"Yeah," agreed Astro. "It must have been good, because I'm still here!"
"Got your radar sweeping ahead, Roger?" asked Tom. "Any sign of an opening in this stuff?"
"Radar's going all the time, Tom," replied Roger. "But I don't think we're going to find a passage large enough to take the whole fleet through."
"I'm afraid you're right," said Tom. "I guess we'd better get out of here. How much fuel do we have left, Astro?"
"Enough to hang around here for another fifteen minutes. But let's not cut it too fine. We might have to spend a little time looking for the fleet."
"I don't imagine Vidac would lose any sleep," sneered Roger, "if we got lost!"
"Well, fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes," said Tom, "so we might as well take a look."
Roger gave the course change to Tom and the small ship shot to another section of the asteroid cluster while the electronic finger of the radar probed ahead, searching for an opening through the mass of hurtling rock. Time and again in the past fifteen hours, the cadets had discovered what they thought to be a way through, only to find it too small for the massed flight of spaceships to maneuver safely. Now after the many hours of concentration the boys were tired and more than willing to return to the fleet.
"Time's up," Tom finally announced. "Plot a course back to the Polaris, Roger. Stand by for a course change, Astro. We're heading home!"
Tom's remark about heading "home" went unnoticed, since the three cadets had long since thought of the giant rocket cruiser as being their home, more than Space Academy or their real homes with their families.