The _Starduster_ materialized just outside the atmosphere of the planet
Elysia, and fluttered erratically downward, like a wounded bird. A
hundred feet from the surface, the ship hesitated, shuddered throughout
her length, then dropped like a plummet, crashing heavily into a grove
of trees.
For Tee there was a long period of blessed darkness, of peace, of
non-remembering, then his mind clawed upward toward consciousness. The
fear and uncertainty were with him again--nagging, nibbling, gnawing at
his reason.
He fought to close his mind and drift back down into the darkness of
peace and forgetting, but contrarily the past marched in review before
his consciousness: The twin worlds of Thole revolving about each other
as he fled down the shallow ravine before the creeping wall of lava,
while the ancient mountain grunted and belched, and coughed up its
insides. The terrible pull of the uncharted black star as it tugged at
the feeble _Starduster_. The enervating heat and humidity of perpetually
cloudy Thymis. Pyramids of gleaming penryx crystals piled high as
mountains, and Yule Larson towering above the landscape, draining
gargantuan rainbows at a single gulp; striding like Paul Bunyan across
the land in mile-long strides and kicking over the pyramids of crystals,
laughing uproariously at the sport. And Jenner, grinning idiotically,
pointing a thick finger at him and repeating over and over: "Out of
their jurisdiction! Nothing to fear! Nothing to fear! Nothing to fear!
Noth--"
"Stop it! Stop it!" cried Tee, and a brilliant burst of light like a
thousand sky-rockets seemed to go off in his head. He shrieked like an
animal in agony, then fell back sobbing, bathed in perspiration.
Something cool touched his forehead and he pulled away violently, then
as his head cleared he opened his eyes slowly. A blur of shadows and
light shimmering indistinctly, then suddenly like the picture on a
visiphone the blurs coalesced and formed a clear image, and everything
was normal again, the fear still hovering close, but pushed back for the
time being.
A girl stood before him smiling rather uncertainly. The sweetness and
cleanness of that smile after his recent ordeal washed over his tortured
mind like a cooling astringent, and he smiled gratefully up at her. She
put a cool palm on his forehead and as she started to withdraw it he
clutched it in an emaciated fist and mumbled indistinctly through
cracked dry lips.
She smiled down at him and smoothed back his damp hair. She pulled up a
chair beside the bed and continued to stroke his hair until his eyes
closed in sleep.
He awoke ravenous and thirsty, but lay quietly for a time, luxuriating
in the feel of the clean soft sheets. He was in a simply but tastefully
decorated room. Three of the walls were made of transparent glass and
the warm golden rays of a type G sun bathed the room. Outside he could
see green rolling meadowland, broken here and there by sylvan groves. A
brilliantly colored bird swooped down and preened itself for a moment,
then raised its head and flooded the silence with melody. Faintly from a
grove of trees came an answering treble. The songbird cocked its head to
the side, listening, then swooped upward on wings of flashing color. A
small squirrellike creature bounded nervously up to the transparent wall
and sat on its haunches, surveying the room with bright beady eyes. As
Tee's ears attuned themselves he was suddenly aware of chirpings,
trebles, clearpitched whistles, and from somewhere in the depths of the
grove, a deep-pitched ga-rooph, ga-roomph.
* * * * *
A chubby little man with a round face and alert twinkling eyes entered
the room. He seemed to radiate happiness and contentment. "Well, I see
the patient's finally come around," he said, cheerfully.
"What happened?" asked Tee.
"Your ship crashed just beyond that grove."