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, sinc