or 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 t