"Guess they aren't coming at us, after all. He was just a look-out."
The girl was talking that queerly jewel-talk of hers.
He cut in with, "Sweet stuff, you and I are going to understand each other if we're staying together. And since I like the idea of having you around—and since I've a hunch we'll never get back to where we came from, we might as well begin right now."
Thor pointed to things and sang out his words for them. The girl listened, head to one side, nodding. She repeated after him, syllable after syllable. They wandered across the grey rock, the man bulking big alongside the woman. Thor knew it would take time, but the girl was eager. Her violet eyes flickered swiftly after his pointing finger and her mouth readily formed the words.
Suddenly Karola gasped and caught his arm with a hand that dug long nails into his flesh. "Slag!" she cried, and flung up a white arm.
Thor saw the house tilted across lava-like rocks. It looked distorted without the elms around it, and the background of grey stone university buildings. The mansard roof was buckled in spots as though under the sledge of a mad giant. Windows gapped without panes of glass, and rungs in split porch railings stuck up like broken teeth. But the dwarf-man leaping from the open doorway was what brought him to his feet.
The girl jabbered in alarm, but Thor grinned and waited. Not for nothing had he been born and raised in a lumber camp. He had fought men with fists and axe-handles. The club was just another axe-handle to him, a little heavier and metal-shod, but as easily eluded.
The dwarf-man halted and looked at them. He called out to the girl. Thor saw that his words calmed her, even as she showed surprise.
The dwarf-man threw the club away and knelt.
Karola frowned and tossed her long yellow hair back over her head. Thor saw she was struggling for words, that she wanted to tell him good news. He fancied that the dwarf-man was trying to make friends.