They stared enviously into the sky, watching the
smooth steel-hulled spaceship drop toward the concrete ramp area of the
spaceport, three miles away.
[Illustration: SPACE ACADEMY U.S.A.]
In his office at the top of the gleaming Tower of Galileo, Commander
Walters, commandant of Space Academy, paused for a moment from his
duties and turned from his desk to watch the touchdown of the great
spaceship. And on the grassy quadrangle, Warrant Officer Mike McKenny,
short and stubby in his scarlet uniform of the enlisted Solar Guard,
stopped his frustrating task of drilling newly arrived cadets to watch
the mighty ship come to Earth.
Young and old, the feeling of belonging to the great fleet that
patrolled the space lanes across the millions of miles of the solar
system was something that never died in a true spaceman. The green-clad
cadets dreamed of the future when they would feel the bucking rockets in
their backs. And the older men smiled faintly as memories of their own
first space flight came to mind.
Aboard the _Polaris_, the young cadet crew worked swiftly and smoothly
to bring their ship to a safe landing.
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