Tis had climbed into the gun turret in the cabin's narrow rear but he understood nothing of how to fire that weapon. Rurak regretted that he had not brought along one of his own comrades. Perhaps together they could have driven off the thuftars.
The wing bucked and spun in a tight circle while Rurak let his guns spray at their ultimate capacity. Thuftars fell, many of them, but scores of them remained. They were too many. Rurak dove away then, sounding for the ground. Perhaps under the trees of the hilltop beside the Indra he could take shelter—drive the scaly beings off.
Blue lacy fronds of the hilltop forest were almost beneath his landing gear when he felt the first impact of a diving thuftar's weight. Again and again the wing quivered as more thuftars struck and clung. The controls were frozen. Slowly the wing nosed over and sideslipped, and then the upper branches of the forest swallowed them all.
Rurak saw a network of interlacing great branches and thick vines snaking through them. A wall of blue jungle came smashing inward against the wing's frail cabin and then a prolonged splintering crash sounded as though from a great distance.
Curiously he watched himself grope feebly among the shattered debris of what had been the instrument panel for the radiophone. He laughed even as he watched. The wing was a hopeless wreck.
Tis, the Yzap native, crawled out of the shattered turret and helped Rurak to climb into the vine-latticed branches about them. He hoped that Rurak would remember to take along his rocket pistol and some shells and was pleased to see Rurak obediently follow his will. It was strange to float here impartially a few feet above his own dazed body. There was no pain, just a dull aching void far back in his brain.
He watched the figures of Rurak Dun and Tis slowly descending and somehow he was descending with them. They dropped a last few feet to the mossy soil beneath the great trees and he felt the jar jolt up to his brain. The misty something that seemed to have separated him from his body was dissolving. He could feel pain and taste the salty warmth of sweat in his mouth.
An ominous black wall of metal reared itself out of the jungle a few yards away and he sensed that here was the handiwork of some intelligent creature. There was an oval window of transparent material staring like some empty eyesocket out of the wall at him. Memory jabbed feebly at him and presently he recalled what this must be.... The Indra!
Voices were shouting something in a tongue that was familiar; whether Yzap or Rurak's own beloved Martian he could not tell. And then he saw a knot of dark shapes, red insect men, crawling toward him through the blue jungle. But it was not the sudden appearance of these creatures that made Rurak gape in wonderment. For circling to a landing above the heads of the insect men was a small golden chariot drawn by two gigantic crimson birds. And standing in the sky-chariot was the most beautiful woman Rurak Dun had ever seen. As the queer conveyance swooped gracefully to rest in the small clearing the girl stepped out and walked swiftly toward them. Her amazingly golden hair floated freely about her rounded, shapely shoulders as she approached the dumb-founded group. Rurak Dun remembered that he was still gaping rudely. He colored, and started an apology, but with upraised hand, the girl brushed it aside.