The colonel smiled. “I see you fellows want to do the right thing even if he hasn’t. Let me say here that I consider what you men have done, bringing into port two crippled ships, the most remarkable space performance I have ever heard about in my career. I’d have given anything to be thirty years younger and one of you!” He sighed regretfully. “In view of all this, I believe it would be embarrassing to the Space Academy not to reconsider you seven for cadet school. I’ll personally make a strong recommendation for you.”
The boys, except for their leader, were profuse in their thanks. Rock was quietly grateful and filled with a heart-warming satisfaction. For all these long weeks since their blast-off, he had suffered remorse for having brought his friends into such perils as they faced. Now it had all worked out for a purpose. Where they might never have come back, now they had not only returned without harm, but they would reclaim the opportunity for a space career that had appeared to end for them with their washout from the Space Academy.
As Rock happily thought over these things, an officer wearing the insigne of a metallurgist came into the room.
“I’ve made an assay of the ore cargo on the Northern Cross, Colonel,” the man said. “It’s good alconite ore and is worth a fortune, and of course the ship is quite valuable too. It’ll tell us a lot about long-period effects of space conditions.”
“Now my success is complete,” Rock thought. “Dad did not lose his life for nothing. The satellite hospital will be a living memorial to his unselfish ambition. Even with all the things that happened to us, I’m glad we took the chance.”
He was sure his friends felt the same way.
SPACE STEWARD
“Carry your bags, sir?” The gentleman tourist in the space harbor looked at the youth who had stepped out of the night. Although the boy’s clothes weren’t as fine, perhaps, as those of the other baggage carriers, there was something about him which appealed to the man. The boy had a wiry, athletic build, and his gray, sincere eyes shone with spirit and good nature.
“Sure, son,” the big, white-thatched man said, smiling. “Suite 8, ‘B’ Deck.”