Tom and Major Connel stiffened and looked around, the unconscious form of Roger stretched between them on the litter. From the jungle around them, green-clad Nationalists suddenly emerged, brandishing their guns.
"Put Roger down," muttered Connel quietly. "Don't try anything."
"Very well, sir," replied Tom, and they lowered the litter to the ground gently.
"Raise your hands!" came the second command from a man who appeared directly in front of them.
Standing squarely in front of them, the little man said something in the Venusian dialect and waited, but Connel and Tom remained silent.
"I guess you don't speak the Venusian tongue," he sneered. "So I'll have to use the disgusting language of Earth!" He looked down at the unconscious form of Roger. "What happened to him?"
"He was injured in a fight with a tyrannosaurus," replied Connel. "May I remind you that you and these men are holding guns on an officer of the Solar Guard. Such a crime is punishable by two years on a prison asteroid!"
"You'll be the one to go to prison, my stout friend!" The man laughed. "A little work in the shops will take some of that waistline off you!"
"Are you taking us prisoner?"
"What do you think?"
"I see." Connel seemed to consider for a moment. "Who are you?" he asked.
"I am Drifi, squad officer of the jungle patrol."
"Connel, Senior Officer, Solar Guard," acknowledged Connel. "If we are being held prisoner, I wish to make a request."
"Prisoners don't make requests," said Drifi, and then added suspiciously, "What is it?"
"See that this man"--Connel indicated Roger--"is given medical attention at once."
Drifi eyed the major cautiously.
"I make this request as one officer to another," said Connel. "A point of honor between opponents."
Drifi's eyes gleamed visibly at the word officer, and Tom almost grinned at Connel's subtle flattery.
"You--and you," snapped Drifi at the green-clad men around them, "see that this man is taken to the medical center immediately!" Two men jumped to pick up the litter.
"Thank you," said Connel. "Now will you be so kind as to tell me what this is all about?"
"You'll find out soon enough. We have a special way of treating spies."
"Spies!" roared Connel. The officer sounded so indignant that Tom was almost fooled by his tone. "We're hunters! One of our party is lost here in the jungle. We were searching for him when we were attacked by a tyrannosaurus. During the fight, this man was injured. We're not spies!"
Drifi shrugged his shoulders, and barking a command to his men, turned into the jungle. Connel and Tom were forced to follow.
They were taken to the giant teakwood that Astro had seen, and Tom and Connel watched silently as the door opened, revealing the vacuum tube. The men crowded into the car and it dropped to the lower level.
Following the same twisting turns in the tunnels, Tom and Connel were brought to the armory and saw the men surrender their weapons and change their helmets and shoes. They tried desperately to get a look at the faces of the men around them while the headgear was being changed, but, as before, the men were careful to keep their faces averted.
Continuing down the tunnel, Connel tried to speak to Drifi again. "I would appreciate it greatly, sir," he said in his most formal military manner, "if you could give me any news about the other man of our party. Have you seen him?"
Drifi did not answer. He marched stiffly ahead, not even bothering to look at Connel.
As they neared the exit, Connel drifted imperceptibly closer to Tom and whispered out of the side of his mouth, "Keep your eyes open for ships. Count as many as you can. How many are armed, their size, and so on. Look for ammunition dumps. Check radar and communications installations. Get as much information as you can, in case only one of us can escape."
"Yes, sir," whispered Tom. "Do you think they might have Astro?"
"It's a good guess. We were following the tyrannosaurus's trail when they caught us, and I'm pretty sure Astro had been doing the same thing."
"Stop that talking!" snapped Drifi, suddenly whirling on them. "You," he shouted at one of the guards, "get up here and keep them apart!"
A guard stepped quickly between Tom and Connel, and the conversation ended.
At the exit Connel and Tom stopped involuntarily at the sight before them. Astro had entered the canyon near twilight, but the two spacemen got a view of the Nationalists' base under the full noon sun. Connel gasped and muttered a space oath. Tom turned halfway to his superior and was starting to speak when both were shoved rudely ahead. "Keep moving," a guard growled.
