CHAPTER 6
"I guess that's the Sharkey place over there," mumbled Major Connel tohimself, banking his jet launch over the green jungles and pointing thespeedy little craft's nose toward the clearing in the distance. TheSolar Guard officer wrenched the scout around violently in his approach.He was still boiling over the Venusian Delegate's indifference towardhis mission.
The launch skimmed the jungle treetops and glided to a perfect stop nearthe largest of a group of farm buildings. Cutting the motors, Connel satand waited for someone to appear. He sat there for ten minutes but noone came out to greet him. Finally he climbed out of the launch andstood by the hatch, peering intently at the buildings around him, hiseyes squinting against the glare of the fiery sun overhead. Theplantation seemed deserted. Reaching back into the launch and pullingout a paralo-ray gun, he strapped its reassuring bulk to his side andstepped toward the building that was obviously the main house. Nothingelse moved in the hot noon sun.
As he strode purposefully toward the house, eyes alert for any sign oflife, he thought for a moment everyone might be taking a midday nap.Many of the Venusian colonists adapted the age-old custom of the tropicsto escape the intense heat of midday. But he dismissed the thoughtimmediately, realizing that his approach in the jet would have awakenedthe deepest of sleepers.
Entering the house, he stopped in the spacious front hall and called:
"Hello! Anybody home? Halloo!"
The only answer was the echo of his own voice, vibrating through thelarge rooms.
"Funny," muttered the spaceman. "Why is this place deserted?"
He walked slowly through the house, opening doors and looking into allthe rooms, searching the whole place thoroughly before returning to theclearing. Going to the nearest of the outbuildings, he opened one of thewide doors and stared into the gloomy interior. With his experienced eyehe saw immediately that the building had been used to house a large jetcraft. There was the slightly pungent odor of jet fuel, and on the floorthe tire marks of a dolly used to roll the craft out to the launchingstrip. He followed the tracks outside and around to the side of thebuilding where he saw the dolly. It was empty.
Shaking his head grimly, Connel made a quick tour of the remainingbuildings. They were all deserted but the last one, which seemed to bebuilt a little more sturdily than the others. Unlike the others, it waslocked. He looked for a window and discovered that the walls were solid.There were no openings except the locked door. He hesitated in front ofthe door, looking down at the ground for a sign of what might have beenstored in the building. The surrounding area revealed no tracks. Hepulled out a thick-bladed pocketknife and stepped to the lock, thensuddenly stopped and grinned.
"Great," he said to himself. "A Solar Guard officer about to break intoprivate property without a warrant. Fine thing to have known back at theAcademy!"
He turned abruptly and strode back to the scout. Climbing into thecraft, he picked up the audioscriber microphone and recorded a briefmessage. Removing the threadlike tape from the machine, he returned tothe house and left it on the spool of the audioscribe-replay machinenear the front door.
A few moments later the eerie silence of the Sharkey plantation was onceagain shattered by the hissing roar of jets as the launch took off andclimbed rapidly over the jungle. Air-borne, Connel glanced briefly at achart, changed course, and sent the launch hurtling at full speed acrossthe jungle toward the Sinclair plantation.
* * * * *
"How far do you think we've come?" asked Tom sleepily.
Astro yawned and stretched before answering. "I'd say about fifteenmiles, Tom."
"Seems more like a hundred and fifteen," moaned Roger who was sprawledon the ground. "I ache all over. Start at the top of my head and workdown, and you won't find one square inch that isn't sore."
Tom grinned. He was tired himself, but the three-day march through thejungle had been three of the most exciting days in his life. Coming froma large city where he had to travel two hours by monorail to get to opengreen country, the curly-haired cadet found this passage through thewildest jungle in the solar system new and fascinating. He had seenflowers of every color in the spectrum, some as large as himself; giantshrubs with leaves so fine that they looked like spider webs; Venusianteakwood trees fifty to a hundred feet thick at the base with sometwisted into strange spirals as their trunks, shaded by another largertree, sought a clear avenue to the sun. There were bushes that grewthorns three inches long, hard as steel and thin as needles; junglecreepers, vines two and three feet thick, twisting around tree trunksand strangling them. He saw animals too, all double the size of anythingon Earth because of the lighter Venusian gravity; insects the size ofrats, rats the size of dogs, and wild dogs the size of ponies. Up in thetrees, small anthropoids, cousins to the monkeys of Earth, scamperedfrom limb to limb, screaming at the invaders of their jungle home.Smooth-furred animals that looked like deer, their horns curlingoverhead, scampered about the cadets like puppies, nuzzling them,nipping at their heels playfully, and barking as though in laughter whenAstro roared at them for getting in the way.
