"Pete—I'm frightened—can't—see anything—"
But the red radiance was growing, spreading to dispel the blank empty darkness so that in a moment he could see the drab, disheveled form of the girl beside him, her moist, cold hand convulsively clutching his, and the red light on her pallid, terrified face. And in the distance now there were outlines—a sort of red line that looked like a shimmering cliff with jagged spires upstanding in a row.
"Vivian—everything's gone—the Radaks—we're not where we were—Bob and Shorty—gone—"
The red glow in a moment had brightened to be far more luminous than they remembered it in the caverns. Obviously there was a sky overhead now—a lurid, murky, blood-red haze of infinite distance. This was the outer surface of the little planetoid. The Realm of the Deathless Monsters! Mack realized it with a shudder of terror. He and Vivian now could see that they were standing upon a little rise of ground, in what could have been called a forest. Everywhere great stalks of spindly blue and grey vegetation towered into the air. Growing things of fantastic shape, woven in places to be a solid jungle. Or again there were open glades of rocky ground—buttes and little spires, small ravines and crevices. All of it bathed in crimson, as though here were a bloody landscape of unutterable horror. The horror of things not yet seen ... things lurking—
"Oh Pete, what can we do?" Hungry and faint she swayed against him. But in the blood-red light she was trying to smile. "You tell us what we ought to do—I will help us do it, Pete. I'm not—not afraid."
But the terror of despair was clutching at both of them. Mack tried to gather his wits. Alone here on an alien world. Could they find food and drink? Wander here, until some ghastly monster engulfed them? Or should they try to get back underground? Why? To have the murderous Radaks fall upon them and kill them?
But the will to live in every human is very strong. No one will lie down and just hopelessly wait for death.
"Viv—those cliffs over there—cliffs with the spires—there ought to be tunnels maybe at the bottom of them. If we could get back—maybe get to Bob and Shorty—" His voice trailed away. It all seemed so hopeless.
Then he felt the girl clutch at his arm. "Look! Maybe that's water? I'm so thirsty—"
"I see it. Maybe it is. Come on."