"Well—good Lord—" Jim muttered again. He too was staring, with a hand in his shock of bristling red hair, and I can imagine the look of numbed astonishment on his freckled, pug-nosed face. "Good Lord, how did she jump like that?"
I heard myself stammering, "You—up there—what in the devil—"
Like a terrified fugitive the girl abruptly swept a look behind her; and then she leaped again, and landed almost beside us.
"You—you—Oh you mus' help me! There was a flash that tried to kill me—"
English! With weird, indescribable intonation, she gasped the English words.
"I—shot at you," I stammered. "Sorry—we thought you were an animal. No human is allowed here today but us."
Somehow it seemed futile, incongruous that I should try to explain anything rational to a girl so weird as this.
But she smiled. "Oh—I thought—I thought—"
"Someone is after you?" Jim said quickly.
"Yes. I thought—but I guess not now. Oh you are good Earthmen—not like Curtmann. I escaped, and I have come long long a way from my poor terrified people."