n hundred is so
small that we could find out where the angels live any moment now!"

"Then what're we waiting for," said Tom. "Let's dump that thing!"

"How?" snarled Roger.

Tom and Astro looked at him bewilderedly. "What do you mean 'how'?"
asked Astro.

"I mean how are you going to get the tube out of the ship?"

"Why," started Tom, "there's nothing holding that tube assembly to the
ship now. We cut all the cleats, remember? We can jettison the whole
unit!"

"It seems to me," drawled Roger lazily, "that the two great heroes in
their mad rush for the Solar Medal have forgotten an unwritten law of
space. There's no gravity out here--no natural force to pull or push the
tube. The only way it could be moved is by the power of thrust, either
forward or backward!"

"O.K. Then let's push it out, just that way," said Astro.

"How?" asked Roger cynically.

"Simple, Roger," said Tom, "Newton's Laws of motion. Everything in
motion tends to keep going at the same speed unless influenced by an
outside force. So if we blasted our nose rockets and started going
backward, everything on the ship would go backward too, then if we
reversed--"

Astro cut in, "Yeah--if we blasted the stern rockets, the ship would go
forward, but the tube, being loose, would keep going the other way!"

"There's only one thing wrong," said Roger. "That mass is so hot now, if
any booster energy hit it, it would be like a trigger on a bomb. It'd
blow us from here to the next galaxy!"

"I'm willing to try it," said Tom. "How about you, Astro?"

"I've gone this far, and I'm not quitting now."

They turned to face Roger.

"Well, how about it, Roger?" asked Tom. "No one will think you're yellow
if you take the jet boat and leave now."

"Ah--talk again!" grumbled Roger. "We always have to talk. Let's be
original for a change and just do our jobs!"

"All right," said Tom. "Take an emergency light and signal Captain
Strong. Tell him what we're going to do. Warn him to stay away--about
two hundred miles off. He'll know if we're successful or not within a
half hour!"

"Yeah," said Roger, "then we'll send him one big flash to mean we
failed! _Bon voyage!_"

Fifteen minutes later, as the _Lady Venus_ drifted in her silent but
deadly orbit, Tom, Roger and Astro still worked feverishly as the Geiger
counter ticked off the increasing radioactivity of the wildcatting
reaction mass in number-three rocket tube.

"Reading on the counter still's goin