Now he noticed something that filled him with a new loathing. He'd been wrong about their appearance. The sagging skin was really a bulky suit. The big head a helmet. And back of the helmet's face he could see the actual being. He felt like vomiting.
He bashed the rock against the faceplate. It webbed with a cluster of tiny cracks. He struck again and again, until the helmet split open and he was pulping the face itself to a reddish smear....
Suddenly a roaring filled his ears. His side was laced with terrible pain. He reeled backward. Saw the second of the beings pointing at him with something long and rodlike. He flipped the rock.
It caught the being in the chest and drove it over the side. He could see it clawing the air all the way down to the glen.
There, the third being, with the light, took one look at the still form, turned and raced madly for the ship.
Watching, he was overcome with a peculiar feeling of excitement. The pain in his side had ebbed and he felt hot and feverish. He wanted to do something—to act. Without thinking, he scurried down the hill and took after the fleeing figure.
He caught it on the ladder, just below the trap-door, grabbed its leg, and jerked. It plunged to the ground and hit with a crash. The light blinked out.
Now he heard a thin grating noise. Above him the trap-door, dimly outlined by a light from a cubbyhole beyond, had begun to move. He swung himself to the platform, dove into the cubbyhole, and heard the trap clang shut behind him.
Straight ahead was a short length of ladder and overhanging it a second trap-door which had already begun to gape open. This, he guessed, was some sort of air-lock—a way of getting in and out of the ship without losing the built up pressure. It would account for the suits worn on the outside.
The trap had swung wider and he could see two beings in suits getting ready to come down. They probably were trying to help their buddies.