Then he fell.
He landed on his back in a sprawl and, as he did so, the scene, like a motion picture hastily projected on a screen, leaped, all at once, into being. He glanced around at the mossy, gently-sloping hillside, the grove of finely plumed trees and the playful blue mists trailing lightly down the rise.
Marc observed these surroundings without alarm. He knew at a glance that he had retreated into the valley of his subconscious mind and, now that he was there, he was just as glad. He ran his hand sensuously over the soft greenness upon which he lay and turned his eyes heavenward to the warmly glowing, yet sunless, sky. Then, folding his hands beneath his head, he lay back and closed his eyes.
A moment passed, then there was a quick stirring at his side. Two slender fingers closed viciously over his left ear and twisted.
"Stinker!" a voice hissed. "Redolent reptile!"
Marc sat up abruptly. "Hey!" he yelled. Toffee's pert face was almost nose to nose with his own. "Let go!"
"If I do," Toffee threatened, "it will only be to grab something much worse!"
"Don't be vulgar," Marc said uneasily.
She was kneeling beside him, her red hair cascading like inverted flame on one beautifully-molded shoulder. Her green eyes were aglitter with a lovely fury. As always, she was clothed only in the brief emerald tunic which, because of its extreme transparency, did nothing to hide her lithesome body, though it made up for this failure by accentuating each softly-curved perfection to the utmost. On her feet was a pair of gold sandals of some undetermined material.
"I should twist your faithless head off," she said. "In fact I've been keeping some plasma on ice just in case I decide to murder you in cold blood."