"I'm Olga," she confided. "Has anybody ever told you what a handsome fellow you are?" She pinched his cheek. Jonathan blushed.
They climbed a ridge, paused at the crest. Below them, he saw a deep valley. A stream tumbled through the center of it. There were trees along its banks, the first he had seen on the asteroid. At the head of the valley, he made out the massive pile of a space liner.
They started down a winding path. The space liner disappeared behind a promontory of the mountain. Jonathan steeled himself for the coming ordeal. He would have sat down and refused to budge except that he knew the girls would hoist him on their shoulders and bear him into the camp like a bag of meal.
The trail debouched into the valley. Just ahead the space liner reappeared. He imagined that it had crashed into the mountain, skidded and rolled down its side until it lodged beside the stream. It reminded him of a wounded dinosaur. Three girls were bathing in the stream. He looked away hastily.
Someone hailed them from the space ship.
"We've caught a man," shrieked one of his captors.
A flock of girls streamed out of the wrecked space ship.
"A man!" screamed a husky blonde. She was wearing a grass skirt. She had green eyes. "We're rescued!"
"No. No," Ann Clotilde hastened to explain. "He was wrecked like us."
"Oh," came a disappointed chorus.