On the Trail of the Space Pirates_ A Tom Corbett Space Cadet Adventure - Carey Rockwell [146]
Roger smiled gratefully and gulped, "Thank you, sir."
Loring and Mason, who had eaten their meal separately from the others, listened silently. Loring got up and faced them. The room became silent.
Loring flushed.
"I know we're going to be sent to the prison asteroid and we deserve it," said Loring.
"I'd like to say something," he began haltingly, "if I can?"
"Go ahead," said Connel.
"Well," said Loring, "it's hard to say this, but Mason and myself, well—" He paused. "I don't know what happened to us on the first trip out here, Major, but when we saw that satellite, and the copper, something just went wrong inside. One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we were in so deep we couldn't get out."
The faces around the table were stony, expressionless.
"Nobody deserves less consideration than me and Mason. And—well, you know yourself, sir, that we were pretty good spacemen at one time. You picked us for the first trip out to Tara with you."
Connel nodded.
"And well, sir, the main thing is about Jardine and Bangs. I know we're going to be sent to the prison asteroid and we deserve it. But we been thinking, sir, about Jardine's and Bang's wives and kids. They musta lost everything in that crash of the Annie Jones, so if the major would recommend that Mason and me be sent to the Titan mines, instead of the rock, we could send our credits back to help take care of the kids and all."
No one spoke.
"That's all," said Loring. He and Mason left the room.
Connel glanced around the table. "Well?" he asked. "This is your first struggle with justice. Each of you, Tom, Roger, Astro, Alfie, will be faced with this sort of thing during your careers as spacemen. What would you do?"
The four cadets looked at each other, each wondering what the other would say. Finally Connel turned to Alfie.
"You're first, Alfie," said Connel.
"I'd send them to the mines, sir," said Alfie.
Connel's face was impressive. "Roger?"
"Same here, sir," replied Roger.
"Astro?" asked Connel.
"I'd do anything to help the kids, sir," said Astro, an orphan himself.
"Tom?"
Tom hesitated. "They deserve the rock, sir. I don't have any feeling for them. But if they go to the rock, that doesn't do any more than punish them. If they go to the mines, they'll be punished and help someone else too. I'd send them to Titan and exile them from Earth forever."
Connel studied the cadets a moment. He turned to Shinny.
"Think they made a good decision, Nick?"
"I like what young Tommy, here, had to say, Lou," answered Shinny. "Best part about justice is when the man himself suffers from his own guilty feelings, rather than what you do to him as punishment. I think they did all right!"
"All right," said Connel. "I'll make the recommendation as you have suggested." Suddenly he turned to Shinny. "What about you in all this, Nick? I don't mean that you were hooked up with Loring and Mason. I know you were just prospecting and you've proved yourself to be a true spaceman. But what will happen to you now?"
"I'll tell you what's going to happen to me," snapped Shinny. "You're going to re-enlist me in the Solar Guard, right here! Right now!"
"What?" exploded Connel.
"And then you're going to retire me, right here, right now, with a full pension!"
"Why you old space-crawling—" Suddenly he looked around the table and saw the laughing faces of Tom, Roger, Astro, and Alfie.
"All right," he said, "but between your enlistment and your retirement, I'm going to make you polish every bit of brass on this space wagon, from the radar mast to the exhaust tubes!"
Shinny smiled his toothless smile and looked at Tom.
"Get the logbook, Tommy," he said. "This is official. I'm going to do something no other man in the entire history of the Solar Guard ever did before!"
"What's that, Mr. Shinny?" asked Tom with a smile.
"Enlist, serve time, and retire with a full pension,