it was impossible that it should really be fashioned of rock.
At least it ought to be impossible. Rock is inorganic, inanimate. It
simply couldn't have the spark of life in it. Harley had seen many
strange creations, on many strange planets, but never had he seen
inorganic mineral matter endowed with animation. Nor had anyone else.

Yet the thing _looked_ as though made of stone. Of some peculiar,
quartz-suffused granite--proving that the wan, white-haired man he had
talked to in the sanitarium had not been mad at all, but only too
terribly sane. The creature's very eyes had had a stony look. Its
eyelids had rasped like stone curtains rubbing together. Its awful,
two-fingered hands, or claws, had ground together like stones rubbing.

Was it akin to the lizards, the cold-blooded life of Earth? Was this
rocky exterior merely a horny shell like that of a turtle? No. Horn is
horn and rock is rock. The two can't be confused.

The only theory Harley could form was that the great beast was in some
strange way a link between the animal and the mineral kingdoms. Its
skeletal structure, perhaps, was silicate in substance, extending to
provide an outside covering that had hardened into actual stone, while
forming an interior support to flesh that was half organic, half
inorganic matter. Some such silicate construction was to be found in the
sponge, of Earth. Could this be a gigantic relative of that lowly
creature? He did not know, and couldn't guess. He wasn't a zoologist.
All he knew was that the thing appeared to be formed of living,
impregnable stone. He knew, also, that this fabulous creature was bent
on destroying him.

At this point in his reflections, the glint of water came to his eyes
between the tree trunks ahead of him. He had come back to the lake.

* * * * *

For moments he stood behind one of the larger trees on the fringe and
searched around the shore for sight of the rock giant. It was nowhere in
evidence. Rapidly he advanced from the forest and ran for the Dart. From
a distance it appeared to be all right: but as he drew near a cry rose
involuntarily to his lips.

In a dozen places the double hull of the little space craft was battered
in. The man-hole lid was torn from its braces and bent double. The glass
panels, unbreakable in themselves, had been shoved clear into the cabin;
their empty sash frames gaped at Harley like blinded eyes. Never again
would that Blinco Dart spe