Travel at night. Hide in the shadows by day. That was the rule for survival on Guelf.

The heat alone in the day was dangerous. The things that came out in the heat far more so. That’s what happens when cold blooded life developes intelligence on a world orbiting just inside the life zone of its sun.

It’s blistering hot in the day, and the hunters of Guelf roam the surface. When we landed, we could not have imagined that they were intelligent, much less maintained a civilization. Those of us who are left know the truth, and as we hide from the hunters, we can only pray we make it to safety to tell our stories.

I don’t know how many are still alive. I’ve seen men die from the heat, from the hunters and from the creeping madness that this infernal place seems to breed. I figure we’re still a thousand miles or more from the Pole, and the only place on the planet that may be too cool for the hunters.

On Earth, the cold blooded creatures evolved first. Those that remain are reptiles and fish. Here they evolved further until they almost look like us. They’re red in color, to absorb the heat, very man-like, but with a barbed prehensile tail they use as a weapon. The horns serve as a sensor, too, measuring infrared and allowing the hunters to track their colder, human prey even better.

Their cities are circular, level upon level. They grow higher with age, but for some reason never more than nine levels. In the daytime, they teem with hunters of all sizes, the young and the females.

The madness is that this is Hell and the hunters are devils. Nonsense, of course. Yet men have run out into the sunlight under the control of that madness.

I should rest now, because tonight we walk north again. With any luck, we’ll cover twenty miles before sunrise. At that rate, we’ll be nearing the Pole in a year or so.