Tom Corbett Space Cadet

by Carey Rockwell

  They talked for nearly four hours before Alfie was finally satisfied that he knew all the facts. He left them with the same somber attitude he had when he first arrived, and when the boys were alone, they each felt a chill of fear. The full meaning of a defense lawyer hit them. They were in serious trouble. After a few moments of silence, Tom rose and went into the bathroom to take a shower. Astro flopped on his back in his bunk and went to sleep. Roger began throwing darts idly at his "solar system" over his bunk. It was a map of his own design depicting the planets revolving around the sun, only each planet was represented by a picture of a girl, and his own grinning countenance was the sun. He was known to have made dates by throwing a dart at the map blindly and taking out the girl whose picture he had hit.

  When Tom returned a few minutes later, he looked at his unit mates and shook his head. Never, in all the adventures they had shared or all the tough situations they had been in, had either Roger or Astro given up as they seemed to be doing now.

  "And," thought Tom miserably, "with good reason too! I feel like tossing in the sponge myself."

  * * * * *

  The huge Space Academy gymnasium had been converted into a temporary courtroom, and at ten A.M. the following day the cavernous chamber was packed with all the cadets who could get off duty, in addition to a liberal sprinkling of Solar Guard officers and instructors who were keenly interested in their pupils' handling of orderly democratic procedure.

  As the cadet judge opened the proceedings, Commander Walters, Major Connel, Captain Strong, and Lieutenant Wolchek, unit commander of the Capella crew, watched intently from their seats in the back of the gym. Up forward, at two small tables immediately in front of the Council's platform, the Polaris and Capella units sat rigidly, while their defense lawyers arranged papers and data on the table for quick reference. Little Alfie Higgins didn't say a word to Tom, Roger, or Astro, merely studied his opponent, Cadet Benjy Edwards, who was acting as attorney for the Capella unit. Edwards, a beefy boy with a florid face, looked across the chamber and sneered at Tom. The young cadet repressed a quick shudder of anger. There was bad blood between the two. Once, Tom had found Edwards bullying a helpless group of Earthworm cadets, forcing them to march and exercise under a broiling Martian sun for no reason at all, and Tom had put a stop to it. Edwards had taken every opportunity to get back at Tom, and now he had his best chance.

  From the beginning, the trial was argued bitterly. Though the issues were clear-cut—illegal possession of the study spools, out on the quadrangle after hours, and fighting—Edwards tried to accuse the Polaris unit of irrelevant infractions. But Alfie Higgins was his equal. From the beginning, he admitted that the Polaris unit was guilty of the first charge, but made a strong claim that they had more than made up for the infraction by risking censure to return the spools to their rightful owners. In addition, he forced Tony Richards to admit that he had accepted Roger's apology. The Council agreed to drop that charge and to hold the second charge in abeyance, since both units seemed to have had good reason for being out after hours. Benjy Edwards scowled but could find no reason to object to the Council's decision. Alfie, on the other hand, broke into a smile for the first time that morning. He turned to the Council and announced that the only point of issue was the fight and who struck the first blow.

  In the back of the room, Connel turned to Strong. "I, personally, am going to sign the pass for a week's leave for Alfie when this is over," he said. "I never saw such a ding-blasted brain in operation in all my life."

  "He really slipped one over on Benjy Edwards all right," muttered Strong, his voice tinged with pride.

  In front of the Council platform, Alfie turned to the judge.

  "I would like to call to the stand, if the court please," he said in a clear voice, "Cadet Tom Corbett."

  Tom walked to the chair, was sworn in, and sat down, facing Alfie.

  "Cadet Corbett," Higgins paused, and then asked almost casually, "did you strike the first blow?"

  "No," replied Tom.

  "Dismissed," said Higgins suddenly. "Call Roger Manning to the stand, please."

  Roger rose, and passing Tom on the way back, took his place on the stand and repeated the oath.

  Alfie looked at Roger calmly and in a clear voice asked, "Cadet Manning, did you strike the first blow?"

  "No."

  "Dismissed," said Alfie. "Please call Cadet Astro to the stand."

  The cadet audience began to murmur and sit forward tensely.

  "What the devil is he doing?" growled Connel.

  Strong grinned. "Blast me if I know, Lou," he said. "But wait and see. I'll bet you ten credits it's a lulu."

  Astro was sworn in and Alfie waited for the room to become quiet.

  "Cadet Astro," he said finally, "you have heard the other members of the Polaris unit state, under solemn oath, that they did not strike the first blow. Now, I ask you to consider carefully your answer. Did you, Cadet Astro"—Alfie paused dramatically, and nearly shouted the final part of the question—"strike the first blow?"

  "No!" bellowed Astro.

  "Dismissed," said Alfie quickly, turning to the Council. "Gentlemen," he said, "he did not strike the first blow, nor did Cadet Corbett, nor Cadet Manning. And I will not insist that the three members of the Capella unit be asked the same question, since I concede that they are three impeccable gentlemen who could not strike the first blow in a common fight."

  As the audience in the courtroom burst into a roar, Benjy Edwards jumped to his feet.

