"By the rings of Saturn," cried Loring, "I must've jammed the thrust when I yanked the lever out of the control board!"
"Put it back! Slow this ship down!" cried Mason, his face ashen with fear. Loring jumped to the control board and with trembling fingers tried to replace the lever in the socket.
"I can't—can't—" he panted. "We gotta pile outta here! We're heading for the station. We'll crash!"
"Come on! This way! We left the space helmets back in the cargo hold!" shouted Mason. He ran toward the open hatch leading to the companionway. Suddenly he stopped. "Hey, what about those two guys?"
"Never mind them!" shouted Loring. "Keep going. We can't do anything for them now!"
And as the two men raced toward the stern, the freighter, her powerful rockets wide open, arrowed straight toward the gleaming white structure of the space station.
"It was easy, honey," cooed Roger into the microphone on the main control panel of the space-station radar bridge.
"I switched the frequency on the station, beamed to a teleceiver trunk line on Earth, and called you up, my little space pet! Smart, huh? Now remember we have a date as soon as I get back from this important and secret mission. I could've got out of it, but they needed me badly. As much as I like you, baby, I had to go along to give the boys a break and ..."
"Cadet Manning!" An infuriated roar echoed in the small chamber.
"Yeah, whaddaya wan—" growled Roger, turning to see who had interrupted him. He suddenly gulped and turned pale. "Ohhhhhhhhh—good-by, baby!" He flipped the switch and stood up.