"It's been a fine mission. I want to compliment you on the way you've handled yourselves these past few months. You boys are real spacemen!" He saluted and disappeared down the ladder leading to the exit port.
"And that," said Roger, turning to his unit-mates, "is known as the royal come-on for a dirty detail!"
"Ahhh, stop your gassing, Manning," growled Astro. "Just be sure your radar bridge is O.K. If we do have to blast out of here in a hurry, I want to get where we're supposed to be going!"
"You just worry about the power deck, spaceboy, and let little Roger take care of his own department," replied Roger.
Astro eyed him speculatively. "You know the only reason they allowed this space creep in the Academy, Tom?" asked Astro.
"No, why?" asked Tom, playing along with the game.
"Because they knew any time the Polaris ran out of reactant fuel we could just stick Manning in the rocket tubes and have him blow out some of his special brand of space gas!"
"Listen, you Venusian throwback! One more word out of you and—"
"All right, you two!" broke in Tom good-naturedly. "Enough's enough! Come on. We've got just enough time to run up to the mess hall and grab a good meal before we check the ship."
"That's for me," said Astro. "I've been eating those concentrates so long my stomach thinks I've turned into a test tube."