"Uh, he's blind, sir."
"Not blind, Mr. Dodson, not blind! It simply happens that he had his eyes burned out. How did he lose his eyesight?" The cadet stopped him. "No-don't tell them. Let them find out for themselves."
The cadet resumed eating and Matt did likewise, while thinking about Commodore Arkwright. He himself had been too young to pay attention to the news, but his father had read an account of the event to him-a spectacular, single-handed rescue of a private yacht in distress, inside the orbit of
Mercury. He had forgotten just how the Patrol officer had exposed his eyes to the Sun-something to do with transferring the yacht's personnel-but he could still hear his father reading the end of the report: "-these actions are deemed to be in accordance with the tradition of the Patrol."
He wondered if any action of his would ever receive that superlative distinction. Unlikely, he decided; "duty satisfactorily performed" was about the best an ordinary man could hope for.
Matt ran into Tex Jarman as he left the mess hall. Tex pounded him on the back. "Glad to see you, kid. Where are you rooming?"
"I haven't had time to look up my room yet."
"Let's see your sheet." Jarman took it. "We're in the same corridor-swell. Let's go up."
They found the room and walked in. Sprawled on the lower of two bunks, reading and smoking a cigarette, was another candidate. He looked up.
"Enter, comrades," he said, "Don't bother to knock."