But there were dangerous creatures in the jungle too; the beautiful butdeadly poisonous brush snakes that lurked unseen in the varicoloredfoliage, striking out at anything that passed; animals resemblingchipmunks with enlarged razor-sharp fangs, whose craving for raw meatwas so great that they would attack an animal ten times its size;lizards the size of elephants with scales like armor plate that rootedin swampy ground for their food, but which would attack any intruder,charging with amazing speed, their three horns poised; and, finally,there were the monsters of Venus--giant beasts whose weights weremeasured in tons, ruled over by the most horrible of them all--thetyrannosaurus.
Fights to death between the jungle creatures were common sights for theboys during their march. They saw a weird soundless fight between aforty-foot snake and a giant vulture with talons nearly two feet acrossand a beak resembling a mammoth nutcracker. The vulture won,methodically cutting the reptile's body into sections, its beak slicingthrough the snake as easily as a knife going through butter.
More than once Astro spotted a dangerous creature, and telling Roger andTom to stand back, he would level his shock rifle and blast it.
So far they had seen nothing of their prey--the tyrannosaurus. Tracksaround the steaming swamps were as close as they had come. Once, late inthe evening of the second day they caught a fleeting glimpse of aplant-eating brontosaurus lumbering through the brush.
All three of the boys had found it difficult to sleep in the jungle. Thefirst two nights they had taken turns at staying on guard and tendingthe campfire. Nothing had bothered them, and on the third night out,they decided the fire would be enough to scare off the jungle animals.It was risky, but the continual fight through the jungle underbrush hadtired the three boys to the bone and the few hours they stood guard weresorely missed the next day, so they decided to chance it.
Roger was already asleep. Astro had just finished checking his rifle tobe ready for instant fire, when Tom threw the last log on the campfireand crawled into his sleeping bag.
"Think it'll be all right, Astro?" asked Tom. "I'm not anxious to wakeup inside one of these critter's stomachs."
"Most of them have never seen fire, Tom," Astro said reassuringly. "Itscares them. Besides, we're getting close to the big stuff now. Youmight see a tyranno or a big bronto any time. And if they come along,you'll hear 'em, believe me. They're about as quiet as a squadron ofcruisers on battle emergency blasting off from the Academy in the middleof the night!"
"O.K.," replied Tom. "You're the hunter in this crew." Suddenly helaughed. "You know I really got a bang out of the way Roger jumped backfrom that waddling ground bird yesterday."
Astro grinned. "Yeah, the one thing in this place that's as ferocious asa kitten and he pulls his ray gun like an ancient cowboy!"
A very tired voice spoke up from the other sleeping bag. "Is that so!Well, when you two brave men came face to f
ace with that baby lizard ona tree root, you were ready to finish your leave in Atom City!" Rogerunzipped the end of the bag, stuck his blond head out, and gave his unitmates a sour look. "Sack in, will you? Your rocket wash is keeping meawake!"
Laughing, Astro and Tom nodded good night to each other and closed theirsleeping bags. The jungle was still, the only movement being the leapingtongues of flame from the campfire.
An hour later it began to rain, a light drizzle at first that increaseduntil it reached the steady pounding of a tropical downpour. Tom awokefirst, opening the flap of his sleeping bag only to get his face full ofslimy water that spilled in. Spluttering and coughing he sat up and sawthat the campfire was out and the campsite was already six inches deepin water.
"Roger, Astro!" he called and slapped the nearest sleeping bag. Astroopened the flap a little and peered out sleepily. Instantly he rolledout of the bag and jumped to his feet.
"Wake Roger up!" he snapped. "We've got to get out of here!"
"What's the matter?" Roger mumbled through the bag, not opening it. "Whythe excitement over a little rain?"
"The fire's out, hotshot," said Astro. "It's as dark as the inside of acow's number-four belly. We've got to move!"
