"'Ranies!" cried Chip. "Hands off, you! Or—"
The green complexioned native growled some guttural comment, moved closer rather than away, and pinioned Chip's arms to his sides. Chip saw, now, that the Chickadee, though battered and broken beyond hope of repair, had miraculously grounded without destroying them all. For Syd was stirring, and Salvation, too, but each of them was surrounded by green natives, as was Chip. These creatures, the nearest approach to Man's physiology that had ever been found in the System, were tall and rugged, masterfully built. They were equipped with native lariats or bolas; these they whipped cuttingly about their captives.
Chip strained lashed fingers toward the heat-pistol in his belt. But Salvation, seeing his motion, stopped him.
"No, lad! Relax! Don't make a hostile move!"
Chip growled, "No damned greenie is going to make a trussed duck out of me. If I can reach this gun—"
"If you value your life," said Salvation, "and your welfare, keep your hands quiet and your wits active! These creatures aren't Uranians. They're Titanians. An offspring of the parent race, but as savage and untamed as beasts.
"I don't know what they plan to do with us. I have heard they are a strange, mystical race; their tribal rites and taboos are many and—dangerous! Our only chance is to be quiet, try to reason with them, convince them we are not foes but friends—"
All three were securely tied, now, save for their legs. The tallest Titanian, evidently the group chieftain, grunted a word of command. Strong arms prodded Chip and his fellows forward, out of the broken Chickadee, into the bleak landscape of Titania.
They had crashed in the dark spot Chip had viewed from above. They discovered, now, that this spot was dark because—incredibly—here the thick, icy blanket had been stripped away to discover the raw and rocky core of the Uranian moon.
Black rocks thrust jagged spires skyward, mountains of stone girdled this one clear space on the whole of Titania; greater wonder still, gnarled and stunted trees, lichens of hardiest verdure, eked a precarious existence from the grudging soil.