Chapter III

An eternity seemed to have passed before he opened his eyes. He was conscious immediately of his left arm which was pinioned under a heavy rock. He wrenched it free and staggered erect, looking about dazedly.

His eyes opened in bewilderment. He lay on a shelf, a small escarpment projecting from the side of a cliff. Far below him, smashed and broken in two, amid jagged boulders, lay the prison ship. And sweeping on and on to the horizon was a dense matted jungle.

The trees resembled giant cat-tails. Without branches, the trunks towered up a full three hundred feet to form a huge green protruberance at the top. The rock of the cliff was neither igneous nor sedimentary. Instead it was smooth and almost translucent, like glass.

In the sky above, two suns blazed, one at the zenith, one a fiery ball dipping over the horizon. The air was warm and humid, and Standish knew the oxygen content must be almost the same as on Earth.

Nature-formed rock slabs led in stair formation down the cliff. While he stood there, slowly regaining his strength, the Earthman tried to trace the path of the crashing liner. He saw where it had struck, ripping open the entire side and casting him out. Then it had rolled end over end down into the ravine.

At length, Standish began his descent. The moment he swung his body over the edge to hang by his hands, he gave an exclamation of amazement. His body seemed to weigh nothing at all. This planet must be of smaller size than Earth, and, therefore, the gravitational attraction was less.

On the ravine floor he looked about him warily. Titanic rock, smooth and polished from erosion, littered the expanse but stopped at the jungle edge. The trees were all the same, of equal height and girth. They seemed to be arranged in corridors or galleries, the way between them dark and shadow-filled. Standish knew he must exercise caution until he could explore those depths.

The significance of his plight now swept upon him. He was alone on an alien planet. Even granting the Sirians would send out scouts to locate their prison ship when it failed to arrive, the chances of his being found were remote.

Yet on the other hand, he alone had been spared death. And he had come upon a world, one perhaps in millions, which had an atmosphere capable of supporting human life.

A sudden high-pitched drone broke the silence. Rising up from behind a pile of boulders a hideous winged shape shot toward him!

Half bird, half saurian, the thing's head was enormous with an inflated cobra hood. Even as the creature closed in with incredible speed, Standish wheeled and ran for the safety of the wrecked space ship.

He reached it and wormed his way through a gaping rent in the hull. The lizard-bird stopped short a few yards from the ship to stare perplexedly. Then with its queer droning cry still sounding, it zoomed into the air and flew out of sight.

"_Holy Hell!_"

Standish inhaled deeply. Dangers here were imminent. He must take steps to protect himself at once.

Although the liner lay on one side with the three entrances and emergency airlock underneath, the hole through which he had entered was the only opening. The hull bottom had been crushed by the great impact. Yet the glassite ports and vision shield of the pilot cuddy were unbroken.

Standish crawled back along the passage to the officers' quarters. On the well of one of the cabins he found two genithode pistols and a portable ray gun. He realized then that his first move toward self preservation lay in making the space ship livable and impregnable to outside attack.

He accomplished the latter by removing two bulkhead doors and jamming them across the opening in the hull. The last door he arranged on a swivel so that it could be locked from either side. Then, exhausted by the hours of activity, he fell asleep.

* * * * *

When he awoke and went outside, he saw that the two suns had exactly altered their position. The larger was at the zenith now; the smaller, low on the horizon. The temperature was unchanged, and the air was crystal clear, with only a few fleecy clouds floating overhead.

Standish ate a hearty breakfast, then strapped one genithode pistol about his waist and headed across the ravine to begin his first trip of exploration.

The moment he entered the jungle he was conscious of an electric something that passed before him, telegraphed from tree to tree. The strange plants, neither cyads nor conifers, seemed aware of his presence, whispering among themselves.

Experimentally he touched one of the trunks. It quivered, the bark split apart, and a spongy tentacle whipped out to drive straight at his throat. Standish escaped the clawing coil by inches. The tree quivered again, and the tentacle returned to its hiding place.

He kept well away from the trees after that. But as he went on, he saw other forms of life, all manifesting an evolution in mixed stages of development. There was a low plant, brilliant purple in color which gave off a mewling cry whenever he stepped on one of its fronds. There were small lizard-birds, and occasionally he saw bluish masses growing melon-like on the ground. These had a single eye in the center of a spongy body. They watched him as he passed.

Once a small animal darted out before him. But when he approached, the creature instead of running for safety, thrust one paw in the soft earth, and a whitish blossom leaped up on a wavering stalk from its head. Within the flick of an eye, the thing had changed from animal to plant life.

It was at high noon by his Earth-time watch that Standish emerged into the glade. He stopped short, staring, then uttered a short cry.

Before him were buildings, low mushroom-like buildings arranged in a semi-circle. Fashioned of the same translucent rock he had seen on the cliff, they resembled the igloos of his own north country. Overhead a network of thick yellowish wire ran back and forth, separated at intervals by heavy white insulators.

He saw then that the structures were old. The wires hung slack, and in many places were broken in two. A heavy silk-like grass had sprung up in thick clumps between the buildings.

With steps suddenly grown heavy, Standish advanced to the nearest house. The rotting remnants of a wooden door hung from elliptical hinges.

Inside was desertion. There were no furnishings of any kind. Over everything lay a heavy coating of dust.

There were twelve buildings in the glade, and he examined them one by one. In one he found a skeleton with a skull of enormous size and three leg appendages instead of two. In the last a strange looking machine, partially dismantled, was mounted on the wall. Every detail of it, from the mildewed control panel to the eccentric wheels and cogs were unfamiliar to him. On the floor was a stone tablet covered with hieroglyphics.

But that was all!

Depression swept over Standish as he mentally supplied the missing details. Some race had been here long ago; a foreign race, for the glade was undoubtedly a temporary camp. The wire entanglement and the machine had been constructed as some sort of protection against the animal life of this planet.

But whoever these people were, they had come and gone!