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"By the jumping blazes of the stars!" yelled Roger suddenly. "Look at the time! We're ten minutes late!"

"Ohhhhh," moaned Tom. "I knew it was too good to be true!"

"Step on it!" said Astro. "Maybe he won't notice."

"Some chance," groaned Roger, running after Tom and Astro. "That old rocket head wouldn't miss anything!"

The three boys raced back to the electric elevator and were silently whisked to the air-lock level. They hurried aboard the Polaris and into the control room. Major Connel was seated in a chair near the chart screen, studying some papers. The cadets drew themselves to attention.

"Unit reporting for duty, sir," Tom quavered.

Connel spun around in the swivel chair, glanced at the clock, put the papers to one side, and slowly advanced toward the cadets.

"Thirteen and a half minutes late!" he said, dropping his voice to a biting growl. "I'll give you five seconds to think up a good excuse. Every man is entitled to an excuse. Some have good ones, some have truthful ones, and some have excuses that sound as though they made them up in five seconds!"

He eyed the cadets speculatively. "Well?" he demanded.

"I'm afraid we were carried away by our enthusiasm for a meal Astro introduced us to, sir," said Tom honestly.

"All right," snapped Connel, "then here's something else to carry you all away!" He paused and rocked on the balls of his feet. "I had planned to give you three liberty of the station while here, whenever you weren't working on the new transmitter. But since you have shown yourselves to be carried away so easily, I don't think I can depend on your completing your regular duties. Therefore, I suggest that each of you report to the officer in charge of your respective departments and learn the operation and function of the station while we're here. This work will be in addition to your assigned duties on the new transmitter operation!"

The three cadets gulped but were silent.

"Not only that," Connel's voice had risen to an angry bark, "but you will be logged a demerit apiece for each minute you reported late. Thirteen and a half minutes, thirteen and a half demerits!"

The gold and black of the Solar Guard uniform never looked more ominous as the three cadets watched the stern spaceman turn and stomp out the exit port.

Alone, their liberty taken away from them before they even knew they had it, the boys sat around on the control deck of the silent ship and listened to the distant throb of a pump, rising and falling, pumping free air throughout the station.

"Well," sighed Tom, "I always did want to know how a space station worked. Now I guess I'll learn firsthand."

"Me, too," said Astro. He propped his big feet up on a delicate instrument panel of the control board.

"Me, too!" sneered Roger, his voice filled with a bitterness that surprised Tom and Astro. "But I didn't think I would find out like this! How in the universe has that—that tyrant managed to stay alive this long!"

CHAPTER 5

"The space station's biggest headache," said Terry Scott, a young Solar Guard officer assigned the job of showing the Polaris crew around, "is to maintain perfect balance at all times."

"How do you achieve that, sir?" asked Tom.

"We create our own gravity by means of a giant gyroscope in the heart of the station. When more weight is taken aboard, or weight leaves the station, we have to adjust the gyro's speed."

They entered the power deck of the great ball-like satellite. Astro's eyes glowed with pleasure as he glanced approvingly from one massive machine to another. The fuel tanks were made of thin durable aluminite; a huge cylinder, covered with heat-resistant paint, was the air conditioner; power came from a bank of atomic dynamos and generators; while those massive pumps kept the station's artificial air and water supply circulating.

Dials, gauges, meters, were arrayed in seemingly endless rows—but each one of them actually played its part in keeping the station in balance.

Astro's face was one big, delighted grin.

"Well,"