"Coming up, Tom!" answered Astro. "And wait till I get my hands on that Manning! I'm going to smear that yellow space crawler from one corner of the universe to another!"
"Never mind the talk," snarled Roger, who at the moment was re-entering the tube. "Just get that juice down to this torch and make it fast!"
Tom turned to see Roger crawling back into the tube and adjusting a cutting torch.
"Glad to have you aboard, Roger," said Tom with a smile that Roger could not see in the darkness of the tube. The two boys went to work.
Suddenly the torches came to life. And immediately Tom and Roger began to cut away at the cleats that held the tube lining to the skin of the ship. Steadily, the cadets worked their way up toward the center of the ship, cutting anything that looked as though it might hold the giant tube to the ship.
"Boy," said Tom, "it's getting hot in here!"
From inside the ship, Astro's reassuring voice came back in answer. "You're getting close to the reactant-mass chamber. The last cleat is up by one of the exhaust gratings. Think you can last it?"
"Well, if he can't," snarled Roger, "he's sure to get that medal anyway!" He inched up a little. "Move over, Corbett, I'm skinnier than you are, and I can reach that cleat easier than you can."
Roger slipped past Tom and inched his way toward the last cleat. He pulled his torch up alongside and pulled the trigger. The flame shot out and began eating the steel. In a moment the last cleat was cut and the two boys started their long haul down the tube to the outside of the ship.
As they walked across the steel surface, back to the air lock, Tom stuck out his hand.