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.
I remembered, awakening again, in the grass, and then discovering the wreck of the black ship. And I remembered the second ship, the silverish one, that it had destroyed the first, and I remembered fleeing.
Now I was alone.
Elinor Brinton was alone, wandering across the fields of what world she even knew not.
I continued on.
About two hours, I would guess, after dawn, I came to a rock outcropping. Here, among the rocks, I found a tiny pool of rain water. I drank.
Nearby, to my delight, I found some berries to eat. They were good, and this filled me with some confidence.
The sun had now begun to climb in the sky and the air turned warmer. It showered once or twice, but I did not much mind. The air was bright and clear, the grass green, the sky a full blue with bright, white clouds.
When the sun was overhead I found some more berries and, this time, I ate my fill. Not far away, in another outcropping of rock, I found another pool of trapped rain water. It was a large pool, and I drank as much as I wanted. And then I washed my face.
Then I continued on.
I was not as frightened now, nor as displeased. It seemed to me not impossible that I might be able to live on this world.
It was beautiful.
I ran for a little ways, my hair flying behind me, leaping, and jumped and turned in the air, and laughed again. There was no one to see. I had not done that since I had been a little girl.
Then I stepped warily, for I saw, to one side, a patch of the dark, tendriled vinelike plants. I stood to one side and, fascinated, watched them rustle, sensing my presence. Several of the fanged seedpods lifted, like heads, sensing me, moving back and forth gently.
But I was no longer much afraid of them. I now knew their danger.
I continued on.
I saw no animals.
Here and there I found more berries, and, from time to time, more outcroppings of rock in which, almost invariably, I found water, doubtless trapped from recent rains.
But I was very lonely.
About the middle of the afternoon I sat down in the grass, in a gentle, sloping valley between two of the grassy hills.
I wonder what chance I might have of being rescued.
I smiled. I knew that this world was not mine. The ship that had brought me here, I knew, even with my limited knowledge of such matters, was far beyond the present capabilities of any of the civilizations of Earth. And yet the men who had captured me were surely human, or seemed so, as did those who manned the ship. Even those who had come from the silverish ship, with the exception of the tall, delicate golden creature, had seemed to be human, or much like humans. But the black ship had crashed. And the silverish ship had departed, perhaps for another world.
But I wanted to be rescued! I would be rescued! I must be rescued!
But I was not particularly frightened.
I could live on this world.
But I was lonely.
There is nothing to be frightened of, I told myself. There is food here, and water. I had found berries, and there were doubtless other things to eat, fruit and nuts.
I laughed, so pleased I was.
Then I cried, for I was so lonely. I was all alone.
Then, startled, I lifted my head. Drifting through the air, unmistakable, though coming from some distance, was the sound of a shout, a human voice. I leaped wildly to my feet and ran, stumbling up the hill. I came to its crest and looked wildly and cried out, and waved, and began to run down the side of the hill, stumbling and shouting and waving my arms. There were tears of joy in my eyes. "Stop! I shouted. "Stop!"
They were humans! I would be rescued! They would have food and shelter, and water! I was saved! I would be saved! Safe!
"Stop!" I shouted. "Stop!"
There was a single wagon. About it were some seven or eight men. There were no animals at the wagon. At the front of it, standing on the grass, were some fifteen or twenty girls, unclothed. They seemed immeshed in the harness. Two men stood near them. The wagon itself seemed damaged, partly stained with black. Its cover, of blue and yellow silk, was torn. Near the front of the wagon, too, was a short, fat man, clad in a robe of broadly striped blue and yellow silk. Startled, they turned to face me.
I ran down the hill, stumbling and laughing, toward them.
Two of the men ran forward to meet me. Another two, flanking these, began to run toward the top of the hill. They passed me.
"I'm Elinor Brinton," I told the men who had come to meet me. "I live in New York City. I'm lost."
One of the men, with two hands, seized my left wrist. The other man, with two hands, seized my right wrist. They swiftly left me, pulling me, not gently, down the hill between them, toward the group at the wagon.
The small, fat, short man, he, plump and paunchy in his robe of broadly striped blue and yellow silk, scarcely looked at me. He was more anxiously regarding the top of the hill, where his two men had gone. Crouching down, they were looking about, over the hill. Two others of his men had left the wagon and were looking about, some hundreds or so, on other sides. The girls near the front of the wagon, immeshed in the harness, seemed apprehensive. The fat man wore earrings, sapphires, pendant on golden stalks. His hair, long and black, did not seem cared for. It was dirty, not well combed. It was tied behind his head with a band of blue and yellow silk. He wore purple sandals, the straps of which were set with pearls. The sandals were now covered with dust. Some of the pearls were missing. On his small, fat hands, there were several rings. His hands, and nails, were dirty. I sensed that he might be, in his personal habits, rather fastidious. But, now, surely he did not seem so. Rather he seemed haggard, apprehensive. One of the men, a grizzled fellow, with one eye, came back from searching the fields some hundred yards or so from the wagon. I gathered he had found nothing. He called the fat, pudgy little man "Targo." Targo looked up to the top of the hill. One of the men there, standing a bit below its crest, waved to him, and shrugged, lifting his arms in the air. He had seen nothing.