king toward the day when they would discard the vivid blue
uniforms of the Space Cadet Corps and don the magnificent black and gold
of the Solar Guard.

Tom was aware of the eager expressions on the faces of the Earthworms
and he smiled to himself. It was not a smile of smugness or conceit, but
rather of honest satisfaction. More than once he had shaken his head in
wonder at being a Space Cadet. The odds against it were enormous. Each
year thousands of boys from all the major planets and the occupied
satellites competed for entrance to the famed Academy and pitifully few
were accepted. And he was happy at having two unit mates like Roger
Manning and Astro to depend on when he was out in space, commanding one
of the finest ships ever built, the powerful rocket cruiser _Polaris_.

As Roger and Astro continued to talk to the fledglings, Tom sipped his
tea and thought of his own first days at the Academy. He remembered his
fear and insecurity, and how hard he had fought to make what was then
Unit 42-D a success, the unit that eventually became the _Polaris_ unit.
And how each assignment had brought him closer to his dream of becoming
an officer in the Solar Guard.

He got up and walked to the window and looked out across the Academy
campus, over the green lawns and white buildings connected by the
rolling slidewalks, to the gleaming crystal Tower, the symbol of man's
conquest of space. And beyond the Tower building, Tom saw a spaceship
blasting off from the spaceport, her rockets bucking hard against thin
air as she clawed her way spaceward. When it disappeared from sight, he
followed it with his mind's eye and it became the _Polaris_, his ship!
He and Roger and Astro were blasting through the cold black void, their
own personal domain!

A loud burst of laughter behind him suddenly brought Tom back to Earth.
He smiled to himself and shook his head, as though reluctant to leave
his dream world. He glanced out of the window again, this time down at
the quadrangle, and far below he recognized the squat, muscular figure
of Warrant Officer Mike McKenny drilling another group of newly arrived
cadet candidates. Tom saw the slidewalks begin to fill with boys and men
in varicolored uniforms, all released from duty as the day drew to a
close. Tonight, Astro, Roger, and he would go to see the latest stereo,
and tomorrow they would blast off in the _Polaris_ for the weekly
checkout of her equipment. He turned back to Spears, Coglin,