Roger turned to face the assembled passengers and smiled. All around him in the main passenger lounge, the frightened men and women sat huddled together in small groups, staring at him, terror in their eyes.
"Ladieeees and Gentlemen," began Roger. "You are now going to be entertained by the loudest, corniest and most miserable voice in the universe. I'm going to sing!"
He waited for a laugh, but there was only a slight stir as the passengers shifted nervously in their seats.
Shrugging his shoulders, Roger took a deep breath and began to sing. He only knew one song and he sang it with gusto.
"From the rocket fields of the Academy
To the far-flung stars of outer space,
We're Space Cadets training to be...."
On the lower deck of the passenger ship, Tom smiled as he faintly heard his unit-mate's voice. He made his way to the jet-boat deck of the Lady Venus and opened the hatch.
"Hey, Astro," he called. There wasn't any answer.
He stepped inside and looked around the empty deck. Walking over to one of the jet boats, he saw evidence of Al James's attempts to send out emergency signal messages. He called again. "Hey, Astro—where are you?" Still no answer. He noticed that one of the jet boats was missing. There were three still on the deck, but an empty catapult for the fourth made Tom think that Astro might have repaired the fourth and taken it out in space for a test. The light over the escape hatch indicated that someone had gone out. It was odd, thought Tom, for Astro to go out alone. But then he shrugged, remembering how Astro could lose himself in his work and forget everything but the job at hand. He climbed back to the passenger deck.
When Tom opened the hatch to the main lounge, the sight that filled his eyes was so funny that, even in the face of danger, he had to laugh. Roger, with his hands clasped behind his back, was down on his knees trying to push a food pellet across the deck with his nose. The whole passenger lounge echoed with hysterical laughter.
Suddenly the laughter was stopped by the sound of the bell over the air-lock hatch. Strong and James had returned to ferry more passengers to the Polaris. Immediately the fun was forgotten and the passengers crowded around for the roll call.