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By Root 4212 0

"Hardy told me so himself. He got the information from an old prospector who had made application to come to Roald as a colonist. The space rat had been here before, as a sailor on a deep spacer that had wandered off course. The ship was running low on water so the skipper sent him down to the satellite to see if he could find any. He found the water and the uranium too. But he clammed up about that, hoping to keep it a secret until he could go back and claim it. His only chance was to become a colonist, and when he washed out in the screening, he told Hardy, hoping to bribe his way. Of course Hardy double-crossed him to get the uranium himself. That was why you were pulled off the project and sent to Pluto, Strong. Then he got Vidac to be his aide and everything looked rosy."

"It's still hard to believe that Hardy was behind the whole operation," said Astro, shaking his head. "Imagine—the governor of the colony ratting on his own people."

"It's happened before, unfortunately," commented Strong. "Better men than Hardy have succumbed to the lure of riches and power."

"You're right, Strong," snapped Sykes. "That's just what happened to Hardy. While I was his prisoner on the Polaris, he kept boasting about how rich he was going to be—how powerful. When I reminded him of his past achievements and of his responsibility to the colony, he just laughed. He said getting the uranium meant more to him than anything in the world." The little professor sighed. "If it hadn't been for the cadets, he would have gotten away with it."

"But wait a minute," said Roger. "If you suspected Vidac, why did you give him the information on the uranium to send back to the Solar Guard?"

"I just told him about a puny little deposit near the Logan farm," replied Sykes. "The big strike is on the other side of the satellite. I figured that if Vidac was honest it wouldn't hurt to delay sending information back about the big strike until later." He paused and added, "But then, of course, I had to tell him about the big strike."

"You had to tell him!" exclaimed Jeff. "But why?"

"To stay alive, you idiot!" barked Sykes. "As long as I had something they wanted, they'd keep me alive until they found out about it. They gave me truth serum, but I'm immune to drugs. All Solar Guard scientists are. They didn't know that. So I told them to look here, then there, acted as though I had lost my memory. It worked, and here I am."

"What about the way they antagonized us?" asked Tom. "Refusing to let us contact Space Academy and sending us out on a stripped-down rocket scout to investigate the asteroid cluster. It seems to me they should have acted a little more friendly to throw us off the track. All they did was arouse suspicion and get us sore."

"But they hoped that you would get angry enough to do something rebellious, so that they could send you back," said Sykes.

"Well, that makes sense," said Strong. "But what about their treatment of the colonists?"

"Humph. A clear case of attempting to get the colonists to rebel which would give them the right to absolute control of the entire satellite and the people. Cadet Tom Corbett here is to be congratulated for not allowing Mr. Logan to go around like a vigilante and get us all in a space hurricane!"

Hyram Logan blushed and cleared his throat noisily.

The door suddenly opened and a uniformed messenger thrust a dispatch into Strong's hands.

"What's this?" asked Strong, tearing the Solar Guard seal.

"Message from spaceport control, sir," said the messenger. "They report a fleet of ships approaching Roald, under full thrust."

"A fleet!" gasped Strong. "But how? Why?"

Sykes laughed, winked at Jane, and slapped his thigh. "The Solar Guard coming to the rescue!"

"Solar Guard!" chorused the others at the table.

"Yes! Solar Guard. I sent for them. I figured if the cadets could build a communicator, I could too. I did it on the Polaris when Hardy went searching for the uranium. I told the whole story to Commander Walters back at Space Academy."

"Well," sighed Roger, "with the confession Jeff got from Winters on