I was wild with hunger. I opened a cabinet. It was empty, save for some cups. I screamed and began to throw the cups, which were metal, at the animal, hysterically. It snarled and, the cups banging behind it on the metal of the wall, darted past me. Its silken body struck my leg as it ran from the galley. It had a long, whipping, hairless tail.
I shut the door of the galley, crying.
I opened all the cabinets, all the drawers and boxes. Everything edible, it seemed, had been taken. I would have to starve.
Then I sat down on the floor of the steel galley and wept. When I had cried, I went to the flat, metal container, that sprung open and exposed, that from which the ugly, terrible, silken animal had been feeding.
Choking, almost vomiting, I fed myself.
It was meat. It was thick, grainy, something like beef, but it was not beef. With my hands and fingers I scratched and scraped every particle of food from the container. There was not enough. I devoured it. I sucked even my fingers, for every last bit of juice.
I stood up, refreshed and stronger. I looked about, dismally. In my search for found I had found some utensils, but no knives, nothing to use as a weapon. Then it seemed to me that I had remained too long at the ship. I had not found bodies, though I had found, in one place, on a cot, a stain of blood. If there had been survivors, they might return. I became frightened. I had forgotten everything in my search for food, and my eating.
I opened the galley door.
I heard a bird twittering.
It was a small bird, about the size of a sparrow, but it looked a bit like a tiny owl, with tufts over its eyes. It was purplish. It looked at me quizzically. It was perched on some split piping.
It looked at me for a moment, and then, with a flurry of wings, darted out of the ship.
I, too, fled the ship.
Outside, everything was calm. I stopped. The dark forest was behind the ship, in the distance. The fields extended to the right. Somewhat more to the left, in the distance, in the fields was the yellowish thicket I had seen earlier. The sun's position had altered, and the shadows were longer. I judged it to be in the afternoon, on this world. It was not cold. If this world had seasons, as I supposed it must, I would have guessed it was in the spring of the year. I wondered how long the year might be.
Outside, looking about more closely, I found some trampled grass, as though things had been placed there, perhaps earlier in the morning, boxes and such. In one place, I found some strands of woman's hair. in another, there was a dark, reddish-brown stain on the grass.
I must get away!
I turned toward the forest, but its darkness frightened me.
Suddenly, from it, through the clear air, from far off, there was drifted a roar, as of some large animal.
I turned away from the forest and began to run across the field, blindly toward the horizon, over the grass.
I had not run far when I stopped, for, in the sky, in the distance, I saw a swift, silverish, disklike object. It was moving rapidly and in my direction. I threw myself down in the grass. I covered my head with my hands.
In moments nothing happened. I lifted my head.
The silverish disk had now landed near the rent, half buried black ship. The black ship itself glowed redly, but, in a few seconds, the glow faded. Then hatches opened on the silverish ship and men leaped out. They carried tubes, or wands, of some sort, perhaps weapons. They, like the men of the black ship, wore tunics but these were of some shimmering, purplish material. Their heads were shaved. Some of the men deployed themselves about the ship' others, carrying their weapons, entered.
Then, to my horror, a large, golden creature, six-legged, supporting itself on its four long back legs, almost upright, stepped from the ship. It had large eyes, and, I thought, antennae. It moved swiftly, delicately, almost daintily, toward the ship and, bending down, disappeared inside. Some of the men followed it in.
In perhaps less than a minute the creature, and the men, emerged from the ship' they, together with their fellows, then swiftly re-entered the silverish ship. The hatches slid shut and the ship, almost simultaneously, lifted itself, silently, some hundred feet from the grass. Then it moved above the wreck of the black ship. There was a sudden, bluish flash, and a blast of almost incandescent heat. I put my head down. When I raised my head the silverish, disklike ship was gone. And so, too, was the wreck of the black ship. When I dared I went back to the site of the wreck. The depression in which it had lain, and the earth around, for some tens of feet, was scorched. But I could find nothing of the ship, not a bolt or a bit of quartz, not a thread of metal or a scrap of wire.
From the distant forest I heard again the roar of some great animal. Once more I turned and fled.
When I came to the small stream, at which I had drunk earlier, I waded. The water was waist deep.
Something struck, stinging my ankle. I screamed and splashed ashore. Then I was running again.
I must have run, and walked, and stumbled on for hours.
Once I stopped to rest. I lay, panting on the grass. My eyes were closed. I heard a rustle. I turned my head and opened my eyes. I watched it in terror. It was vinelike, and tendriled, leaved. A blind, split, podlike head was moving toward me, lifting itself slightly from the ground, moving from side to side. Inside the pod I could see, fastened in the upper surface, too long, curved, thornlike fangs. I screamed, leaping to my feet. The thing suddenly struck at me. It tore through the fabric of the slacks on my right leg. I pulled my leg away, tearing away the cloth. It struck again and again, as though sensing me by smell or heat, but it was rooted, and I was beyond its reach. I threw back my head, my hands to the sides of my head, and screamed. I heard another rustle, near me. I looked about, wildly, I saw the other plant, and then two others, too. And then another. Sweating, picking my way, I fled from the area. Then I was into the open grass again. I continued running, and walking, for hours. At last it grew cool, and dark.
I could go no further.
I dropped to the grass.
It was a dark, beautiful, windy night. There were some white clouds scudding across the sky. I looked up at the stars. Never before had I seen stars look so beautiful, as bright and burning in the blackness of the night. "How beautiful is this world," I said to myself, "how beautiful!" I lay on my back and looked up at the stars, and the moons.
There were three moons.
I slept.
6 I Encounter Targo, Who Is a Slaver
I awoke in the morning, near dawn. It was very cold, and gray and damp. I was terribly hungry. My body was stiff, and ached. I wept. I sucked dew from the long grass. I was alone. My clothes were wet. I was miserable. I was alone. I was alone. I was frightened. I was hungry. I wept.
As far as I knew I might be the only individual on this world. The ship had crashed here, but this may not have been its world. The other ship had come, to destroy the first, but this might not be its world either. And I had seen no survivors of the crash. And the other ship had departed. As far as I knew I might be the only living human being on this world.
I stood up.
Around me, soft, undulating, glistening with dew in the dim light, I could see nothing but grassy fields, seemingly endless fields, rolling and rolling, sweeping away from me on all sides toward horizons that might be empty. I was lonely.
I walked on in the midst of the fields.
I heard the song of a bird, fresh in the morning. Near me, startling me, there was a tiny movement in the grass and a small, furry creature, with two large gnawing teeth, skittered past.
I continued on.
I would surely starve. There was nothing to eat. I cried.
Once, looking up, I saw a flight of large, white, broad-winged birds. They seemed lonely, too, high in the gray sky. I wondered if they, too, were hungry. I trudged on. I could not understand what had happened. There had been so much, that was so different. I remembered awakening on the August morning, showering. I remembered the men, my attempts to escape, my flight through the woods on Earth, the ship, the plastic tube in which I had been placed.