She handed Tom a small flashlight. "Here's your photoelectric light key for room 2305 F. That's on the two hundred thirtieth floor."

Tom took the light key and turned toward the slidestairs where Astro was holding Roger firmly, despite his frantic squirming.

"Hey, Tom," cried Roger, "tell this Venusian ape to let me go!"

"Promise to behave yourself?" asked Tom.

"We came here to have fun, didn't we?" demanded Roger.

"That doesn't mean getting thrown out of the hotel because you've got to make passes at every beautiful girl."

"What's the matter with beautiful girls?" growled Roger. "They're official equipment, like a radar scanner. You can't get along without them!"

Tom and Astro looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"Come on, you jerk," said Astro, "let's get washed up. I wanta take a walk and get something to eat. I'm hungry again!"

An hour later, showered and dressed in fresh uniforms, the Polaris crew began a tour of the city. They went to the zoo and saw dinosaurs, a tyrannosaurus, and many other monsters extinct on Earth millions of years ago, but still breeding in the jungles of Tara. They visited the council chamber of the Solar Alliance where delegates from the major planets and from the larger satellites, such as Titan of Saturn, Ganymede of Jupiter, and Luna of Earth made the laws for the tri-planetary league. The boys walked through the long halls of the Alliance building, looking at the great documents which had unified the solar system.