CHAPTER 5

"Wow!" exclaimed Roger.

"Jumping Jupiter!" commented Tom.

"Blast my jets!" roared Astro.

Rex Sinclair smiled as he maneuvered the sleek black space yacht in a

tight circle a thousand feet above the Titan crystal roof of his

luxurious home in the heart of the wild Venusian jungle.

"She's built out of Venusian teak," said Sinclair. "Everything but the

roof. I wanted to keep the feeling of the jungle around me, so I used

the trees right out of the jungle there." He pointed to the sea of dense

tropical growth that surrounded the house and cleared land.

The ship nosed up for a thousand yards and then eased back, smoothly

braked, to a concrete ramp a thousand yards from the house. The

touchdown was as gentle as a falling leaf, and when Sinclair opened the

air lock, a tall man in worn but clean fatigues was waiting for them.

"Howdy, Mr. Sinclair," he called, a smile on his lined, weather-beaten

face. "Have a good trip?"

"Fine trip, George," replied Sinclair, climbing out of the ship. "I want

you to meet some friends of mine. Space Cadets Tom Corbett, Roger

Manning, and Astro. They're going to stay with us during their summer

leave while they hunt for tyranno. Boys, this is my foreman, George

Hill."

The boys shook hands with the thick-set, muscular man, who smiled

broadly. "Glad to meet you, boys. Always wanted to talk to someone from

the Academy. Wanted to go there myself but couldn't pass the physical.

Bad eyes."

Reaching into the ship, he began lifting out their equipment. "You chaps

go on up to the house now," he said. "I'll take care of your gear."

With Sinclair leading the way, the boys slowly walked up a flagstone

path toward the house, and they had their first chance to see a Venusian

plantation home at close range.

The Sinclair house stood in the middle of a clearing more than five

thousand yards square. At the edges, like a solid wall of green

vegetation, the Venusian jungle rose more than two hundred feet. It was

noon and the heat was stifling. They were twenty-six million miles

closer to the sun, and on the equator of the misty planet. While Astro,

George, and Sinclair didn't seem to mind the temperature, Tom and Roger

were finding it unbearable.

"Can you imagine what it'll be like in the house with that crystal

roof!" whispered Roger.

"I'll bet," replied Tom. "But as soon as the sun drops out of the

zenith, it should cool off some."

When the group stepped up onto the porch, two house servants met them

and took their gear. Then Sinclair and the foreman ushered the cadets

inside. They were surprised to feel a distinct drop in temperature.

"Your cooling unit must be pretty large, Mr. Sinclair," commented Tom,

looking up at the crystal roof where the sun was clearly visible.

Sinclair smiled. "That's special crystal, mined on Titan at a depth of

ten thousand feet. It's tinted, and shuts out the heat and glare of the

sun."

George then left to lay out their gear for their first hunt the next

morning, and Sinclair took them on a tour of the house. They walked

through long corridors looking into all the rooms, eventually winding up

in the kitchen, and the three boys marveled at the simplicity yet

absolute perfection of the place. Every modern convenience was at hand

for the occupant's comfort. When the sun had dropped a little, they all

put on sunglasses with glareproof eye shields and walked around the

plantation. Sinclair showed them his prize-winning stock and the vast

fields of crops. Aside from the main house, there were only four other

buildings in the clearing. They visited the smallest, a cowshed.

"Where do your field hands live, Mr. Sinclair?" asked Tom, as they

walked through the modern, spotless, milking room.

"I don't have any," replied the planter. "Do most of the work with

machinery, and George and the houseboys do what has to be done by hand."

As they left the shed and started back toward the main house they came

abreast of a small wooden structure. Thinking they were headed there,

Roger started to open the door.

"Close that door!" snapped Sinclair. Roger jerked back. Astro and Tom

looked at the planter, startled by the sharpness in his voice.

Sinclair smiled and explained, "We keep some experiments on different

kinds of plants in there at special low temperatures. You might have let

in hot air and ruined something."

"I'm sorry, sir," said Roger. "I didn't know."

"Forget it," replied the planter. "Well, let's get back to the house.

