The main living quarters of the ship were arranged so that each family
had a small apartment, complete in every detail, to preserve as much of
the family life as possible. There were no governors or supervisors to
control the colonists. It had been decided to allow the colonists to
choose their own leaders aboard the ships. But they were living together
so peacefully, they hadn't found it necessary to select any one
individual to be a leader. The ship was a miniature city.

As the Space Cadets made their rounds of the power deck, control deck,
and radar deck, they were amazed by the excellence of the equipment and
the care given it. And because they saw nothing to substantiate their
suspicions of Vidac, and his hand-picked crew, on Number Twelve, they
found themselves confused about their feelings toward him.

On the power deck, Astro had questioned a rocketman closely about the
arrangement of the baffling around one of the firing chambers. The
power-deck officer, Shilo Speed, heard Astro's questions, agreed with
the cadet, and made the rocketman rearrange the baffling. Then, on the
control deck, the pilot had been careless in maintaining his position
with the other ships in the fleet. Tom mentioned it to Winters, and
Winters immediately ordered the man off the bridge, and replaced him.
Such action for the safety of the colonists had made the cadets wonder
about Vidac's ability.

After inspecting the ship from radar mast to jet exhausts, the three
cadets started back for the jet-boat deck. As they retraced their steps,
they passed through the library and encountered Hyram Logan and his son
Billy.