They started over the rocks. "We'll take it slow," he said. "Until I get used to it."
They followed the open spaces between the patches of forest. The weird scene was dim in the night-glow. Occasionally now, through breaks in the patches of lush vegetation, Atwood could see that the radiance of the Xarite-glow ahead of them was growing.... Strange progress, this half walking, half leaping advance. It was hard for Atwood to keep his feet; almost impossible to gauge the distance a leap would carry him. Many times he fell. Muscles that he had seldom used before were beginning to ache.
"Let's rest a minute," he protested presently.
They were in a rocky defile, like a little gully descending. Atwood dropped to the ground and drew up the girl beside him. More than ever now, the idea of taking her to Earth was in his mind. How could he ever have imagined leaving her here, an Earthgirl, suffering from amnesia. And he was thinking. Dr. Georg Johns, his father's friend, had left the Earth, presumably to come here.
"Listen, Ah-li," he said. "I don't want to confuse you too much. Don't think I'm crazy or anything. In this place where I just came from there used to be someone called Dr. Georg Johns. Doesn't that mean something to you? Think back."
He stared at her; and on her face, at mention of the name, there came a queer, startled puzzlement.
"Why—why—" she could only stammer. Puzzled, with some vague consciousness of memory stirring within her. And then it was gone. "Why—what is that?" she murmured. "You speak so strangely. The words I understand, but the things you say—"
"Forget it, Ah-li. I don't want to worry you. There are things you used to know, and that you'll remember sometime. They'll come back to you."
"My life in the God-Heaven?"
"Yes, sure. Call it that."