an officer in the Solar Guard.

He got up and walked to the window and looked out across the Academy
campus, over the green lawns and white buildings connected by the
rolling slidewalks, to the gleaming crystal Tower, the symbol of man's
conquest of space. And beyond the Tower building, Tom saw a spaceship
blasting off from the spaceport, her rockets bucking hard against thin
air as she clawed her way spaceward. When it disappeared from sight, he
followed it with his mind's eye and it became the _Polaris_, his ship!
He and Roger and Astro were blasting through the cold black void, their
own personal domain!

A loud burst of laughter behind him suddenly brought Tom back to Earth.
He smiled to himself and shook his head, as though reluctant to leave
his dream world. He glanced out of the window again, this time down at
the quadrangle, and far below he recognized the squat, muscular figure
of Warrant Officer Mike McKenny drilling another group of newly arrived
cadet candidates. Tom saw the slidewalks begin to fill with boys and men
in varicolored uniforms, all released from duty as the day drew to a
close. Tonight, Astro, Roger, and he would go to see the latest stereo,
and tomorrow they would blast off in the _Polaris_ for the weekly
checkout of her equipment. He turned back to Spears, Coglin, and Duke.
Roger was just finishing the story of their latest adventure (described
in _The Revolt on Venus_).

"The best part, of course, was the actual hunting of the tyrannosaurus,"
said Astro.

"A tyrannosaurus?" exploded Spears, the youngest and most impressionable
of the three Earthworms. "You actually hunted for a dinosaur?"