"It's happened before, unfortunately," commented Strong. "Better men than Hardy have succumbed to the lure of riches and power."
"You're right, Strong," snapped Sykes. "That's just what happened to Hardy. While I was his prisoner on the Polaris, he kept boasting about how rich he was going to be—how powerful. When I reminded him of his past achievements and of his responsibility to the colony, he just laughed. He said getting the uranium meant more to him than anything in the world." The little professor sighed. "If it hadn't been for the cadets, he would have gotten away with it."
"But wait a minute," said Roger. "If you suspected Vidac, why did you give him the information on the uranium to send back to the Solar Guard?"
"I just told him about a puny little deposit near the Logan farm," replied Sykes. "The big strike is on the other side of the satellite. I figured that if Vidac was honest it wouldn't hurt to delay sending information back about the big strike until later." He paused and added, "But then, of course, I had to tell him about the big strike."
"You had to tell him!" exclaimed Jeff. "But why?"
"To stay alive, you idiot!" barked Sykes. "As long as I had something they wanted, they'd keep me alive until they found out about it. They gave me truth serum, but I'm immune to drugs. All Solar Guard scientists are. They didn't know that. So I told them to look here, then there, acted as though I had lost my memory. It worked, and here I am."
"What about the way they antagonized us?" asked Tom. "Refusing to let us contact Space Academy and sending us out on a stripped-down rocket scout to investigate the asteroid cluster. It seems to me they should have acted a little more friendly to throw us off the track. All they did was arouse suspicion and get us sore."
"But they hoped that you would get angry enough to do something rebellious, so that they could send you back," said Sykes.
"Well, that makes sense," said Strong. "But what about their treatment of the colonists?"
"Humph. A clear case of attempting to get the colonists to rebel which would give them the right to absolute control of the entire satellite and the people. Cadet Tom Corbett here is to be congratulated for not allowing Mr. Logan to go around like a vigilante and get us all in a space hurricane!"