"Why?" asked Tom, not understanding the big cadet's sudden nervousexcitement. "What's the matter with staying right where we are? Why gotrooping around in the dark?"
"We can't light a fire anywhere," added Roger, finally sticking his headout of his sleeping bag.
"We've got to get on high ground!" said Astro, hurriedly packing thecamping equipment. "We're in a hollow here. The rain really comes downon Venus, and in another hour this place will be a pond!"
Sensing the urgency in Astro's voice, Roger began packing up hisequipment and in a few moments the three boys had their gear slung overtheir shoulders and were slogging through water already knee-deep.
"I still don't see why we have to go tracking through the jungle in themiddle of the night," grumbled Roger. "We could climb up a tree and waitout the storm."
"You'd have to wait long after the rain stops," replied Astro. "There isone thing in this place nothing ever gets enough of, and that's water.Animals know it and hang around all the water holes. If a small animaltries to get a drink, he more than likely winds up in something'sstomach. When it rains like this, hollows fill up like the one we justleft, and everything within running, hopping, and crawling distanceheads for it to get a bellyful of water. In another hour our camp willbe like something out of a nightmare, with every animal in the junglecoming down for a drink and starting to fight one another."
"Then if we stayed there--" Roger stopped.
"We'd be in the middle of it," said Astro grimly. "We wouldn't last twominutes."
Walking single file, with Astro in the lead, followed by Roger and thenTom, they stumbled through the pitch-black darkness. Astro refused toshine a light, for fear of being attacked by a desperate animal, moreeager for water than afraid of the light. They carried their shockblasters cocked and ready to fire. The rain continued, increasing infury until they were enveloped in a nearly solid wall of water. In alittle while the floor of the jungle became one continuous mudhole, witheach step taking them ankle-deep into the sucking mud. Their climb wasuphill, and the water from above increased, washing down around them intorrents. More than once one of the cadets fell, gasping for breath,into the dirty water, only to be jerked back to more solid footing bythe other two. Stumbling, their hands groping wildly in the dark, theypushed forward.
They were reaching higher ground when Astro stopped suddenly.
"Listen!" he whispered hoarsely.
The boys stood still, the rain pounding down on their plastic headgear,holding rifles ready and straining their ears for some sound other thanthe drumming of rain.
"I don't hear anything," said Roger.
"_Shhh!_" hissed Astro.
They waited, and then from a distance they heard the faint crashing ofunderbrush. Gradually it became more distinct until there was nomistaking its source. A large monster was moving through the jungle nearthem!
"What is it?" asked Tom, trying to keep his voice calm.
"A big one," said Astro. "A real big one. And I think it's heading thisway!"
"By the craters of Luna!" gasped Roger. "What do we do?"
"We either run, or stay here and try to blast it."
"Whatever you say, Astro," said Roger. "You're the boss."
"Same here," said Tom. "Call it."
Astro did not answer right away. He strained his ears, listening to themovements of the advancing monster, trying to ascertain the exactdirection the beast was taking. The noise became more violent, thecrashing more sharply defined as small trees were crushed to the ground.
"If only I knew exactly what it is!" said Astro desperately. "If it's atyranno, it walks on its hind legs and has its head way up in the trees,and could pass within ten feet of us and not see us. But if it's abronto, it has a long snakelike neck that he pokes all around and hewouldn't miss us at a hundred feet!"
"Make up your mind quick, big boy," said Roger. "If that thing gets anycloser, I'm opening up with this blaster. He might eat me, but I'll suremake his teeth rattle first!"
The ground began to shake as the approaching monster came nearer. Astroremained still, ears straining for some sound to indicate exactly whatwas crashing down on them.
Above them, the shrill scream of an anthropoid suddenly pierced the darknight as its tree home was sent crashing to the ground. There was agrowing roar and the crashing stopped momentarily.
"Let's get out of here," said Astro tensely. "That's a tyranno, but he'sdown on all fours now, looking for that monkey! Keep together and makeas little noise as you can. No talking. Keep your blasters and emergencylights ready. If he discovers us, you shine the light on his face Roger,and Tom and I will shoot. O.K.?"
Tom and Roger agreed.
"All right," said Astro, "let's go--and spaceman's luck!"