From fifty thousand miles up the planet was a small orb -- a crystal jewel -- I could almost hold in my hands. Brown and yellow land masses covered green, topped in the swirls of curled, of white clouds formed the lower half while the upper half contained an uninterrupted blue ocean. I swiveled around in my chair:

"It’s almost as beautiful as Thundera," I said.

"Just about, Tygra," Cheetara said. She gazed through the telescope to find a proper and a suitable landing sight. "The air is the same. Water. Animal life. According to all the instruments, it’s the sort of place we’re looking for."

"Do you think Liono’ll mind if we rested here, a week?" I was more than usually playful.

"He had better not," she replied quickly. "There’s a grassy plain at forty-five, twenty-seven."

I entered the coordinates into the computer. Instantly a small orange image of a globe crisscrossed in latitudes and in longitudes appeared in the screen of the small monitor next to the keyboard. A black dot blinked where the exact position of the grassy plain was located on the planet.

"That’s a good spot. I’ll give the order to land now."

As soon as I had entered the landing sequence Me and Cheetara strapped ourselves down hard on the sturdy chairs. The ship rumbled and everything vibrated violently. The image of the planet on the main view screen grew larger and larger. Gradually the obscure and general features became sharper and more defined. The faint forms of the continents was overcome by an explosion of details: for the first time I could see mountains, hills, valleys, deserts, lakes, rivers, I saw that the large upper ocean was actually dotted in countless islands.

The ship landed easily in a field of red grass, everywhere around there was a dense jungle of green flowers as tall as trees. The incredibly high stems swayed silently in the wind, pulsated, visibly pulsated -- even at a distance -- and secreted a glimmering, a shiny liquid that oozed down to the ground and emitted an unusually haunting scent. At the very tops there were unopened buds and chaotically-shaped leaves.

Me and Cheetara stood at the edge of the open hatchway, we took in the alien sight, we shook our heads in utter disbelief. "Come on," I said at length, "Come on. Let’s see what we can find."

We began to scale down the iron-rung ladder to the red, grassy plain below. Suddenly, suddenly without warning we were greeted by the animals of the planet that came toward the idle ship. "There’s our welcoming committee," she joked.

"Odd," I said, I looked up to her, "they are not afraid, you would think they would run and hide."

"They keep coming!"

"Let’s get back, let’s get back." I did not have to tell her again. Right in front of my eyes she dashed up the ladder and jumped into the darkness of the interior, past the safety of the open hatchway aboard the ship. I followed her but not with the same swiftness.

So many, so many, monkeys with blue fur and red eyes, anteaters with long snouts that spoke to each other in the cacophony of flutes, large birds without wings, deer and yet there was no end to the wilderness of the variety.

"Tygra," she pointed and I glanced to the left in unison to her extended forefinger. A new beast had appeared from the flower jungle. About the size of a giraffe, moved on long, thin legs, two tiny heads, pointed heads grew like spuds, like spores out of the end of the extended neck. As it walked toward the ship, as the other animals moved out of the way while at the same time rubbed against its body.

"They are on friendly terms with each other," I said. I stared into the giraffe’s four green eyes. It stopped only feet from the ship. It was so tall I could have almost touched it where I stood on the edge of open hatchway. Just then Cheetara stretched out her hand. Carefully she began to stroke its neck. It’s eyes sparkled. The other beasts became completely silenced.

A half-hour later the field was empty. The giraffe had turned to walk back into the jungle of tall flowers. The rest of the animals had followed. Me and Cheetara had decided to stay around the ship and not venture too far from its security. We wanted to see what the beasts would do next but I had my reservations:

"It’s too good to be true," I said. We set up a large transmitter to send messages back to Third Earth.

"What do you mean?" she asked, she had only then looked up at me.

"Those animals were too friendly," I continued. "I feel uneasy."

She, too, had sensed a certain discomfort but: "They are a strange bunch, anyway, we’ll only be here a week." She worked out the exact position for the transmitter and I dragged the heavy instrument into place. I was exhausted, I panted for breath while I sat half on, half off of the dull metallic machine. She came to me and wrapped her arms around me.

That night I could not sleep. I tossed, I turned in complete discomfort at every level. I spent many hours away and I had nightmares filled with those animals we had seen when we had landed when I could muster enough tranquility to fall into a dream state. At last, at the very end, I felt someone shake me.

"Get up, get up, Tygra." Cheetara whispered into my ear. Somehow we had ended up in the same bed together, wrapped together in an entanglement of arms and of legs. "Come with me."

She got up, she held me by the hand while I groggily left the warmth of the bed. I was dragged semiconsciously to the outer hatchway of the ship, opened, I looked outside. I shook violently though doused with buckets of cold water.

"It must have been the beasts. They must have pulled it apart."

"Impossible," I said nervously, "we had bolted it down tight." Just below the ship the transmitter lay in pieces strewn across a large area of the field of red grass. I scratched my eyes, I rubbed my eyes to try to get the image out of my mind.

"Bolted or not there it is. We’ve got to put it back together again."

The next morning the same sight awaited us. The large transmitter had been torn and scattered in yet more haphazard, in yet more random chaos. That time the most important part was no where to be seen. Me and Cheetara spent most of that third day combing through nearly every last blade of red grass on that flat plain. She and I covered an area of about ten square miles. We did not venture into the jungle of tall flowers, nor did we approach the north end of the field were the plain opened and sprawled out unmarked and unhampered onto the horizon, eternally, eternally.

"There’s no use," she said, "there’s no use. The power crystal is lost."

"Or was it stolen?" Something in my stomach turned and knotted.

"Stolen? What do you mean? Stolen?" She thumbed through the broken pieces of the transmitter -- the larger pieces -- that we had left on the ground confident they would not disappear, sure they would not just get up and walk away. Those parts were adorned with clear and undeniable teeth and claw marks. She shook her head.

"That animals," I began but could not finish.

"The animals! You’re crazy!"

"We’ll stand watch tonight and see what’s really going on."

"All right."

"We’d better be armed, too."

After the sun set hundreds of stars appeared in the night sky. I yawned and nodded off. I tried to fight the urge to sleep, I tried to yell at myself in my head to keep my eyes open but I could not resist the urge. I yelled to Cheetara from the back of the ship that I would take a nap and I thought I heard her yell something back to me but I could not be sure because I was out of it very quickly.

I could not tell how many quiet hours passed before I came to. I looked over to the front of the ship where Cheetara sat. But she was not there. But she was gone. I ran to where she had been the last time I had seen her. I found her chair and her staff but not her.

A strange thrash came from the jungle of tall flowers. I heard her scream suddenly but then all was silent until I was aware of the sound of footsteps, of footsteps coming closer. I ran back to the side of the ship, to the rung ladder that led up to the open hatchway but I stopped.

Before me was the giraffe. Its four green eyes blazed with a strange light. I saw the glow grow bright, brighter. It shot out a think beam toward my hands. In an instant my whip began to grow hot. I dropped it, I watched it vanish. The beast moved its heads to the pile of parts that had been the transmitter. The pieces glowed red, turned white and then vanished too.

The animals approached in a circle the got smaller and smaller and smaller. I ran to the only gap I could find in the encroaching offense. The giraffe turned its burning eyes on me and I blacked out.

I awoke where I had fallen. Cheetara slept beside me unharmed. I tried to shake her awake but with no result. I looked up. "What? What!" I gasped. "A cage. We’re in a cage." I arose and began to pull on the metal bars but the guilded framework would not budge. Off in the distance the ship still stood but a large streak of the hull was burned out of its side. All around sat the many beasts of that strange planet, gazed at me, talked to themselves in the arias of flutes.