There was a soft rattle of falling mortar, and a scrape of sliding stones. Gerry saw the head and shoulders of a man thrust through the opening, and then the man crawled laboriously into the cell. "Who are you?" he whispered. "Your accent is not like that of the Green Men of Giri. Wait, I have a light here." A small flashlight clicked on. Its beam pointed up into Gerry's face. Then the man gasped. "Good Lord!" he whispered. "It ... it's Gerry Norton!" Then the man swung the light so that it swung on himself. Gerry saw a tall, gaunt man in the tattered remains of a blue and silver uniform. It was Major Walter Lansing, once of the Interplanetary Fleet, who had commanded the ill-fated _Stardust_ when she set out on her voyage into space! "Norton!" he gasped in a hoarse whisper. "Man, I never expected to see anyone from Earth again!" "We thought you were dead." "I might as well be!" Lansing said grimly. "But tell me how you come to be here." As they squatted there in the darkened cell, Gerry whispered the story of the _Viking's_ expedition and of his own capture. Lansing told him how the _Stardust_ had been wrecked on the rim of the mountains when landing, and how the Scaly Ones had captured all the crew. "They have kept me alive because the signs pointed that way when they cast the omens before the Serpent Gods," Lansing said, "but all the rest of the crew were used as bait for hunting the giant Dakta. They died. You and your companions will probably meet the same fate." "Pleasant prospect!" Gerry said grimly. Lansing gripped his arm. "There's a chance, Norton! Listen! I've been able to get these scaly devils to bring me a good many things from the wreck. I couldn't get a ray-tube, they were too wise for that, but I did get a portable radio by telling them it was my tribal god. I have it in my cell. We'll go over and you can phone your ship to come after us." He eyed Gerry eagerly. "Let's go!" They both crawled through the gap in the wall. It was like Gerry's own, but it was piled with an assortment of junk from the wrecked space-ship. In one corner stood a compact two-way radio telephone set with its tubes still intact. "Think you can tell them how to come?" Lansing whispered. "I'm not sure. They marched us along the roads, and the route was winding, and...." "I'll draw you a map!" Lansing interrupted. "You hold the light."