"The crash!" gasped Charlie, sitting up abruptly.
He held his breath, awaiting the knifing pain it seemed natural to expect. When he felt none, he cautiously fingered his ribs, and then a horrid thought prompted him to wiggle his bare toes. Everything seemed to be in place.
He lay in a small room, on a thin pallet of furs. Floor and walls of slick, ocher clay reflected the bright outside light pouring through a wide doorway.
"What's all the sand?" he demanded, squinting at the heatwaves outside.
"You do not recognize it? Look again, Earthman!"
Earthman! thought Charlie. It must be real: I can still see him. What a whack on the head I must have got!
"You are in pain?" asked the creature solicitously.
"Oh ... no. Just ... I can't remember. The crash ... and then—"
"Ah, yes. You have not been conscious for some time." His reddish host rippled upward to stand more or less erect upon three thick tentacles. "Even with us, memory is slow after shock. And you may be uneasy in the lighter gravity."
Light gravity! reflected Charlie. This can only mean—MARS! Sure! That must be it—I was piloting a rocket and cracked up somewhere on Mars.