eeper and deeper into the softness of the
acceleration cushions. He had been worried about not being able to keep
his eyes open to see the dwindling Earth in the teleceiver over his
head, but the tremendous force of the rockets pushing him against
gravity to tear the two hundred tons of steel away from the Earth's grip
held his eyelids open for him. As the powerful rockets tore deeper into
the gap that separated the ship from Earth, he saw the spaceport
gradually grow smaller. The rolling hills around the Academy closed in,
and then the Academy itself, with the Tower of Galileo shrinking to a
white stick, was lost in the brown and green that was Earth. The rockets
pushed harder and harder and he saw the needle of the acceleration gauge
creep slowly up. Four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten miles a
second!

When the awful crushing weight on his body seemed unbearable, when he
felt as though he would never be able to draw another breath, suddenly
the pressure lifted and Tom felt amazingly and wonderfully buoyant. He
seemed to be floating in mid-air, his body rising against the webbed
straps of his chair! With a start and a momentary wave of panic, he
realized that he _was_ floating! Only the straps kept him from rising to
the ceiling of the control room!

Recovering quickly, he realized that he was in free fall. The ship had
cleared the pull of earth's gravity and was out in space where
everything was weightless. Reaching toward the control panel, he flipped
the switch for the synthetic-gravity generator and, seconds later, felt
the familiar and reassuring sensation of the chair under him as the
generator supplied an artificial-gravity field to the ship.

As he loosened the straps in his chair, he noticed Captain Strong rising
from his position beside him and he grinned sheepishly in answer to the
twinkle in Strong's eye.

"It's all right, Tom," reassured Strong. "Happens to everyone the first
time. Carry on."

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Tom and he turned to the microphone. "Control
deck to all stations! We are in space! Observe standard cruise
procedure!"

"Power deck, aye!" was Astro's blasting answer over the loud-speaker.
"Yeeeoooww! Out where we belong at last."

"Radar bridge here," Roger's voice chimed in softly on the speaker.
"Everything under control. And, Astro, you belong in a zoo if you're
going to bellow like that!"

"Ahhh--rocket off, bubblehead!" The big Venusian's reply was
good-natured. He wa