting closer to the inner ring of their galaxy and that the stars and suns they were unable to see from Earth, or other Solar Alliance planets, were some fifty to sixty billion miles closer.
Tom Corbett Space Cadet Page 57