uppose they find out something?"

"Relax, will ya?" muttered Loring reassuringly. "Connel doesn't suspect
a thing. Besides, he has that cadet under arrest!"

"Yeah," argued Mason, "but you don't know those guys at Space Academy.
All this honor stuff! It's not like a regular investigation. They don't
stop digging until they dig up _real facts_! They'll find out we stowed
away and ..."

Loring calmly added cream and sugar to his coffee. "They can't prove a
thing. Jardine and Bangs are dead, and the ship's nothing but a pile of
junk."

"They'll find out, I tell you, and now we've got murder on our hands!"

A door behind Mason suddenly opened and Stefens appeared.

"Shut up, you fool!" Loring hissed. He turned blandly to face Stefens.
"Well, Captain, glad you came. I wanted to talk to you about getting us
transportation back to Venusport."

"You'll have to wait for the jet liner from Earth," said Stefens. "See
me in about two hours. Right now, I've got to make arrangements for the
investigation of the crash."

"Sure, sir," said Loring. "Ah--say, Captain, what do you expect the
investigation to turn up?"

"The true facts," replied Stefens. "Whether the crash was due to the
negligence of Cadet Manning or something that happened on the ship."

"Then you really think the cadet may be responsible?" asked Loring
softly.

"He admits to negligence, and the _Annie Jones_ is a lot of evidence,"
said Stefens with a shrug, and walked out.

"There's our answer!" said Loring triumphantly. "Come on!"

"Where are we going?" asked Mason.

"We're going to have a little talk with our fall guy!"

"Ahhh, sit down, Roger," said Astro. "Everything will be O.K."

"Yeah," agreed Tom. "You're just wearing out the deck and your nerves
walking back and forth like that. Everything will be O.K." Tom tried
hard to keep any apprehension out of his voice.

"Nothing will make those two guys on the spaceship O.K.," said Roger. He
kicked viciously at a stool and sat down on the side of his bunk.

Since the crash, Roger had been confined to his quarters, with Tom and
Astro bringing him his meals. Tom had watched his unit-mate grow more
and more bitter over the turn of events and was afraid Roger would do
something rash.

The central communicator over the door suddenly buzzed, and the three
cadets waited for the announcement.

"... Cadets Corbett and Astro report to rocket cruiser _Polaris_ for
indoctrination on hyperdrive--on the dou