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—"
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.
