First, that wind. Sevigny searches for two men who are missing after a Lunar volcanic eruption:
"He saw no human figures. The wind squealed faintly through the volcano roar." (p. 171)
Wind on the Moon? Yes, the Moon is being terraformed and now has a thickening atmosphere. A squealing wind is not a good omen that the men will be found and rescued.
R'ku, the mantis-like Martian, who moves by springing or jumping, has a narrow insectoidal face with large, unblinking, turquoise eyes. He is yet another of Poul Anderson's many Martians. Anderson presents more intelligent Martian species than either Wells or Heinlein.
I have not got fully back into rereading this story yet. It can be a wrench to disengage from one fictional scenario, then to plunge straight into a completely different one, especially when the second narrative starts in the middle of the action and we have to pick up not only on what is going on but also on all the background stuff. Men are dying while interacting with a Martian on a changing Moon and one of the surviving men is from Venus and obviously there is going to be a lot more than that.
Someone once told me that he read sf to relax.
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