“Cracked—just cracked. Oh, where IS he, anyway? Kimmm-eee, you AN-swer!”
Something died in him. It wasn’t a faucet, it WAS a radium pistol. He looked at his sisters with dismay. They weren’t really his sisters. They were Therns, with their yellow hair and their pale skins. He and John Carter and Tars Tarkas had fought them many times, piling their bodies for barricades and weaving a flashing pattern of skillful swords in the shifting light of the two moons.
“Kimmmm—eeee Mom’s going to be mad at you! Answer us!”
If only Tars Tarkas would come now. If only the great Green Jeddak would come splashing across the stream on his huge thoat, his two swords clashing——
“He’s up there in that clump of willows—hiding!”
“Kimmy! You come down here this instant!”
The Valley Dor was blurring, fading. The Golden Cliffs were turning into sandy, river-worn banks. The faucet felt heavy in his grimy hand. He shivered, not with horror now. With cold.
He walked slowly out of the willows, stumbling a little over the rocks.
He lay like an embryo in the viscera of the ship, protected and quite alone. The plastic sac contained him, fed him; and the rocket, silent now, coursed through the airless deep like a questing thought. Time was measured by the ticking of the telemeters and the timers, but Kimball slept insulated and complete.