Skylark Three | Page 6

identity of the approaching
space-ship, before he released the frightful power of his generator upon
it.
"I've been expecting DuQuesne to try it again," he gritted, striving to
make out the visitor, yet more than two hundred miles distant. "He's out
to get you, Dot--and this time I'm not just going to warm him up and
scare him away, as I did last time. This time that misguided mutt's
going to get frizzled right.... I can't locate him with this small telescope,
Mart. Line him up in the big one and give me the word, will you?"
"I see him, Dick, but it is not DuQuesne's ship. It is built of transparent
arenak, like the 'Kondal.' Even though it seems impossible, I believe it

is the 'Kondal'."
"Maybe so, and again maybe DuQuesne built it--or stole it. On second
thought, though, I don't believe that DuQuesne would be fool enough to
tackle us again in the same way--but I'm taking no chances.... O. K., it
is the 'Kondal,' I can see Dunark and Sitar myself, now."
The transparent vessel soon neared the field and the four Terrestrials
walked out to greet their Osnomian friends. Through the arenak walls
they recognized Dunark, Kofedix of Kondal, at the controls, and saw
Sitar, his beautiful young queen, lying in one of the seats near the wall.
She attempted a friendly greeting, but her face was strained as though
she were laboring under a burden too great for her to bear.
As they watched, Dunark slipped a helmet over his head and one over
Sitar's, pressed a button to open one of the doors, and supported her
toward the opening.
"They mustn't come out, Dick!" exclaimed Dorothy in dismay. "They'll
freeze to death in five minutes without any clothes on!"
"Yes, and Sitar can't stand up under our gravitation, either--I doubt if
Dunark can, for long," and Seaton dashed toward the vessel, motioning
the visitor back.
But misunderstanding the signal, Dunark came on. As he clambered
heavily through the door he staggered as though under an enormous
weight, and Sitar collapsed upon the frozen ground. Trying to help her,
half-kneeling over her, Dunark struggled, his green skin paling to a
yellowish tinge at the touch of the bitter and unexpected cold. Seaton
leaped forward and gathered Sitar up in his mighty arms as though she
were a child.
[Illustration: Trying to help her, half kneeling over her, Dunark
struggled, his green skin paling to a yellowish tinge at the touch of the
bitter and unexpected cold.]
"Help Dunark back in, Mart," he directed crisply. "Hop in, girls--we've

got to take these folks back up where they can live."
Seaton shut the door, and as everyone lay flat in the seats Crane, who
had taken the controls, applied one notch of power and the huge vessel
leaped upward. Miles of altitude were gained before Crane brought the
cruiser to a stop and locked her in place with an anchoring attractor.
"There," he remarked calmly, "gravitation here is approximately the
same as it is upon Osnome."
"Yes," put in Seaton, standing up and shedding clothing in all
directions, "and I rise to remark that we'd better undress as far as the
law allows--perhaps farther. I never did like Osnomian ideas of
comfortable warmth, but we can endure it by peeling down to
bedrock----"
* * * * *
Sitar jumped up happily, completely restored, and the three women
threw their arms around each other.
"What a horrible, terrible, frightful world!" exclaimed Sitar, her eyes
widening as she thought of her first experience with our earth. "Much
as I love you, I shall never dare try to visit you again. I have never been
able to understand why you Terrestrials wear what you call 'clothes,'
nor why you are so terribly, brutally strong. Now I really know--I will
feel the utterly cold and savage embrace of that awful earth of yours as
long as I live!"
"Oh, it's not so bad, Sitar." Seaton, who was shaking both of Dunark's
hands vigorously, assured her over his shoulder. "All depends on where
you were raised. We like it that way, and Osnome gives us the pip. But
you poor fish," turning again to Dunark, "with all my brains inside your
skull, you should have known what you were letting yourself in for."
"That's true, after a fashion," Dunark admitted, "but your brain told me
that Washington was hot. If I'd have thought to recalculate your actual
Fahrenheit degrees into our loro ... but that figures only forty-seven and,

while very cold, we could have endured it--wait a minute, I'm getting it.
You have what you call 'seasons.' This, then, must be your 'winter.'
Right?"
"Right the first time. That's the way your brain works behind my pan,
too. I could figure anything