He befriends Hyoi, spending several weeks in his village among other hrossa. ” Despite his grim intended fate, Ransom has a transformative spiritual experience during the month-long flight, realizing that space is not a cold abyss but a bright sea of life akin to the heavens.Īfter landing on Malacandra, Weston and Devine attempt to turn Ransom over to the humanoid sorns, but Ransom breaks free and flees into a forested landscape called the “handramit.” As he wanders the surface of the unfamiliar planet, he meets Hyoi, a member of an intelligent seal-like species called “hrossa.” Hyoi’s ability of distinct language enables Ransom to overcome his initial fear of the hross’ unfamiliar body. Ransom is intended as a human sacrifice to a species of Malacandrian creatures called “sorns. After serving Ransom a drugged drink, Weston and Devine abduct him instead, bringing him aboard a spaceship bound for the planet Malacandra. He interrupts the men in the midst of their unexplained attempt to restrain a young man named Harry. While searching for lodging one night, Ransom comes across a house inhabited by an old schoolmate named Devine and a radical physicist named Dr. Elwin Ransom, a linguistics professor at Cambridge University who is taking a year-long sabbatical to complete a walking tour of England.

An unnamed narrator introduces protagonist Dr.

Out of the silent planet