"It's a woman's foot," Denis Petrov declared.

This preemptory remark, made in a strangled voice, did nothing at all to shock me.  It confirmed my own opinion.  The sliminess, the elegance, the singular beauty of the footprint had disturbed me profoundly.  There was no doubt as to the humanness of that foot.  Maybe it belonged to a teenager or a pygmy man, but with much more likelihood---and this I hoped with all my lonely heart---to a woman.

"So Silauros is inhabited by humans," Professor Kaminski murmured.

There was a trace of disappointment in his voice, which made me at that moment less well disposed towards the fellow.  He shrugged his shoulders with a gesture that was normal for him and joined us in inspecting the sand surrounding the lake.  We discovered other footprints, obviously left behind by the same creature.  Petrov, who had moved away from the water's edge, drew our attention to one on the dry sand.  The print itself was still damp.

"She was here less than five minutes ago," the young man exclaimed.

"She was swimming, heard us coming, and fled."

It had become an implicit fact for us that the subject under discussion was indeed a woman.  We fell silent, scanning the forest, but we didn't hear so much as even the noise of a branch breaking.

"We've got all the time in the world," said the professor, shrugging his shoulders again.  "But if a human being swam here, we could no doubt do the same without any danger."

Without further ado the learned scientist shed his clothing and plunged his scrawny body into the pond.  After our long voyage the pleasure of this swim in the cool, delicious water made us nearly forget our recent discovery.  Petrov alone seemed harassed or lost in thought.  I was about to make a taunting remark about his melancholy expression, when I saw the woman just above us, perched on the rocky ledge from which the cascade fell.

I will never forget the impression her appearance made on me.  I held my breath at the incredible beauty of this native of Silarous, who revealed herself to us dripping with spray, illuminated by the blood-red beams of Chang-Er.  Yes, it was a woman---a young girl, rather, unless it was a goddess.  She boldly asserted her femininity in the light of this monstrous sun, totally naked and without any ornament aside from her hair, which hung down to her shoulders.  Yes, we'd been deprived of any point of comparison for over two years, but none of us felt inclined to fall victim to hallucinations.  It was plain to see that the woman, standing motionless on the ledge like a statue on a pedestal, possessed the most perfect body that could be conceived on Earth.  Petrov and I were breathless, lost in admiration, and I think even old Professor Kaminski was moved.

Standing upright, leaning forward, her breasts thrust forward in our direction, her arms raised slightly backward in the attitude of a driver taking off, she was watching us, and her shock clearly equaled ours.  After gazing at her for a long time, I was so dazzled that I could not discern any particular feature:  her whole body hypnotized me.  It was only after several minutes that I saw she belonged to the Caucasian race, that her skin was golden, not suntanned, that she was tall, but not ridiculously so, and slender.  Then I noticed, as if in a dream, a face of singular purity.  Finally, I gazed into her eyes.

Then I became more alert, my attention sharpened, and I stiffened, for in her expression there was an element that was foreign to me.  In it I discerned the outlandish, mysterious quality all of us had been experiencing in a planet so distant from ours.  But I could neither analyze nor define the nature of this curiosity.  I only sensed an essential difference from individuals of our own species.  It did not come from the color of her eyes:  these were a grayish hue not often found among Earthlings, but by no means unheard of.  The anomaly lay in their emanation, a kind of void, an absence of expression, reminding me of a wretched insane girl I had once known.  But no! It was not that, it could not be insanity.

When she saw that she herself was an object of curiosity---or to be more exact, when my eyes met hers---she seemed to get a shock and abruptly looked away with an automatic gesture as swift as that of a wild animal in fright.  It was not out of shame at being therefore scrutinized; it would have been an exaggeration to think her capable of such an emotion.  It was just that her gaze would not---could not---withstand my own.  With her head turned to one side, she now watched us stealthily out of the corner of her eye.

"See, I told you so," young Petrov said, "it's a woman."

He had spoken in a voice stifled with emotion, nearly a whisper:  but the young girl heard him, and the sound of his voice produced a strange effect on her. She recoiled, but so swiftly that once more I compared her movement to the reflexes of a frightened animal pausing before taking flight.  But she stopped after taking two steps backwards, the rocks then hiding most of her body.  I could discern no more than the top of her head and an eye that stayed trained on us.

We dared not move a muscle, tortured by the fear of seeing her flee.  Our attitude reassured her, fortunately.  After a moment she stepped out again onto the ledge.  But young Petrov was decidedly too excited to be able to hold his tongue.

"Well, I never..." he started.

He stopped, realizing his impudence.  She had recoiled in the same manner as before, as if the human voice horrified her.

