blast.

“Well, you’re losing this one. You’re not good enough for this team, Gerard, and you’re going to be put ashore on Titan. I can’t imagine a person who calls himself a spaceman and takes the oath of allegiance to duty letting petty interests take first place in an operation as important as this. I don’t believe you have realized yet that the future of life itself on Earth depends on the success of this flight.”

For a moment Lieutenant Swenson seemed to have run out of steam as his big chest gasped for breath. Clay was so overcome he stood with lips trembling and eyes smarting. Rob suspected this was perhaps the first real dressing-down he had had in his life, something that probably his own father had never done.

Clay Gerard said nothing in defense.

Lieutenant Swenson turned to Rob. “I’m sorry Rob, but I couldn’t help it. When I heard him blast out at you—”

Rob remained silent and Lieutenant Swenson walked off with some embarrassment.

Just then the rocket fighter angled up and sent Rob and Clay rolling over against the wall of the corridor. Clay’s head thumped against the metal, and the blow appeared to daze him. Rob helped him up as the ship continued to rock.

“Are you hurt?” Rob asked him.

Clay shook his head vigorously. “I—I don’t think so.”

Rob hastened to the engine room, some impulse telling him that the misbehaving rocket chamber might be behind the trouble. He found Mort in front of an opening in the floor, a frantic look on his face.

“The rocket cylinder that was heating up has blown a leak!” he shouted above a deafening swooshing sound from below.

“Can you repair it?” Rob asked. “The ship is practically out of control!”

“Tell Lieutenant Fox to cut all jets and keep her even,” the mechanic said. “I’ll have to go down into the hold to plug the break-through so it’ll last until we reach Titan.”

Rob leaned over the hold and felt hot air rushing up at him. It was dark and crowded with machinery down there. “I don’t see how you can work down there in all that heat.”

Mort shrugged. “I’ll have to, or we may never land. If I’d checked it when I had that tangle with Cadet Gerard I might have saved the 

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