  "Your honor," he appealed, "I insist that the Capella unit be allowed to take the stand and deny the charge—"

  "Your honor," interrupted Alfie, "the Polaris unit makes no charge. They freely admit that the Capella unit could not, I repeat, sir, could not have struck the first blow. And the Polaris unit—"

  "Your honor—!" cried Edwards. "I insist."

  The cadet judge rapped his gavel. "Polaris counsel will speak."

  "Thank you, your honor. I just wanted to say that the members of the Polaris unit defer to the Capella unit. I submit, your honor, that it was nothing more than a misunderstanding and that both sides should be punished or freed."

  "Is that all?" asked the cadet judge.

  "Yes, sir," said Alfie.

  "Counsel for the Capella unit may speak now. Do you insist on having your defendants brought to the stand to swear they did not start the fight?"

  "Your honor—" began Benjy. But Alfie had already planted the seed. There were shouts of "Give it to both of them" from the gym.

  Red-faced, Edwards held up his hand and appealed for quiet. "Your honor," he began at last, "after consultation with the members of the Capella unit, they have directed me to state that they are willing to abide by the suggestion of the Polaris counsel."

  As the cadets in the courtroom roared their approval, the cadet judge consulted quickly with the members of the Council. A decision was reached quickly. A verdict of conduct unbecoming cadets was brought against both units, with orders for a strong reprimand to be placed on their individual official records. In addition, each unit was denied leaves and week-end passes from the Academy until the end of the term, four weeks away. All spare time was to be spent on guard duty.

  "You are to report to Chief Warrant Officer Timothy Rush for further orders on all time not actually accountable for in Academy schedules," concluded the cadet judge. "Dismissed."

  The case was closed with a loud roar of approval from the entire cadet audience, who had seen justice done and democracy in action. Tom, Astro, and Roger looked at each other and smiled. They were still Space Cadets.

  CHAPTER 3

  "Where is Captain Strong?"

  Startled, Commander Walters glanced up to see Major Connel enter his office, accompanied by Professor Hemmingwell. The thin little man scowled with irritation as he walked right up to the commander's desk.

  "I wanted Captain Strong here for this meeting," the professor continued.

  "Of course," replied
Walters. "Captain Strong should be here." He turned to Connel. "Have you seen him, Connel?"

  As Connel lowered his bulk into a soft chair, he sighed. "Steve is with his unit, chewing them out over that fight with the Capella unit."

  Walters grinned. "You heard about our trial, Professor?"

  "Yes," replied Hemmingwell stiffly. "Frankly, I cannot see how Captain Strong can ignore this meeting to hold hands with those infantile cadets."

  Connel's face turned red and he glanced quickly at Walters, whose face was approaching the same color. Neither expected such a comment from a scientist.

  "Professor," said Connel heavily, leaning forward in his chair, "I assure you Steve Strong is not holding their hands. In fact, I would hate to be in those cadets' shoes right now."

  Hemmingwell grunted and drew back from Connel's burning glare. "Be that as it may," he said. "I cannot see that the staff of this institution has done anything constructive for the last three days. So far as I'm concerned, this childish talk about a common fight has been a complete waste of time."

  "Professor Hemmingwell," said Commander Walters, rising from his chair, "if there had to be a choice between your project, as valuable as it may be, and the valuable lesson learned today by my cadets, I'll tell you right now that the lesson would come first. This was a very important issue. The cadets had their real taste of democracy in action today, down on a level where they could understand it. And, I dare say, there are quite a few boys who heard that childish talk, as you put it, and will remember it some time in the future when they are called on to act as officers of the Solar Alliance."

  Connel cleared his throat noisily. "I think we'd better get on with the meeting," he said. "Do you have the plans and specifications, Hemmingwell?"

  But the wiry professor refused to be dissuaded. He faced Commander Walters and wagged his finger under the spaceman's nose.

  "You have a perfect right to your own ideas concerning the education of your cadets!" he shouted. "But I have a right to my ideas regarding my space projectile operations. I've devoted a good part of my life to this plan, and I will not allow anything, or anyone, to stand in my way."

  Before Walters could reply, Connel jumped up and growled.

  "All right! Now that we've got the speeches out of the way, let's get down to work."

  Walters and the professor suddenly stopped short and grinned at the brusque line officer, who, for all his bullying tactics, knew how to take the edge off a touchy situation. Walters sat down again and Hemmingwell spread out several large maps on Walters' desk. He pointed to a location on the chart of the area surrounding Space Academy.

  "This is the area here," he said, placing his finger on the map. "I think it is best suited for our purpose. Dave Barret and Carter Devers concur—"

  "Someone mention my name?"

  The sliding door to the commander's office opened and a tall, distinguished man with iron-gray hair entered, followed by a handsome, younger man.

  "Devers!" exclaimed Hemmingwell in obvious delight. "I didn't expect you until this evening."

  "Got away earlier than I figured," replied the elder man, who then turned to the two Solar Guard officers. "Hello, Commander Walters, Major Connel. Meet Dave Barret, my assistant." He gestured toward the young man beside him and they shook hands in turn.

  "Well," said Devers, "have we missed anything?"