As they walked, their eyes flicked over the canyon, alert for details. Tom counted the ships arrayed neatly on the spaceport some distance away, then counted others outside repair shops with men scurrying over them like so many ants. Near the center of the canyon the bare trunk of a giant teakwood soared skyward, a gigantic communications tower. Tom scanned the revolving antenna, and from its shape and size deduced the power and type of radar being used at the base. He admitted to himself that the Nationalists had the latest and best. Connel was busy too, noting buildings of identical design scattered around the canyon floor that were too small to be spaceship hangars or storage depots. He guessed that they were housings for vacuum-tube elevator shafts that led to underground caves.
The canyon echoed with the splutter of arc welders, the slow banging of iron workers, the cough and hissing of jet sleds, the roar of activity that meant deadly danger to the Solar Alliance. Connel noticed as he moved across the canyon floor that the workers were in good spirits. The morale of the rebels, thought the space officer, was good! Too good!
At a momentary halt in their march, when Drifi stopped to speak with a sentry, Tom and Connel found an opportunity to speak again.
"I've counted a dozen big converted freighters on the blast ramps, sir," whispered Tom hurriedly. "Three more being repaired, nearly finished, and there are about fifty smaller ships, all heavily armed."
"That checks with my count, Tom," replied Connel hurriedly. "What do you make of the radar?"
"At least as good as we have!"
"I thought so, too! If a Solar Guard squadron tried to attack this base now, they'd be spotted and blasted out of space!"
"What about stores, sir?" asked Tom. "I didn't see anything like a supply depot."
Connel told him of the small buildings which he believed housed the elevator shafts to underground storerooms. "Only one thing is missing!" he concluded.
"What's that, sir?"
"The nuclear chambers where they produce ammunition for their fleet."
"It must be underground too, sir," said Tom. "There isn't a building in the canyon that's made of concrete and steel."
"Right. Either that, or it's back up there in the cliffs in one of those tunnels!" The officer snorted. "By the stars, Corbett, this place is an atom bomb ready to go off in the lap of the Solar Alliance."
"What are we going to do, sir?" asked Tom. "So far, it looks as if it's going to be tough to get out again."
"We'll have to wait for a break, Tom," sighed Connel.
"I hope they've taken good care of Roger," said the cadet in a low voice. "And I hope they've got Astro."
"Watch it," warned Connel. "Drifi's coming back. Remember, if we're separated and you do manage to escape, get back to Sinclair's. Contact Commander Walters and tell him everything that's happened. The code name for direct emergency contact through Solar Guard communications center in Venusport is Juggernaut!"
"Juggernaut!" repeated Tom in a whisper. "Very well, sir. But I sure hope we aren't separated."
"Well have to take what comes. Sh! Here he comes."
"All right, let's go," said the patrol leader.
They continued across the canyon until they reached a four-story wooden structure without windows. Drifi opened a small door and motioned them inside.
"What is this?" Connel demanded.
"This is where you'll stay until Lactu sends for you. Right now, he is in conference with the Division Leaders."
"Divisions of what? Ships? Men?" asked Connel offhandedly, trying not to show any more than idle curiosity.
"You'll find out when the Solar Guard comes looking for a fight," said Drifi. "Now get in there!"
Tom and Connel were shoved inside and the door closed behind them. It was pitch black, and they couldn't see an inch in front of their faces. But both Tom and Connel knew instantly that they were not alone.
"Come on. Gimme that wrench!" barked Astro. The little man beside him handed up the wrench and leaned over the side of the engine casing to watch Astro pull the nut tight. "Now get over there and throw on the switch," snapped the big cadet.
The little man scurried over to one side of the vast machine shop and flipped on the wall switch. There was an audible hum of power and then slowly the machine Astro had just worked on began to speed up, soon revving up to ten thousand revolutions per minute.
"Is it fixed?" demanded the shop foreman, coming up beside Astro.
"Yeah, she's fixed. But I don't work on another job until you give me another helper. That asteroid head you gave me doesn't know a--" Astro stopped. Something out beyond the double doors caught his eye. It was the sight of Tom and Connel entering the wooden building.
"What's the matter with him?" demanded the foreman.
"Huh? What? Oh--ah--well, he's O.K., I guess," Astro stammered. "It's just that he's a little green, that's all."
