Tom remembered the night he saw Roger in Galaxy Hall alone at night, and the sudden flash on the field a few days before when they had won the mercuryball game. Was there some reason behind his companion's strange actions? In vain, Tom racked his brain to find the answer. There had to be some explanation. Yet what could it possibly be? He tossed and turned and worried and finally—comfortable as the monorail car was—he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
Atom City! Built of the clear crystal mined so cheaply on Titan, moon of Saturn, Atom City had risen from a barren North American wasteland to become a show place of the universe. Here was the center of all space communications—a proud city of giant crystal buildings. Here had been developed the first slidewalks, air cars, three-dimensional stereos and hundreds of other ideas for better living.
And here at Atom City was the seat of the great Solar Alliance, housed in a structure which covered a quarter of a mile at its base and which towered three thousand noble feet into the sky.
The three cadets stepped out of the monorail and walked across the platform to a waiting air car—jet-powered, shaped like a teardrop and with a clear crystal top.
"We want the best hotel in town," said Astro grandly to the driver.
"And get this speed bug outa here in a hurry," Roger told him. "There's a lot we want to do."
The driver couldn't help smiling at the three cadets so obviously enjoying their first leave.
"We've got three top hotels," he said. "One's as good as the other. They're the Earth, the Mars and the Venus."
"The Earth," voted Tom.