"Pretty well. But Karol got his hand half scorched off, poor fellow. Just luck the same thing didn't happen to me." Ringg added. "You know that Mentorian—the young one, the medic's assistant?"
"I've seen her. Her name's Meta, I think." Suddenly, Bart wished the Mentorian girl were with him here. It would be nice to hear a human voice.
"Oh, is it a female? Mentorians all look alike to me," Ringg said, while Bart controlled his face with an effort. "Be that as it may, she saved me from having the same thing happen. I was just going to lean against a strip of sheet metal when she screamed at me. Do you think they can really see heat vibrations? She called it red-hot."
They had reached a line of tall cliffs, where a steep rock-fall divided off the plain from the edge of the mountains. A few slender, drooping, gold-leaved trees bent graceful branches over a pool. Bart stood fascinated by the play of green sunlight on the emerald ripples, but Ringg flung himself down full length on the soft grass and sighed comfortably. "Feels good."
"Too comfortable to eat?"
They munched in companionable silence. "Look," said Ringg at last, pointing toward the cliffs, "Holes in the rocks. Caves. I'd like to explore them, wouldn't you?"
"They look pretty gloomy to me. Probably full of monsters."
Ringg patted the hilt of his energon-ray. "This will handle anything short of an armor-plated saurian."
Bart shuddered. As part of uniform, he, too, had been issued one of the energon-rays; but he had never used it and didn't intend to. "Just the same, I'd rather stay out here in the sun."
"It's better than vitamin lamps," Ringg admitted, "even if it's not very bright."