We're having an early dinner. You boys have to get started at four

o'clock in the morning."

"Four o'clock!" exclaimed Roger.

"Why?" asked Tom.

"We have to go deep into the thicket," Astro explained, using the local

term for the jungle, "so that at high noon we can make camp and take a

break. You can't move out there at noon. It gets so hot you'd fall on

your face after fifteen minutes of fighting the creepers."

"Everything stops at noon," added Sinclair. "Even the tyrannosaurus. You

have to do your traveling in the cool of the day, early and late. Six

hours or so will take you far enough away from the plantation to find

tracks, if there are any."

"Tell me, Mr. Sinclair," asked Roger suddenly, "is this the whole

plantation?" He spread his hands in a wide arc, taking in the clearing

to the edge of the jungle.

Sinclair grinned. "Roger, it'd take a man two weeks to go from one

corner of my property to another. This is just where I live. Three years

ago I had five hundred square miles under cultivation."

Back in the house, they found George setting the table on the porch and

his wife busy in the kitchen. Mrs. Hill was a stout woman, with a

pleasant face and a ready smile. With very little ceremony, the cadets,

Sinclair, George, and his wife sat down to eat. The food was simple

fare, but the sure touch of Mrs. Hill's cooking and the free use of

delicate Venusian jungle spices added exotic flavor, new but immensely

satisfying to the three hungry boys, a satisfaction they demonstrated by

cleaning their plates quickly and coming back for second helpings.

Astro, of course, was not happy until he had polished off his fourth

round. Mrs. Hill beamed with pleasure at their unspoken compliment to

her cooking.

After the meal, Mrs. Hill stacked the dishes and put them into a small

carrier concealed in the wall. Pressing a button, near the opening, she

explained, "That dingus takes them to the sink, washes them, dries them,

and puts everything in its right place. That's the kind of modern living

I like!"

As the sun dropped behind the wall of the jungle and the sky darkened,

they all relaxed. Sinclair and George smoked contentedly, Mrs. Hill

brought out some needle point, and the three cadets rested in

comfortable contour chairs. They chatted idly, stopping only to listen

to the wild calls of birds and animals out in the jungle as George, or

Sinclair, identified them all. George told of his experiences on

tyrannosaurus hunts, and Astro described his method of hunting as a boy.

"I was a big kid," he explained. "And since the only way of earning a

living was by working, I found I could combine business with pleasure. I

used to hitch rides over the belt and parachute in to hunt for baby

tyrannos." He grinned and added, "When I think back, I wonder how I ever

stayed in one piece."

"Land sakes!" exclaimed Mrs. Hill. "It's a wonder you weren't eaten

alive! Those tyrannos are horrible things."

"I was almost a meal once," confessed Astro sheepishly, and at the

urging of the others he described the incident that had cured him of

hunting alone in the jungles of Venus with only a low-powered shock

blaster.

"If I didn't get it at the base of the brain where the nerve centers

aren't so well protected with the first shot, I was in trouble," he

said. "I took a lot of chances, but was careful not to tangle with a

mama or papa tyrannosaurus. I'd stalk the young ones. I'd wait for him

to feed and then let him have it. If I was lucky, I'd get him with one

shot, but most of the time I'd just stun him and have to finish him off

with a second blast. Then I'd skin him, take the hams and shoulders, and

get out of there fast before the wild dogs got wind of the blood. I'd

usually hunt pretty close to a settlement where I could get the meat

frozen. After that, I'd just have to call a couple of the big

restaurants in Venusport and get the best price. I used to make as much

as fifty credits on one kill."

"How would you get the meat to Venusport?" asked Roger, who, for all his

braggadocio, was awed by his unit mate's calm bravery and skill as a

hunter.

"The restaurant that bought it would send a jet boat out for it and I'd

ride back with it. After a while the restaurant owners got to know me

and would give me regular orders. I was trying to fill a special order

on that last hunt."

"What happened?" asked Tom, equally impressed with Astro's life as a boy

hunter.

"I had just about finished hunting in a section near a little settlement

on the other side of Venus," began the big cadet, "but I thought there

might be one more five-hundred-pound baby around, so I dropped in."

