"Come on. Gimme that wrench!" barked Astro. The little man beside him handed up the wrench and leaned over the side of the engine casing to watch Astro pull the nut tight. "Now get over there and throw on the switch," snapped the big cadet.
The little man scurried over to one side of the vast machine shop and flipped on the wall switch. There was an audible hum of power and then slowly the machine Astro had just worked on began to speed up, soon revving up to ten thousand revolutions per minute.
"Is it fixed?" demanded the shop foreman, coming up beside Astro.
"Yeah, she's fixed. But I don't work on another job until you give me another helper. That asteroid head you gave me doesn't know a—" Astro stopped. Something out beyond the double doors caught his eye. It was the sight of Tom and Connel entering the wooden building.
"What's the matter with him?" demanded the foreman.
"Huh? What? Oh—ah—well, he's O.K., I guess," Astro stammered. "It's just that he's a little green, that's all."
"Well, get to work on that heater in chamber number one. It's burned a bearing. Change it, and hurry up about it!"
"Sure—sure!" The big cadet grinned.
"Say, what's the matter with you?" asked the foreman, staring at him suspiciously.
"I'm O.K.," replied Astro quickly.