traffic, but nothing compared to what we get during the regular working
day."

"Any particular reason for that, sir?" asked Tom.

"Oh, there just aren't many arrivals and departures during that period.
We have night crews to handle light traffic, but by midnight the station
is pretty much like any sleepy Middle Western town. Rolls up the
sidewalks and goes to bed."

He motioned to Roger to follow him to the radar section and left Tom
watching the interesting spectacle on the giant teleceiver. A huge star
cluster flashed brilliantly, filling the screen with light, then faded
into the endless blackness of space. Tom caught his breath as he
remembered what Scott had told him about the light being thousands of
years old before reaching the solar system.

"Manning's all set, Corbett," said Scott at Tom's elbow. "Come on. I'll
show you the traffic-control deck."

Tom followed the young officer out of the room. As all true spacemen do
at one time or another in their lives, he thought about the pitifully
small part mankind had played so far in the conquest of the stars. Man
had come a long way, Tom was ready to admit, but there was still a lot
of work ahead for young, courageous spacemen.

As Scott and Tom climbed the narrow stairs to the traffic-control deck,
the Solar Guard officer continued to speak of the man-made satellite.
"When the station was first built," he said, "it was expected to be just
a way station for refueling and celestial observations. But now we're
finding other uses for it, just as though it were a small community on
Earth, Mars, or Venus. In fact, they're now planning to build still
larger stations." Scott opened the door to the traffic-control room. He
motioned to Tom to follow him.

[Illustration]

This room, Tom was ready to admit, was the busiest place he had ever
seen in his life. All around the circular room enlisted Solar Guardsmen
sat at small desks, each with a monitoring board in front of him holding
three teleceiver screens. As he talked into a mike near by, each man, by
shifting from one screen to the next, was able to follow the progress of
a spaceship into or out of the landing ports. One thing puzzled Tom. He
turned to Scott.

"Sir, how come some of those screens show the _station_ from the
_outside_?" he asked. Tom pointed to a screen in front of him that had a
picture of a huge jet liner just entering a landing port.

"Two-way teleceivers, Corbett," said Scott with a smile. "