"I can't do it, sir," he tried to explain. "You surely can't disregard that message, the old call for help. We were using that, you know, when Haldgren took off five years ago." No longer did a masking softness overlay the hard brittleness of the Commander's voice. "Your star!" he snapped. "You are no longer in the Service, Bullard!" But Chet Bullard, as he stepped forward that the Commander might rip the triple star from his chest, was not alone. Walt Harkness was only a Pilot of the Second Class, but he stripped the emblem from his own silken blouse and placed it in the Commander's outstretched hand beside Chet's star. "Permit me, sir, to share Mr. Bullard's enviable humiliation," he observed with venomous courtesy; and added: "Whatever similar honors were in store for Mrs. Harkness and myself are respectfully declined. We, too, are of the opinion that Pilot Haldgren deserves them instead of us." For an instant Chet's flashing smile drew his face into friendly lines. "Thanks!" he said. But all friendliness was erased as he swung back upon the Commander. * * * * * No thought now of the thousands of staring faces or of the millions throughout the world who were watching him and were hearing his words. Chet Bullard clipped those words into curt phrases, and he shot them at his superior officer as if from a detonite gun: "You think your judgment better than mine--you've dropped me from the Service--and you've got the power to make that stick! But you're wrong, sir, dead wrong! And I'll make you admit it, too. "No--don't interrupt! I'm going to say what I please, and this is it, Commander: "Hang onto that jewel you were giving me. Keep it ready. For I'm going to the Moon. I'm going to find Haldgren, if he's still living when I get there. And, at the least, I will bring back some record to show he is the man we should honor. "Haldgren, alive or dead, was the first man to conquer space. Neither Harkness nor I would steal an atom of his glory. I'll have the proof when I come back. And when I come--" * * * * * For an instant the ready grin that marked Chet's irresistible good nature lighted up his face with a silent echo of some laugh-provoking thought occurring in his mind. "--when I do come, Commander, I will make you eat your words. It's you who will be out of the Service then, laughed out!" The Commander smiled, too; smiled coldly, complacently, while his head shook. "Again you are mistaken," he told Chet; "never again will you fly as much as one foot above Earth." And still Chet's grin persisted. "Commander," he said, "a man in your position should not make so many mistakes. I am going--I give you warning now--going to the Moon. And you haven't enough Patrol Ships in all the air levels of Earth to hold me back, once I'm on my way!"