"No, no, nothing like this—all these colors and shapes. Everything on my planet is flat and greyling." The metal maiden raised her hands, as she searched for the right words to explain Anuther Planet. "It is all so different with us," she confessed, dropping her arms to her side. "Yonder, we have zonitors; not trees, but tall shafts of metal to which we fasten our nets when we sleep or rest. Underfoot we have network of various sizes and thicknesses with here and there sprays of vanadium. In our vanadium springs we freshen and renew ourselves, and without them we stiffen and cease to move."
With one finger pressed to his forehead, Randy tried to visualize Planetty's strange greyling world, but Kabumpo, ever more practical, inquired sharply:
"And how often must you refresh and renew yourselves, Princess?"
"Every sonestor in the earling," answered the Princess with a bright nod.
Thun, tiring of a conversation he could not hear, had cantered off to investigate a rabbit, and Randy, sliding to the ground, came over to stand nearer to this strange little Princess.
"Kabumpo and I do not understand all those words," he told her gently. "'Sonestor—earling'—what do they mean?"
"Why, a sonestor," trilled Planetty, throwing back her head and showing all of her tiny silver teeth, "is one dark, one light, one dark, one light, one dark, one light, one dark, one light, one dark, one light, one dark, one light, one dark, one light, and earling is when you waken from ret."
"Help!" shuddered Kabumpo shaking his ears as if he had a bee in them.
"I know what she means," crowed Randy, snapping his fingers gleefully. "A sonestor on Anuther Planet is the same as a week here; all those lights and darks are days, and earling is the morning and ret is rest!"
"Then, do you realize," worried Kabumpo, as Planetty looked questioningly from one to the other, "that if this little lady and her colt are separated from their vanadium springs for a week, they will become stiff, motionless statues? And that—" the Elegant Elephant looked the pretty little Princess first up and then down. "That would be a great pity! We must help them back to Anuther Planet as soon as we can, my boy."