CHAPTER 3
"I just can't understand it, Joan," said Captain Steve Strong, tossing the paper on his circular desk. "The psychographs of Corbett, Manning and Astro fit together like gears. And yet—"
The Solar Guard officer suddenly rose and walked over to a huge window that filled the entire north wall of his office, a solid sheet of glass that extended from the high domed ceiling to the translucent flooring. Through the window, he stared down moodily toward the grassy quadrangle, where at the moment several hundred cadets were marching in formation under a hot sun.
"—And yet," continued Strong, "every morning for the last three weeks I've got a report from McKenny about some sort of friction between them!"
"I think it'll work out, Steve," answered the pretty girl in the uniform of the Solar Guard, seated in an easy chair on the other side of the desk.
Joan Dale held the distinction of being the first woman ever admitted into the Solar Guard, in a capacity other than administrative work. Her experiments in atomic fissionables was the subject of a recent scientific symposium held on Mars. Over fifty of the leading scientists of the Solar Alliance had gathered to study her latest theory on hyperdrive, and had unanimously declared her ideas valid. She had been offered the chair as Master of Physics at the Academy as a result, giving her access to the finest laboratory in the tri-planet society.
Now facing the problem of personality adjustment in Unit 42-D, she sat across the desk from her childhood friend, Steve Strong, and frowned.
"What's happened this time?"
"Manning." He paused. "It seems to be all Manning!"