"They're surely not afraid. I expected they might blast us with a bolt of lightning or something," I laughed.
Not so much as a twitch of a nose greeted us. The creatures were four-footed, with large hindlegs. They evidently belonged with the flora, where we didn't.
"Are they young ones?" I asked Paul. He shrugged. "Show me an old one and I'll tell you better. We'll need at least one specimen for our report."
"Not now," I said. "We've made a good impression, at least." John and I kept watch on our visitors as the technicians kept at their work. The six creatures regarded us for a few minutes, then as if their curiosity was satisfied they bounded away, emitting piping cries.
"I wish we would have taken one," Paul commented dryly. My hands were wet where I held the rifle.
"I'm glad we didn't just yet," I said to the group.
We raced the deepening shadows back to the ship. Paul and Carl put their guesses as to the nature of the animals in scientific language. I couldn't help thinking of them as bundles of fur that had seemed friendly. My sense of fitness made me wonder if mankind should disturb this blue world. I could see the relentless feelers of an Earth civilization clearing the land for cities, exterminating whatever didn't fit, like the caricatures of rabbits that paid us a call.
It was late for such thoughts. Our valley had started to change when we came into it. I couldn't explain why but it made me sadder than I had felt in a long time. We got back to the ship as the sunlight faded. The tip of the gleaming projectile caught the last rays of daylight as we climbed out of the scout car. We unloaded the supplies and put them in the crane. I was shivering in the sudden cool wind as John started up the ladder. Blackness settled down like a cloak until we could only see each other and the ship. The ship blazed with light and we waited for John to operate the crane. He shouted from the hatchway high above us, "Karen is gone."
She wasn't in the ship. We searched both sections thoroughly without success. We left everything where it was, taking flashlights and rifles, spreading out from the ship to look for her in the darkness. On both sides I could see the lights of the others, growing smaller and apart. Our shouts echoed across a widening circle, as I walked and swung the light of the torch. Minutes later I could no longer hear the others. I was hemmed in by the darkness, eerie and silent. My flashlight beam picked up the thick trucks of the tangled forest, and I had to turn and walk along the edge, farther and farther from safety.
It must have been five or six minutes later that I heard the sound. I was calling her name less and less in fear of attracting some wild beast, but I had to chance it in case she was cut off from the light.