"Why, you—!" he exploded angrily.
"That was for not being a true Venusian!" snapped the leader. "Every son of Venus should understand his mother tongue!"
Astro bit his lip and fell silent.
The leader turned away, and shouting a command, started off through the jungle. Astro knew that the patrol had been ordered to move out, but he stood still, waiting for them to push him. They did. A hard jab in his naked side with the butt of a gun sent him stumbling forward in the center of the patrol.
Well, there was one consolation, he thought grimly. At least he wouldn't have to spend the night out in the jungle alone again!
Astro had expected a long march, but to his surprise, he was pushed along a well-worn jungle trail for only three hundred yards in from the tyrannosaurus's track. Finally they stopped before a huge teakwood tree. The leader pounded his rifle butt on the trunk three times.
Mystified, Astro watched a small section of the trunk open to reveal a modern vacuum-tube elevator shaft. He was pushed inside with the men of the patrol and the tree-trunk door was closed. The leader pushed a lever and the car dropped so suddenly that Astro nearly lost his balance. He judged that they must have fallen two hundred feet when the car stopped and another door opened. He was pushed out into a high-vaulted tunnel with cement walls.
"Hurry up!" snapped the leader.
The big cadet moved along the tunnel, followed by the patrol, turning from one tunnel into another, all of them slanting downhill. Astro guessed that he was being taken to some subterranean cave. He asked his captors where they were taking him.
"Don't talk!" snapped one of the men at his side.