Chapter 15

“I can tell you the way out of the base.”

Adjusting the plastic helmet over his head, Carson stepped up close to Astro and Tom and spoke confidently. “It’s very simple.”

“Whew!” exclaimed Tom. “I thought we’d have to go fumbling around.”

Carson pointed through the darkness. “Follow this lane straight down until you come to a large repair lock. There’s a space freighter on the maintenance cradle outside. You can’t miss it. Turn left and follow a trail to the base of the canyon wall. There are jungle creepers and vines growing up the side and you can climb them easily.”

Tom nodded and repeated the directions, then turned to Astro. “Maybe you’d better stay here, Astro. I can make it alone.”

“No.” Connel spoke sharply from the doorway. “Astro speaks Venusian. If you’re stopped, he can speak for you. You’d give yourself away.”

“Very well, sir,” said Tom. “I guess that is best. Ready to go, Astro?”

“Ready,” replied the big cadet.

“Good-by, Major,” said Tom, reaching into the doorway to shake hands with Connel. “I’ll try my best.”

“It’s a matter of life and death, Tom.” Connel’s voice was low and husky. “Not our lives, or the lives of a few people, but the life and death of the Solar Alliance.”

“I understand, sir.” Tom turned to Astro and the two cadets marched off quickly.

They had no difficulty finding the giant ship on the cradles outside the repair shop and quickly turned toward the base of the cliff. Twenty minutes later they had left the center of activity and were close to the canyon wall. They were congratulating themselves on their luck in not being stopped or questioned when suddenly they saw a guard ahead of them on sentry duty.

“Ill take care of him,” whispered Astro. “You hide here in the shadows, and when I whistle, you start climbing. Then I’ll cover you from there until you get to the top. Got it?”

“Right!” The two cadets shook hands briefly. Each knew that there was no need to speak of their feelings. “Take care of Roger,” said Tom. “We don’t know how badly he’s been injured.”

“I’ll see to him,” said Astro. “Watch me now and wait for my whistle.” He turned away and then paused to call back softly, “Spaceman’s luck, Tom.”

“Same to you, Astro,” replied Tom, and then crouched tensely in the shadows.

The big cadet walked casually toward the sentry, who spotted him immediately and brought his gun up sharply, calling a challenge in the Venusian tongue.

“A friend,” replied Astro in the same dialect.

The sentry lowered the gun slightly. “What are you doing out here?” he asked suspiciously.

“Just taking a walk,” said Astro. “Looking for something.”

“What?” asked the sentry.

“Trying to make a connection.”

“A connection? What kind of connection?”

“This kind!” said Astro suddenly, chopping the side of his hand down on the sentry’s neck, between the helmet and his uniform collar.

The sentry fell to the ground like a poleaxed steer and lay still. Astro grinned, then turned and went whistling off into the darkness. Twenty feet away Tom heard the signal and hurried to the base of the cliff. He grabbed a thick vine and pulled himself upward, hand over hand. Halfway up he found a small ledge and stopped to rest. Below him, he could see Astro hurrying back toward the center of the base. The dim lights and the distant hum of activity assured him that so far his escape was unnoticed. He resumed his climb, and fifteen minutes later the curly-haired cadet stood on the canyon rim. After another short rest he turned and plunged into the jungle.

Tom knew that as long as he kept the planet of Earth over his right shoulder, while keeping the distant star of Regulus ahead of him, he was traveling in the right direction to Sinclair’s plantation. He stopped to check his bearings often, occasionally having to climb a tree to see over the top of the jungle. He ignored the threat of an attack by a jungle beast. For some reason it did not present the danger it had when he had first entered the jungle, seemingly years before. Under pressure, the cadet had become skilled in jungle lore and moved with amazing speed. He kept the blaster ready to fire at the slightest movement, but fortunately during the first night he encountered nothing more dangerous than a few furry deerlike animals that scampered behind him off the trail.

Morning broke across the jungle in a sudden burst of sunlight. The air was clear and surprisingly cool, and Tom felt that he could make the Sinclair plantation by nightfall if he continued pushing full speed ahead.

He stopped once for a quick meal of the last of the synthetics that he had stuffed in his pocket from his shoulder pack, and then continued in a steady, ground-eating pace through the jungle. Late in the afternoon he began to recognize signs of recent trail blazing, and once he cut across the path Astro had made. He wondered if the trail was one Astro had cut while he was lost, or previously. He finally decided to go ahead on his own, since he had managed to come this far without the aid of any guide markers.

As the darkening shadows of night began to spread over the jungle the young cadet began to worry. He had been allowed thirty-six hours to make it back to the Polaris, communicate with Commander Walters, and tell him the position of the base, and Tom had to allow time for the Solar Guard fleet to assemble and blast off, so that it would arrive at the base at exactly noon on the next day. He had to reach the Sinclair plantation before nightfall or the fleet would never make it.

Suddenly to his left he heard a noisy crashing of underbrush and the roar of a large beast. Tom hesitated. He could hide; he could fight; or he could break to his right and try to escape. The beast growled menacingly. It had picked up his scent. Tom was sure it was a large beast on the prowl for food, and he decided that he could not waste time hiding, or risk being injured in a battle with the jungle prowler. He quickly broke to his right and raced through the jungle. Behind him, the beast picked up the chase, the ground trembling with its approach. It began to gain on him. Tom was suddenly conscious of having lost his bearings. He might be running away from the clearing!

Still he ran on, legs aching and lungs burning. He charged through the underbrush that threatened any moment to trip him. When he was almost at the point of complete exhaustion, and ready to turn and face the beast behind him, he saw something that renewed his spirit and sent new strength through his body. Ahead through the vines and creepers, the slender nose of the Polaris was outlined against the twilight sky.