it have been missed?"

"Not necessarily large, sir," said Joan, "but certainly of the purest
quality."

Walters looked up at Strong. "Well, Steve?"

"Joan told me about it, sir," said Strong. "And since an investigation
is probably the next step, I came over, hoping you'd let me go along."
He paused and looked at Joan.

"Steve would also like to see his crew of Space Cadets." Joan smiled.
"He hasn't received a report from them yet, and I think he's worried
they might be involved in some mischief!"

"No report, eh?" asked Walters.

"No, sir," replied Steve. "I thought one would be waiting for me when I
got back from Pluto. But there wasn't any."

"Ummmh!" mused Walters. He looked at his calendar. "About time for them
to send in a second report too. Tell you what, Steve. They might be
having a tough time setting up things out there on Roald. Suppose you
get things organized to investigate the uranium report. And if no word
comes in from the cadets by the end of the week, then you can blast
off."

"Thank you, sir," said Strong. "Will you excuse me, sir? I'd like to get
to work right away."

At Walters' nod, Strong saluted briskly and left the office. Walters
turned to Joan.

"You know, I don't think he's half as interested in finding a big
uranium deposit as he is in seeing those boys!"

* * * * *

In four separate soundproof cubicles in a small office in the
Administration Building on Roald, the three space cadets and Jeff
Marshall racked their brains to remember simple equations and formulas,
knowledge learned years ago but long-since forgotten, for the more
complicated subjects of space, time, and rocket travel. Now, trying to
recall simple arithmetic and other elementary studies, the cadets and
Marshall worked eighteen hours a day. Speaking directly into
soundscribers and filling what seemed to be miles of audio tape, the
four spacemen attempted to build a comprehensive library of a hundred
carefully selected subjects for the children of Roald. Professor Sykes
listened to the study spools as they were completed. He listened
carefully, reviewed their work, edited it, and made notes for follow-up
comment. Then, at the end of the day, he would hold a final meeting with
them, outline what he wanted the next day, and reject spools that he
felt were not satisfactory. For older children's studies, the three
cadets and Jeff had divided their work into four classifications. Roger