Nor had Jak been jealous at this high praise of his younger brother. "Jon's just a kid," he had said, "and he's thoughtless rather than conceited. But sometimes he makes me so darned mad."
His father laughed. "Yes, like all kids, he hates the thought of letting anyone get ahead of him. That's particularly true of younger brothers. They feel, within themselves, that they are just as good or better than the older members of the family, and sometimes can't help showing it."
Jak grinned. "I'll bust him one yet, some day, though, if he doesn't watch out."
But he knew, and so did his father, that he never would. For both knew the real love that existed between the two brothers. Jak realized that his swiftly growing brother—now several inches taller and many pounds heavier than he—had a terrific mind. So, as now, he generally respected Jon's ideas, and shrugged away any momentary angers when Jon was particularly "bossy."
Jak followed as Jon walked slowly along the side of the ship, giving it a careful survey, especially toward the bottom, to see if anything on the lower surfaces appeared wrong.
"I'll climb up and give the top a going-over tomorrow," Jon said as they went ahead.
The Star Rover was really a space-yacht. It was seventy-two feet long, and about eighteen feet in diameter at its thickest part, which was about a third of the way back from the bow. The front of the ship was bluntly rounded, and contained the control room with its thick, quartzite window-ports, and just outside that room the four bow-retarding tubes, which Jon also carefully examined when the boys reached them.
Just aft of the control room were the living quarters. These consisted of the large, comfortable living room, and two small but compact bunkrooms, the bath-toilet, the kitchen and many ingeniously designed closet and drawer spaces for stowing personal belongings, clothing and supplies.
Beyond these were the storerooms for food, tools and other supplies and equipment. The stern two-fifths of the ship was devoted to the storage of fuel and the various machines that drove the space-yacht and kept it a self-contained world while in space.
Here were the refrigerators and heaters, the air- and water-purifiers, the generators of electricity for light and cooking and for their auxiliary motors, such as the ones controlling the airlock doors and pumps. In the lower part of the hull, under their living and control rooms and storerooms, were hydroponic tanks which not only grew vegetables and greens for their table, but which furnished oxygen to replace that unavoidably lost when the locks were opened.