The corpsman turned to his emergency kit. He took out a large hypodermic needle, filled with a clear fluid, and injected it into the big cadet's arm.
In less than a minute Astro was sitting up and telling Walters everything that had happened. When he told of the pipe that was sucking off the oxygen from the main pumps, Walters dispatched an emergency crew to the mine immediately to plug the leak. Then, when Astro revealed the secret of the mine, the presence of the uranium pitchblende, Walters shook his head slowly.
"Amazing!" he exclaimed. "Greed can ruin a man. He could have declared such a discovery and still had more money than he could have spent in a lifetime."
Walters spun around. "Steve, I want the Polaris ready to blast off within an hour. We're going after one of the dirtiest space rats that ever hit the deep!"
CHAPTER 18
Roger peered around the edge of the baffling shields. The power deck was empty. He edged out and stood upright, eyes moving constantly for signs of Miles.
No longer needing the cumbersome space suit, he stripped it off and walked across the deck to the ladder. He stopped to listen again but there was only the sound of the rockets under emergency space drive. A quick glance at the control panel told him that the ship was hurtling through space at a fantastic speed. Satisfied that Miles was nowhere near, Roger gripped the rocketman's wrench tightly and began climbing slowly and cautiously.
When he reached the next deck, he raised his head through the hatch slowly. Then, in one quick movement, he pulled himself up on the deck and ran for cover behind a small locker to his right. Above him, through the open network of frames and girders, he could see the control deck, but Miles was nowhere in sight.
Something on the opposite side of the ship caught his eye. Miles' space suit hung on its rack, the heavy fish-bowllike space helmet beside it in its open locker. Roger's heart skipped a beat as he noticed the holster for a paralo-ray gun nearby. But the large flap was closed and he could not see if it held a gun.