He could try to see it from their viewpoint. To them he was a seventy-foot giant—and so to them these immense slashed metal mountains must seem titanic. A harsh world, with nature cruel and relentless, so that on it these tiny creatures had struggled, were struggling, for a bare existence....
Now the little Spaceship had settled lower so that the swirling orange haze was like a veil around it. A thousand feet away, outside this port, Nixon could see a dim blur of smooth almost vertical cliff-face sliding upward as they sank.
"Nona, come." It was Tork, here on the floor with Nona. A line of Gorts went past, dragging a wheeled apparatus. Nixon recognized it as the little electronic gun which had spat its flash at him, back there on the bank of the Florida bayou.
Tork called a command to the Gorts, and then he herded Nona away and stood looking up into Nixon's down-turned face. "You, giant," he said. "You will take orders from me now? You will do what I tell you?"
"Maybe," Nixon said slowly. He had come to dislike Tork's small arrogance. "Are you going to turn me loose?"
"That is impossible," Tork said shortly. "I want you to know, if you are helpful it will be for your good. Can you understand that?"
"You've said it enough so I reckon I should," Nixon retorted.
"When we land, I will direct you," Tork said. "The home—the place where we will keep you—to your size it will be quite close. I will direct you to it."
Then the turmoil of the landing drew Tork away. With the orange mists almost solid outside the little port, presently Nixon felt the spaceship rock and bump, and then settle quiescent. The interior was a babble of the excited, tiny voices of the Orites, and the throbbing grind of mechanisms as the ports were opened. The outer air came in with a swirling rush, heavy wisps of tinted vapour, spreading like a visible gas. Nixon's first breath of it was choking. It had a heavy, chemical smell. He coughed, but after a moment he found that, though it was dankly oppressive, making his lungs tingle and burn and his head feel unsteady, he could breathe it.
For a moment, Nona was here again. "The storm air," she said.