Astro paused and grinned. "I didn't find a baby, I found his mother! She

must have weighed twenty-five or thirty tons. Biggest tyranno I've ever

seen. She spotted me the same time I saw her and I didn't even stop to

fire. I never could have dented her hide. I started running and she came

after me. I made it to a cave and went as far back inside as I could.

She stuck her head in after me, and by the craters of Luna, she was only

about three feet away, with me backed up against a wall. She tried to

get farther in, opened her mouth, and snapped and roared like twenty

rocket cruisers going off at once."

[Illustration: "_She tried to get farther into the cave._"]

Tom gulped and Roger's eyes widened.

"I figured there was only one thing to do," continued Astro. "Use the

blaster, even though it couldn't do much damage. I let her have one

right in the eye!" Astro shook his head and laughed. "You should have

seen her pull her head out of that cave! I couldn't sleep for months

after that. I used to dream that she was sticking her head in my window,

always getting closer."

"Did the blaster do any damage at all?" asked Sinclair.

"Oh, yes, sir," said Astro. "I was close enough for the heat charge from

the muzzle to get her on the side of the head. Nothing fatal, but she's

probably still out there in the jungle more ugly than ever with half a

face."

The group fell silent, each thinking of how he would have reacted under

similar conditions; each silently thankful that it hadn't happened to

him. Finally Mrs. Hill rose and said good night, and George excused

himself to take a last look at the stock. Remembering their early call

for the next morning, the cadets said good night to Sinclair and retired

to their comfortable rooms. In bed at last, each boy stretched full

length on his bed and in no time was sound asleep.

It was still dark, an hour and a half before the sun would burst over

the top of the jungle, when Sinclair went to the cadets' room to rouse

them. He found them already up and dressed in their jungle garb. Each

boy was wearing skin-tight trousers and jerseys made of double strength

space-suit cloth and colored a dark moldy green. A hunter dressed in

this manner and standing still could not be seen at twenty paces. The

snug fit of the suit was protection against thorns and snags that could

find no hold on the hard, smooth-surfaced material.

After a hearty breakfast the three cadets collected their gear, the

paralo-ray pistols, the shock rifles, and the small shoulder packs of

synthetic food and camping equipment. Each boy also carried a two-foot

jungle knife with a compass inlaid in the handle. A helmet of clear

plastic with a small mesh-covered opening in the face covered each boy's

head. Dressed as they were, they could walk through the worst part of

the jungles and not get so much as a scratch.

"Well," commented Sinclair, looking them over, "I guess you boys have

everything. I'd hate to be the tyranno that crosses your path!"

The boys grinned. "Thanks for everything, sir," said Tom. "You've been a

lot of help."

"Think nothing of it, Tom. Just bring back a pair of tyranno scalps!"

"Where are Mr. and Mrs. Hill?" asked Astro. "We'd like to say good-by to

them."

"They left before you got up," replied Sinclair. "They're taking a few

days off for a visit to Venusport."

The boys pulled on their jungle boots. Knee-length and paper-thin, they

were nonetheless unpenetrable even if the boys should step on one of the

needle-sharp ground thorns.

They waved a last good-by to their host, standing on the steps of the

big house, and moved across the clearing to the edge of the jungle wall.

As the cadets approached the thick tangle of vines, the calls and

rustling noises from the many crawling things hidden in the forbidding

thicket slowly died down. They walked along the edge of the tangle of

jungle creepers until they found an opening and stepped through.

[Illustration: _They were completely surrounded by the jungle_]

After walking only ten feet they were completely surrounded by the

jungle and could not even see the clearing they had just left. It was

dark, the network of vines, the thick tree trunks and rank growing

vegetation shutting out the sun, leaving the interior of the jungle

strangely plunged in gloom. Astro moved ahead, followed by Roger, with

Tom bringing up the rear. They followed the path they had entered, as

far as it went, and then began cutting their way through the underbrush,

stopping only to cut notches in the trees to mark their passage.

Their long-bladed knives slicing through vines and brush easily, Tom,

Roger, and Astro hacked their way deeper and deeper into the mysterious

and suffocating green world.

[Illustration]