Professor Kaminski motioned us to stay still and began splashing about in the water without appearing to pay her the slightest mind.  We adopted similar tactics, which met with smashing success.  Not only did she step forward once more, but she soon showed a visible interest in our movements, an interest that was manifested in a rather odd manner, arousing our curiosity even more.  Have you ever watched a timid puppy on the beach while his master is swimming?  He longs to join him in the water but dares not.  He takes three steps in one direction, three in another, draws away, scampers back, shakes his head, paws the ground.  This, exactly, best describes the behavior of the girl.

Suddenly, we heard her: but the sounds she uttered only added to the impression of animality created by her attitude.  She was then standing on the very edge of her perch, as if about to fling herself into the lake.  She had broken off her kind of dance for a moment.  She opened her mouth.  I was standing a little to one side, thereby enabling me to study her without being noticed.  I thought she was going to speak, to give a shout.  I was expecting a cry, perhaps for help.  I was ready for the most barbarous language, but not for the weird sounds that came out of her throat: especially out of her throat, for neither mouth nor tongue played any part in this kind of shrill mewing or whining, which seemed once more to express the joyful frenzy of a wild animal.  In our zoos, sometimes, young chimpanzees play and wrestle together, giving just such little cries.

Since, despite our astonishment, we forced ourselves to go on swimming without paying attention to her, she seemed to come to a decision.  She lowered herself back onto the rock, took a grip on it with her hands, and began climbing down towards us.  Her agility was shocking.  Her golden body, appearing to us as if through a cloud of spray and light, like a fairytale vision, moved quickly down the rock face along the thin transparent blade of the waterfall.  In a few moments, clinging to some imperceptible projections, she was down at the level of the lake, kneeling on a flat stone.   She watched us a few seconds longer, then took to the water and swam towards us.

We realized that she wanted to play and therefore went on with our frolics, which had given her such confidence, modifying her movements whenever she looked shocked.   Soon we were all involved in a game in which she had unconsciously laid down the rules:  a strange game for a fact, with a certain resemblance to the movements of seals in a pool, which consisted of alternately fleeing from us and coming towards us, only to veer away when we were nearly within her reach, then coming so close as to graze us but without ever truly coming into physical contact.  It was childish; but what would we not have done in order to tame the enchanting stranger!  I noticed that Professor Kaminski took part in this play with unconcealed pleasure.

This had been going on for some time, and were running out of breath, when I was struck by the paradoxical nature of the girl's expression:  her solemnity.  There she was, taking evident pleasure in the games she was inspiring, yet not a smile had appeared on her face.  For some time, this had given me a vague feeling of uneasiness, without my knowing precisely why.  I was now relieved to discover the reason:  she neither laughed nor smiled; from time to time she only uttered one of those little throaty cries that evidently expressed her satisfaction.

I decided to conduct a little experiment.  As she approached me, cleaving the water with a strange swimming action resembling a dog's and with her hair streaming out behind her like a comet's tail, I looked her straight in the eye and, before she could turn her head aside, gave her a smile filled with all the friendliness and affection I could muster.

The result was astonishing.  She quit swimming, stood up in the water, which reached to her waist, and raised her hands in front of her in a defensive gesture.  Then she quickly turned her back on me and raced for the shore.  Out of the water she paused, and half-turned around, looking at me askance, as she had done on the ledge, with the startled air of prey animal that has just spotted its natural enemy.  Had she regained her confidence?  The smile had frozen on my lips, and I had begun swimming again in an innocent manner, but a fresh incident renewed her emotion.  We heard a noise in the forest and, tumbling from one branch to another, our friend Nikolai came into view, landed on his feet, and scampered over towards us, overjoyed at finding us again.  I was amazed to see the bestial expression, compounded of fright and menace, that came over the young girl's face when she caught sight of the chimp.  She drew back, hugging the rocks so closely as if to melt into them, every muscle tensed, her back arched, her hands contracted like claws.  Was all this because of a nice little chimpanzee who was about to greet us?  Apparently so.148Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUpxqK1rCDh

As he passed close by, without noticing her, she sprang out.  Her body twanged like a bow.  She took him by the throat and closed her hands around his neck, holding the poor animal between her thighs.  Her attack was so swift that we didn't even have time to stop her.  The chimp barely struggled.  He stiffened after a few seconds and fell dead when she let him go.  This gorgeous creature---in a romantic flight of fancy I had christened her "Novaya," was his Russian for "New," able to compare her appearance to that of a brilliant star---Novaya had strangled a harmless little pet animal to death with her bare hands!148Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPT7dC4fzMi

When, having recovered from our shock, we rushed towards her, it being far too late to rescue Nikolai.  She turned to face us as if to protect herself, her arms raised in front of her, her lips curled back, in a menacing attitude that brought us to a standstill.  Then she uttered a last shrill cry, which could be interpreted as either a triumphant shout or bellow of rage and fled into the forest.  In a few seconds she had vanished into the undergrowth that closed back around her golden body, leaving us standing aghast in the middle of the rainforest, now completely silent once more.