Thor landed on his knees, the hilt of the blade in his right fist. He looked around him, hearing Slag yell with superstitious fright.
Karola screamed from the rock, "They've disappeared!"
The meadows held only Slag and himself. Thor shook his head, and looked at the grasses. Even against the red, there should be bloodstains visible. But the blood had gone where the men had gone.
"They don't even bleed," he said. "You sure you hit that guy, Slag?"
"Slag hit him!"
"I don't understand it. They come and go unseen. They must come from somewhere. They must have dwelling places."
He lifted a long brown arm, thickly muscled. With it, he swept the red grasslands, the grey rocks, the sky with its gigantic orb of sun. For many days they had trod this world, and always found it as they saw it now. Empty and barren, like a newborn planet.
Karola ran to catch them, and then the three walked on and on, into the sunset.
Eight days later, they found the Discoverer. At first Thor thought him another rock, so almost perfectly did his queer markings and sprawling, bloblike form match the stone. And then when he moved, in a peculiar, pouring sort of slide, and the electric tingles marched up and down his spine, Thor knew he was alive.