"Well, get to work on that heater in chamber number one. It's burned a bearing. Change it, and hurry up about it!"
"Sure--sure!" The big cadet grinned.
"Say, what's the matter with you?" asked the foreman, staring at him suspiciously.
"I'm O.K.," replied Astro quickly.
The foreman continued to stare at Astro as the big cadet turned to his assistant nonchalantly. "Come on, genius, get that box of tools over to the heater!" he shouted. As he turned away, the foreman nodded to the green-clad guard, who followed closely behind Astro, his hand on the butt of his paralo-ray gun.
Seeing the little assistant struggling with the heavy box, Astro stopped and picked it out of his arms with one hand. Grinning, he held it straight out and then slowly brought it around in a complete circle over his head, still holding it with only one hand. The guard's eyes widened behind his plastic helmet at this show of strength.
"You're very strong, Astro," he said, "but you are altogether too contemptuous of a fellow Venusian." He nodded to the small assistant.
"That's right," said Astro. His grin hardened and he leaned forward slightly, balancing on the balls of his feet. "That goes for you and every other green space monkey in this place. Drop that ray gun and I'll tie you up in a knot!"
Frightened, the guard pulled the paralo-ray gun out of its holster, but Astro quickly stepped in and sank his fist deep into the guard's stomach. The man dropped like a stone. Astro grinned and turned his back to walk toward the heater. He heard the other workers begin to chatter excitedly, but he didn't pay any attention to them.
"Astro! Astro!" His little assistant ran up beside him. "You hit a division guard!"
"I did, huh?" replied the big cadet in an innocent tone. "What kind of a division?"
"Don't you know? Venus has been divided into areas called divisions. Each division has a chief, and every Venusian citizen in that division is under his personal jurisdiction."
"Uh-huh," said Astro vaguely. He climbed up on to the machine and began taking off the outer casing.
"The best men in the division are made the Division Chief's personal guards."
"What happens to the second and third and fourth best men?"
"Well, they're given jobs here according to their knowledge and capacities."
"What was your job before you came here?"
"I was a field worker on my chief's plantation."
"Why did you join?" asked Astro. "Did you think it better to have Venusians ruling Venus, instead of belonging to the Solar Alliance?"
"I didn't think about it at all," admitted the little man. "Besides, I didn't join. I was recruited. My chief just put me on a ship and here I am."
"Well, what do you think of it, now that you're here?" asked Astro. He began running his fingers along a few of the valves, apparently paying no attention to the guard who was just now staggering to his feet.
The little assistant paused and considered Astro's question. Finally he replied weakly, "I don't know. It's all right, I guess. It's better here in the shops than in the caves where the others go."
"Others? What others?"
"Those that don't like it," replied the man. "They're sent to the caves."
"What caves?"
"Up in the cliff. The tunnels--" He suddenly stopped when an angry shout echoed in the machine shop. The guard Astro had hit rushed up. He turned to several workmen near by. "Take this blabbering idiot to the caves!" he ordered angrily.
Astro slowly climbed down from the machine and faced the guard menacingly. As the guard's finger tightened on the trigger of his paralo-ray gun, the foreman suddenly rushed up and knocked the gun out of his hand. "You fool! You stiffen this man and we'll be held up in production for hours!"
"So what!" sneered the guard.
"Lactu and your Division Chief will tell you so what!" barked the foreman. He turned to Astro. "And as for you, if you try anything like that again, I'll--"
"You won't do a thing," said Astro casually. "I'm the best man you've got and you know it. Lactu knows it too. So don't threaten me and keep these green space jerks away from me! I'll fix your machines, because I want to, not because you can make me!"
The foreman eyed the big cadet curiously. "Because you want to? You've changed your tune since you first came here."
"Maybe," said Astro. "Maybe I like what I see around here. It all depends."
"Well, make up your mind later," barked the foreman. "Now get that machine fixed!"
"Sure," said Astro simply, turning back to the machine and starting to whistle. Strangely enough, he was happy. He was a prisoner, but he felt better than he had in days. Just knowing that Tom and Major Connel were right across the canyon gave him a surge of confidence. Working over the machine quickly, surely, the big cadet began to formulate a plan. Now was the time! They were together again. Now was the time to escape!
