And as the powerful engines of the Polaris picked up speed, Strong imagined he could hear Gargantuan laughter echoing in space around him.
CHAPTER 17
"Spaceman's luck, sir," said Tom, shaking Captain Strong's hand.
Silently the other two cadets in turn gripped their skipper's hand tightly.
"Thanks, boys," said Strong. "If we're going to get that space crawler, we have to trap him. And the best bait I know is a twenty-million-credit pay roll."
"But won't you take at least one man with you, sir?" pleaded Tom. "Sitting up there in space in a decoy ship waiting for Coxine is like—" Tom paused. "Well, you won't have much of a chance, sir, if Coxine opens fire before asking questions."
"That's the risk I've got to take, Tom," said Strong. "It took a lot of talking to get Commander Walters' permission to try this. But we've got to force Coxine to come out far enough from the asteroid belt to catch him before he can run back in and lose himself again." The young captain smiled wanly and added, "Don't think that your job is unimportant!"
Tom, Roger, and Astro nodded. On their return from the unsuccessful attempt to capture Coxine, they had been suddenly faced with the routine duty of transporting a twenty-million-credit pay roll from Atom City to the satellite of Titan for the crystal miners.