promptly took charge. Using Tom as signalman,
Vidac stood at the controls of the giant derrick, and after testing the
strain on the five-inch cables, he yelled down to the cadet:

"Think they'll hold, Corbett?"

Tom looked at the derrick, the motors, and the boom Astro had
constructed. Finally he nodded his head. If anyone else had built the
jet barge, Tom would have said No, but he knew when the Venusian built
something it was built solidly.

Stepping back out of range, Tom watched Vidac slowly apply power to the
rockets on the jet barge. Slowly, inch by inch, the boom began to bend
under the load. Vidac continued to apply power. The boom bent even more
and still the motors would not lift free of the ground. The rocket
exhausts on the jet barge glowed fiery red under the sustained surge of
power. All over the colony, men stopped work to see if the jet barge
would handle the outsized lift.

Vidac sat at the controls calmly and watched Tom. The curly-haired cadet
continued to wave his hand to lift the motors. The boom continued to
bend, and just as Tom thought it must snap, the motors lifted free and
Vidac swung them around to the table top of the barge. He climbed down
and walked over to Bush and Winters.

[Illustration]

"Next time you're afraid to try something and waste valuable time," he
barked, "you'll pay for it!"

He turned to Tom. "Let's go, Corbett," he said casually.

Day after day the work continued and finally, at the end of three weeks,
the dry barren plain had been transformed into a small city. Towering
above the city, the Administration Building glistened in the light of
their new sun, Wolf 359, and streets named after the colonists radiated
from it in all directions, like the spokes of a giant wheel.

[Illustration]

There were houses, stores, and off the central square a magnificent
assembly hall that could be transformed into a gymnasium. There were
smaller community buildings for sanitation, water, power, and all vital
services necessary to a community. Along the wide spacious streets,
still being paved, converted jet boats hummed. Women began to shop. Men
who had helped build the city the day before, now appeared in aprons and
began keeping account books until a monetary system could be devised. A
medical exchange that also happened to sell spaceburgers and Martian
water was dubbed the "Space Dump" and crowds of teen-agers were already
flocking in to dance and frolic. A pattern of livin