to have a
brilliant future in astrophysics?"

Roger stammered. "Why--ah--thank you, sir--"

Alfie looked up at Connel and then struggled to his feet.

"You know, Roger," he said haltingly, "if we took that unit we came out
here to test--you know, the transmitter unit--"

[Illustration]

Roger cut him off. "Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. We could
borrow some of the reaction mass that Astro got out of the _Space
Devil_ and use that as a power source."

Connel backed away from the two cadets and tiptoed off the bridge. He
smiled to himself. He was going to win his race with time yet! And he
was going to do it because he had learned long before that you could
only push a man so far, then you had to sit down, pat him on the back,
tell him how smart he was, and he would push himself. Connel almost
laughed out loud.

Six hours later Connel sat in his quarters puzzling over one of the many
minor problems of Junior's Pitch when he heard footsteps behind him. He
turned. Astro, Tom, Roger, Alfie, and Shinny walked silently into the
room. Connel stared.

"Wha--what is it?" he demanded.

[Illustration]

"We're finished, sir," said Tom simply.

"Finished?" exploded Connel. "You mean--"

"That's what he means, skipper," said Shinny. His eyes were bloodshot
for want of sleep, but there was a merry twinkle left tugging at the
corners.

"Everything?" asked Connel.

"Everything, sir," said Roger. "The power units are built and the fuses
installed. All it needs is to be set. Tom's worked out the ratios and
the amount of reactant fuel needed in each unit for escape tangent. The
escape time, combining orbital speeds of Tara and Junior, are completed,
and we have six hours and fifty-five minutes before blast-off!" He
turned and rumpled Alfie's hair. "Alfie and I have completed the
communications unit and have tested it. Junior is ready to get his big
kick in the pants!"

Connel stood up. He was speechless. It was almost too much to believe.

"_Get below_," he roared, "and go to sleep! If I catch one of you awake
in five minutes, I'll log you fifty demerits!"

The tired workers grinned back at their commander.

"I'll get everything set," said Connel, "and wake you up an hour before
we have to get things ready. Now _hit the sack!_"

Their grins spreading even wider on their haggard faces, they turned
away. Connel stepped to the desk on the control deck and wrote across
the face of the logbook page.

"...