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"Explain that, will you, Professor?" asked Strong. "I don't understand."

"This is an important unit," Hemmingwell replied, indicating the wreckage, "but not the most important part of the whole unit. Anyone who really knew what he was doing and wanted to delay the project could have done so much more easily by simply destroying this." Hemmingwell held out a small metallic-looking cylinder.

"What is that, Professor?" asked Barret.

"Don't you know?" asked Connel.

"No, he doesn't," snapped Professor Hemmingwell. "This is something I developed that only the commander and myself know about."

"So, if you and Commander Walters are the only ones that know about it," said Steve Strong slowly, "then a saboteur would have thought it unimportant and concentrated on the rest of the mechanism."

"Looks that way," mused Connel. "But there is still the possibility that it was an accident, as the professor said."

Strong looked at Connel questioningly and then back to the wreckage. The unit had been hurled from the upper deck of the spaceship, down to the main deck, and it looked as if someone had trampled on its delicate works.

"I'll have a crew put right to work on this," said Hemmingwell.

"Commander," Connel suddenly announced, "I'm going ahead with my trip to Mars to inspect the testing receivers. I don't think this incident is serious enough for me to delay leaving, and if Professor Hemmingwell and his men can get this unit back in operation in twelve hours, then there's very little time lost and we can go ahead with the tests on schedule."

"All right, Lou," said Walters. "Do whatever you think best. I'll have a ship made ready for you at the Academy spaceport any time you want to leave."

Connel nodded his thanks. "I think I'll take the Polaris, with Cadet Corbett along as second pilot," he said. "I'm getting too old to make a solo hop in a scout all the way to Mars. I need my rest." He grinned slyly at Walters.

"Rest," Walters snorted. "If I know you, Lou Connel, you'll be up all night working out standard operational procedures for the space projectiles." He turned to Strong. "He's so sure this will work that he's already writing a preliminary handbook for the enlisted personnel."

Strong turned and looked at the major, amazed. Every day he learned more and more about the space-hardened veteran.

Connel turned to Strong. "Will you give Corbett the order to be ready at 0600 hours tomorrow morning, Steve?" he asked.

"Certainly, Lou," replied Strong.

As the major turned away, Walters called after him, "Take it easy."

Leaving Hemmingwell and Barret to take care of clearing away the wreckage, Strong and Walters climbed out of the ship, left the hangar, and headed for the Academy.

"Do you think it was sabotage, sir?" asked Strong, as they rode on the slidewalk.

"I don't know, Steve," said the commander. "If that special unit of Hemmingwell's had been damaged, I would say it might have been an accident. But the things that were damaged would have put the whole works out of commission if we didn't have that unit."

"Yes, sir," said Strong grimly. "So the man who did it thought he was doing a complete job."

"Right," said Walters. "Assuming that it was sabotage."

"Anyone you suspect?"

"Not a living soul," replied Walters. "Every man in that hangar has been carefully screened by our Security Section. Background, history, everything. No, I think it really was an accident."

"Yes, sir," replied Strong, but not with the conviction he would like to have felt.

* * * * *

Pat Troy had been Professor Hemmingwell's foreman for nearly two years. It was his job to read the complicated blueprints and keep the construction and installation work proceeding on schedule. Troy lacked a formal education, but nevertheless he could read and interpret the complicated plans which the professor and his assistants drew up, and transform their ideas into actual mechanical devices. Professor Hemmingwell considered himself fortunate to have a man of Troy's ability not only as a co-worker, but as a close friend.