remember?"

"Sure, I remember," said Tom, smiling. He turned back to Captain Strong.
"We'd appreciate it if you could do something for us, sir. I
mean--well, have another unit assigned."

Strong stepped forward and put his arms around the shoulders of Tom and
Roger and faced Astro. "I'm afraid you three made a big mistake in
becoming the best unit in the Academy. Now every time there's an
important assignment to be handed out the name of the _Polaris_ unit
sticks out like a hot rocket!"

"Some consolation," said Roger dourly.

Strong smiled. "All right, check this wagon and then report to me in my
quarters in the morning. You'll have tonight off at least. Unit
_dis_-missed!"

The three cadets snapped their backs straight, stood rigid, and saluted
as their superior officer strode toward the hatch. His foot on the
ladder, he turned and faced them again.

"It's been a fine mission. I want to compliment you on the way you've
handled yourselves these past few months. You boys are real spacemen!"
He saluted and disappeared down the ladder leading to the exit port.

"And that," said Roger, turning to his unit-mates, "is known as the
royal come-on for a dirty detail!"

"Ahhh, stop your gassing, Manning," growled Astro. "Just be sure your
radar bridge is O.K. If we do have to blast out of here in a hurry, I
want to get where we're supposed to be going!"

"You just worry about the power deck, spaceboy, and let little Roger
take care of his own department," replied Roger.

Astro eyed him speculatively. "You know the only reason they allowed
this space creep in the Academy, Tom?" asked Astro.

"No, why?" asked Tom, playing along with the game.

"Because they knew any time the _Polaris_ ran out of reactant fuel we
could just stick Manning in the rocket tubes and have him blow out some
of his special brand of space gas!"

"Listen, you Venusian throwback! One more word out of you and--"

"All right, you two!" broke in Tom good-naturedly. "Enough's enough!
Come on. We've got just enough time to run up to the mess hall and grab
a good meal before we check the ship."

"That's for me," said Astro. "I've been eating those concentrates so
long my stomach thinks I've turned into a test tube."

Astro referred to the food taken along on space missions. It was
dehydrated and packed in plastic containers to save weight and space.
The concentrates never made a satisfactory meal, even though they
supplied everything necessary