The fall knocked the air from me, and it was a long time before I thought of rising.

When my mind began to work again, for consciousness came and went, I began to take stock. Wherever I’d landed, it was no longer a dungeon. The satellite lords knew nothing of the crack in the mountain, therefore they could not know where I was. I had the raygun, which made me just as dangerous as I’d been when I first landed. However, I was in complete darkness and I might still have the company of a savage beast.

I shuddered at the thought of the dead I had seen. To be ripped asunder that way.

At that point I realized something: the dead had not been eaten.

Each of the four corpses I’d seen had been clawed to death, but no teeth marks were in evidence, their guts hadn’t been torn from them as a big predator might do, and they were all intact apart from the wound that occurred in the act of killing them.

A wild beast would starve if it operated in this way, for it had not so much as sucked up the blood.

Could I be entombed with a madman? Perhaps a murderer who had made himself a set of claws. After all, only we civilized humans and the aliens like us kill for sport or pleasure. Lions and tigers and bears all have better things to do.

I started to feel around on the ground to see if the torch had landed nearby, and as I did I started to wonder whether a madman killer would be worse than an army of the satellite lords.

The ground was dusty, almost sandy, maybe a little softer than the walls that had battered me so. Perhaps this different terrain even meant access to the outside.

When I did not find the torch, I cautiously got to me feet and felt around for a sizable stone. Finding one, I adjusted the raygun a notch lower and fired a continuous stream of energy into the stone. A stench went up from it, but it also had the desired effect of beginning to glow. The rock became molten and glowed red, then, after a little coaxing with the raygun, went a bright yellow.

The chamber lit up and I saw the crack down which I’d fallen, a few spots of blood on the ground, and in the light I could also discern where it stained my boots and leggings. The light began to die, but I spotted the torch, half wedged in a narrow part of the crack.

I climbed up and pulled it loose. It still worked.

Now able to see, I followed the path of the natural tunnel, out into larger spaces. Sometime I had to duck between them, for it was almost like traversing the natural pathways of the body, larger to smaller to larger again.

The ground gave way in spots to sand again, and there I noticed the tracks.

Large long paws with claws and large toes, coming and going.

So, I had not lost the beast, or whatever it was, in fact I’d found the lair! Of course, I wasn’t helpless, I had the raygun. What bothered me, though, was that the beast had attacked the soldiers in the prison and they were all armed as well. The rayguns could cause fire, explosion, and instant death, yet they hadn’t helped the four men above.

There were bones among the sandy soil, although not the kind that would alarm me, small ones, skeletons of fish. This place was sometimes a river, it seemed.

Below the sediment, though, I came to realize, were traces of paving stones. Was this level also a part of the enemy base?

I smelled smoke. What could that mean? A madman burning someone alive? The way ahead grew lighter.

The chamber beyond looked as if it had partly caved in at one time, for its vast space ended in piles of boulders. Parts of the ceiling looked to be composed of some kind of crystal, huge beds of the stuff, and they conducted light down from above.

The glow of the fire came from behind a huge rock which stood beside the entrance I’d just come though. I rounded the corner.

A pile of kindling and splinters supported the flame, set in a ring of stones. Two blankets lay on the sand and what might have been battered metal plates. No people, though.

I ventured nearer. I wanted to figure out where they were getting wood, not to mention food.

“Well,” I said to myself, “they don’t eat human flesh, at least.”

I heard a gasp behind me.

When I spun I saw a beautiful creature, a boy of 20 or 21 in Selenium garb, elegant black hair, his big eyes wide with fear, his pointed ears pricked. He had no weapon with him, in fact he had only his moccasins, loincloth, a feathered fur collar and an arm band, which probably had the family name on it. He was sleek and slim, but not starved, his face still had color, although not as much as he would get living out in the sun.

He looked ready to bolt.

I put the raygun back in the holster and held up my hand “Don’t be afraid. My name’s Cylas, I sure don’t mean you any harm.”

He shook his head slightly, holding his fingers up to his mouth.

“Honestly, I wasn’t coming to steal your food either. I have a friend who is a prisoner here, I came here hoping to rescue him. Have you got any friends here?”

Again, he shook his head, more violently, and pressed his fingers to his lips and throat.

I began to understand “Are you unable to speak? Mute?”

At this he nodded. At least I was understood.

“Are you able to help me, or can someone else here help? I need to save my friend.”

He shook his head.

“Please, I won’t even stay long. I just need some weapons or a guide…”

I’d stepped nearer and he darted away.

“I promise I won’t hurt you!”

I went around the boulder and saw him rushing to the other side of the collapsed chamber in the eerie blue glow from the crystals. I thought he would stop, for he’d gone all the way to the wall of rubble, but he knew what he was about, for he slipped through a gap between the rocks and vanished from sight.

Not knowing what else to do, I followed.

The pile of rubble was actually a warren of tight gaps and passages. I was taller than the mute boy, but I could squeeze through most places.

I’d lost him pretty quickly, perhaps he hid, but I found a bright spot on the other side, another chamber. I crawled through among the boulders and came out into the chamber beyond.

The floor here was higher, and it was a paved floor, rows of paving stones long since cemented together. The crystal ceiling glowed somewhat darker, but I was about to discern strange objects in the room.

Strange is what they were!

I held up the torch to help me examine towering machines, some of them 30 or 40 feet tall, covered in the dust of ages. On the far wall I could see stone archways and columns, from what must have been thousands of years ago.

Thinking back, I should not have been too surprised, for I’d read that book about the planet and the civilization that had existed there. Their absence was certain, perhaps because the climate was so bad.

To my eye, the machines looked like interconnected looms or maybe giant printing presses, the kind of new fangled stuff that some loudmouth would roll out at a fair to try and get rubes to invest, only these hard already been bought and sold. Could be they were using this stuff to make their own atmosphere, since the air wasn’t so good anymore.

I heard a slight sound and stopped.

Out went the torch and I squeezed up against one of the piece of machinery for cover. Sure, it might just be the boy again, I thought, but somewhere there was also the beast!

It came again, a slight shifting, like a foot sliding along the sandy floor. It seemed to come from over by the wall of rubble.

Keeping in the shadow of one of the machines, I doubled back and crept toward the pile of stones. The best I could hope for was that mute boy had hidden and took to watching me. Maybe that’d mean I didn’t get any supper, but there are worse things.

Between the rubble pile and the shattered ceiling, stuck halfway through the opaque stone, as a rocket. The rocket must have been there around half a million years.