hree o'clock. All clear?
Blast off!"

Just as the boys began to move, there was a sudden blasting roar in the
distance. The noise expanded and rolled across the hills surrounding
Space Academy. It thundered over the grassy quadrangle, vibrating waves
of sound one on top of the other, until the very air quivered under the
impact.

Mouths open, eyes popping, the cadet candidates stood rooted in their
tracks and stared as, in the distance, a long, thin, needlelike ship
seemed to balance delicately on a column of flame, then suddenly shoot
skyward and disappear.

"Pull in your eyeballs!" McKenny's voice crackled over the receding
thunder. "You'll fly one of those firecrackers some day. But right now
you're _Earthworms_, the lowest form of animal life in the Academy!"

As the boys snapped to attention again, Tom thought he caught a faint
smile on Cadet Herbert's face as he stood to one side waiting for
McKenny to finish his tirade. Suddenly he snapped his back straight,
turned sharply and stepped through the wide doors of the building.
Quickly the double line of boys followed.

"Did you see that, Astro?" asked Tom excitedly. "That was a Solar Guard
patrol ship!"

"Yeah, I know," replied Astro. The big candidate from Venus scratched
his chin and eyed Tom bashfully. "Say, Tom--ah, since we sort of know
each other, how about us trying to get in the same quarters?"

"O.K. by me, Astro, if we can," said Tom, grinning back at his friend.

The line pressed forward to Cadet Herbert, who was now waiting at the
bottom of the slidestairs, a mesh belt that spiraled upward in a narrow
well to the upper stories of the building. Speaking into an
audioscriber, a machine that transmitted his spoken words into
typescript, he repeated the names of the candidates as they passed.

"Cadet Candidate Tom Corbett," announced Tom, and Herbert repeated it
into the audioscriber.

"Cadet Candidate Astro!" The big Venusian stepped forward.

"What's the rest of it, Mister?" inquired Herbert.

"That's all. Just Astro."

"No other names?"

"No, sir," replied Astro. "You see--"

"You don't say 'sir' to a senior cadet, Mister. And we're not interested
in why you have only one name!" Herbert snapped.

"Yes, sir--uhh--Mister." Astro flushed and joined Tom.

"Cadet Candidate Philip Morgan," announced the next boy.

Herbert repeated the name into the machine, then announced, "Cadet
Candidates Tom Corbett, Astro, and Philip Morgan assigned t