"The boat itself. Both wings off, radio dead. Couldn't lock the door...." It was like an Earth landscape. Tall grass carried oatlike ruddy seed clusters on green stems. The lake was bordered by white sand except close by, where jungle reached into water. There was casual buzzing traffic above the grass, reminiscent of bees, wasps, flies. Far up, something drifted on motionless wings, circling. And ten or fifteen miles to the west there was the calm of hills—rounded, old, more green than blue in a sleepy haze, but to paint them, Paul thought, you would shade off into the purple. Paul went on, absently: "We'll have the charlesite of the wrecked boat of course. That gives this one a theoretical twenty hours of jet. We have ammunition for long enough to learn how to use bow and arrow, I think."
Ann muttered, "Paul, don't——"
"What?" Spearman was disgusted. "Oh, you could be right at that, Paul. Hard to realize ... Well, we must make some kind of camp."
Wright began: "Some knowledge of the life around us——"
"Oh my, yes——"
"We'll have to make a camp before we can do any exploring, Doc. Here, out in the open. See anything in the woods?"
"Something followed. More or less human——"
"So we know the camp has to be in the open."
"Do we, Ed?" Wright watched the distant bat wings. Spearman stared. "Can't chance a forest we don't know."
"Still, I mean to look things over a bit. Feel not so good, Ann?"