  "Just starting," replied Walters.

  "Fine," said Devers. "Oh, by the way, I want it understood, Commander, that while I am lending Dave to you to work on the operation with the professor, I'm not even going to let you pay him. He remains on my payroll, so you can't take him away from me. The Jilolo Spaceways would be lost without him."

  Walters smiled. "All right with me," he said.

  "I don't care who pays him, as long as he's with me on this, Commander," said Hemmingwell, wiping his glasses carefully. "That young man has a mind equipped with a built-in calculator."

  Dave Barret grinned in obvious embarrassment. "If Mr. Devers can devote his time to you for one credit a year as salary, I have no objections to working on this project," he said. "In fact, I told Mr. Devers that if he didn't let me come down here, I'd quit and come, anyway."

  Hemmingwell beamed. "Well, now, if Captain Strong were only here, we could get along with the business at hand."

  Devers frowned. "Why is he so important?" he asked.

  "Steve has been placed in charge of procurement for the construction of the hangar and getting the spur line in from the monorail station," replied Connel. "And that reminds me, Professor," he continued. "Where is your hangar going to be? And where is that spur coming in from? Are we going to have a lot of building to do to get that blasted thing snaked over those hills?" Connel pointed to the protective ring of high rugged peaks that surrounded the Academy.

  "That's why Dave Barret here is so important," replied Hemmingwell. "He figured out a way of tunneling through this section here"—he pointed to a particularly rugged section of the hills—"at half the cost of bringing it straight in on that plain there."

  Connel and Walters studied the map closely. "Very good," said Walters.

  "You think you can do it, Dave?" asked Connel.

  "I'm sure I can, sir," replied the young man.

  "And save time?" growled Connel.

  "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. "Right now, this very minute."

  Devers suddenly spoke up. "I would like to have one thing explained, Commander, unless, of course, it's a breach of security, but—" He hesitated.

  "What is it?" asked Connel.

  "I've been going along with you for some time now," explained Devers. "But I still don't know the exact nature of the projectile you propose to build. What's the purpose of it?"

  "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."

  Carter Devers' face lighted up. "You mean, you are going to fire payloads from space freighters instead of landing with them?"

  "Exactly," said Walters. "These freighters will deliver mail and supplies to out-of-the-way settlements that do not have a spaceport large enough to handle the giant freighters and have to depend on surface transport from the larger cities."

  Carter Devers shook his head slowly. "This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard of in my life."

  "I thought you'd be surprised, Carter," said Walters, his face glowing with pleasure. "The big item, of course, is to lick the problem of standardizing the receivers for the projectiles. They must be lightweight, easily assembled, and precision made, since it's going to have an electronic gismo inside for the projectile to 'home' on."

  Professor Hemmingwell grunted. "That electronic gismo, as you call it, is the real idea behind the whole operation."

  "How is that, Professor?" asked Devers.

  "Well, it works on this principle," began Hemmingwell. "The receiver will send out a distinctive radar beam. In the spaceship, the projectile designated for that receiver will be tuned in to the frequency of that beam and fired from the ship. A homing device, built into the projectile will take over, guiding it right down the beam to its destination."

  "And how does that radar beam work?" asked Devers.

  "That," said Connel stiffly, "is a military secret."

  "Of course," nodded Devers, smiling. "I was just curious."

  "Well, now that we're agreed on a
site for the operation," said Professor Hemmingwell, "is there anything else you want to discuss, Commander?"

  "Not for the moment, Professor," replied the commandant of Space Academy. "You have any more questions, Major Connel?"

  When Connel shook his head, Devers spoke up again.

  "There is something else I would like to know, if it isn't a breach of military secrecy," he said with a smile at Connel. "I don't remember seeing anything about this project in the bills sent before the Solar Council. When was it authorized?"

  "It wasn't," snapped Hemmingwell. "It was blocked before it came to a vote. So I ran around the whole Solar Alliance, begging and borrowing the money to finance the project myself."

  "And the Solar Guard is just lending technical assistance and facilities," supplied Walters. "Of course, should the project succeed, we will go before the Solar Council with an emergency request to incorporate the idea into the defense of all Solar Guard outposts."

  "Private capital, eh?" said Devers, turning to look at the professor admiringly. "You are a very brave man, Professor Hemmingwell, to risk so much. And, I might add, you must be an excellent salesman to sell Solar Alliance bankers your ideas."

  "Common sense," snorted the professor. "Plain horse sense."

  "Still," insisted Devers, "most of the bankers with whom I've ever tried to talk common sense were horses." As everyone laughed, he turned to Walters. "Now, just what do you want me to do, Commander?"

  "Carter, you've done so much for this project already that I'm going to give you a rest," said Walters.

  "I don't understand."

  "From now on," Major Connel broke in, "the project will be in the hands of the professor. If he needs anything, he'll tell Steve Strong. If Strong can't fulfill the request, he'll pass it on to Commander Walters, and if the commander feels it necessary to have your help, he will contact you."

  "You understand, of course," said Walters, trying to soften the major's flat statement.

  "Of course," replied Devers easily. "Still, if you need my help on this thing at all, don't fail to call me."