"Who are you?" Robin asked, as he worked. "Do you have a rocket on the surface?"
The man got to his feet, rubbed his muscles. He was dressed in a simple blue one-piece flyer's coverall. He was taller and slimmer than Robin, and his hair was tousled and reddish.
"My name is Piotr Ivanovitch Kareff," he said, bowing with a European gracefulness. "I regret to tell you that my rocket is indeed on the surface—but there it will stay forever. We crashed. But I am so glad to see you. You do not know how glad."
Robin shook hands. "I hate to disappoint you, but I must tell you that we are in the same predicament. I have no rocket here. I was hoping when I heard your voice that you might have one we could go back in."
The other looked confused, shook his head. "No rocket? Oh, that is too bad. Very bad."
The Glassie, who had been watching them without understanding too much of the rapid-fire quality of normal speech, suddenly said, "Have hunger much. Is food here."
He turned his back on the two men, pawed through the scraps on the cave floor, coming up with some of the provisions that Robin had packed with him.
"I'm hungry, also," said the Russian. "They have not fed me since they threw me in here. Is this stuff good to eat?"
"Try it," said Robin and the three sat down and ate. Robin sat munching and stared at the other man. The first human he had seen in almost two years. A real live man! But where did he come from? How did he get here? And how was it he was a prisoner?
For a while after they had finished, they looked at each other. The Russian spoke. "You must have a story to tell me, Robin Carew. How did you say you got here?"