II
Jupiter started cautiously for the river, his feet kicking up little puffs of the powdery ash left by the jets. When he reached the jungle, he halted again, unpleasant memories of the cannibal plants of Sirius III in the back of his mind. Then, setting his jaw, he forged ahead.
It was hot and green in the jungle. Sweat coursed down his face, plastered his tunic to his back.
He had gone less than thirty meters when he broke into a well traveled trail paralleling the river.
Jupiter Jones' nostrils flared. He came to an abrupt halt. Although he wasn't yet thirty-five, he was known as an old man in the special corps. He had survived partly because of an instinct of danger that was almost psychic.
He sensed it now in the sudden dryness of his mouth, the hammering of his heart as his adrenal glands surcharged his blood. Then away in the distance, he heard the winding of a horn!
At least, it sounded like a horn. His hands tightened about the carbine and he held his breath. But though he listened for some time, the sound wasn't repeated.
Gradually, the valley narrowed. Tall cliffs towered above him like the jaws of a vise. He had gone about five miles, the limit he had set himself for the first day, when he caught the sound of splashing mingled with laughter.
He stopped in midstride, his nerves atingle. The sounds went on punctuated by giggling screams. He slid the safety off the carbine, crept forward.
A hundred meters upstream the jungle on the opposite bank gave way to meadows that swelled up to meet the talus at the foot of a towering thousand foot cliff.