ed them as they blew up.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight--" he paused. Junior
began moving away from them. "Nine!" shouted Connel. "What happened to
nine?"

"Roger," shouted Astro, "you made a mistake on the timer!"

"But I couldn't. I--I--"

Connel spun around, his eyes blazing, breathing hard. "What time did you
set the last one for, Roger?" he demanded.

"Why, twenty minutes to blast-off time, sir," answered the blond-headed
cadet.

"Then it won't go off for another forty minutes," said Connel.

"But, sir--" began Roger, and then fell silent. The room was quiet.
Everyone looked at Roger and then at Connel. "Honestly, sir, I didn't
mean to make a mistake. I--" pleaded Roger.

Connel turned around. His face suddenly looked very tired. "That's all
right, Roger," he said quietly. "We've all been working pretty hard. One
little mistake is bound to show up in an operation like this." He
paused. "It's my fault. I should have checked those fuses myself."

"Does it make so much difference, sir?" asked Astro.

"A lot of difference, Astro," said Connel. He sat down heavily.

"But how, sir?" asked Tom.

"It's very simple, Tom," answered Connel. His voice was strangely quiet.
"Junior spins on its axis in two hours, just as Earth spins in
twenty-four hours. I thought we had the explosions timed so at the
proper moment we'd push Junior out of his orbit around Tara, and the
greater orbit around Alpha Centauri, by utilizing both speeds, plus the
initial thrust. But by being one blast short, forty minutes late, the
explosion will take place when Junior is forty minutes out of
position"--he paused and calculated rapidly in his mind--"that's about
forty-eight thousand miles out of position. When it goes off, instead of
sending Junior out into space, it'll blast it right into its own sun!"

"Isn't there something we can do, sir?" asked Tom.

"Nothing, Corbett," answered Connel wearily. "Instead of supplying the
Solar Alliance with copper, in another week Junior will be hardly more
than a molten piece of space junk." He looked at the teleceiver screen.
All ready, Junior was falling away.

"Stand by for full acceleration, hyperdrive," said the big officer in a
hoarse whisper. "We're heading home!"

CHAPTER 17

The subdued whine of the hyperdrive filled the power deck and made Roger
wince as he stepped through the hatch and waved at Astro. He climbed
down the ladder and stopped beside the big Ve