the possible death or injury of two men ostensibly undermy control.
After several hours of sweat-agony, Moya's voice came over the horn. Hesounded tired.
"We've done it. You'll be happy to know that we gave them an officialburial."
I could picture the little Mexican, standing beside the long mound, headbowed, with the Specter probably staring over his shoulder, goingmethodically through the complete Memorial Service, ending with: _Andthe whole galaxy is the sepulcher of illustrious men._
"It's not much of a place, but the sun is shining now. Expect usshortly."
* * * * *
"Are you _sure_ you're all right?"
I was propped on my elbows on the bunk in my cubicle, nursing the janglein my leg. Maybe it was that--but I was as confused as a mouse in apsych maze.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Moya said.
"And you wore the suits all the time?"
"Affirmative. If you'd done the same--"
The medic showed with lab analyses.
"There wasn't much of that stuff in you," he said. "And I can't break itdown. Too complex. You used the cobra venom analogy--Well, this makesthat look as simple as mother's milk."
He held up the stained pieces of uniform. Moya had kept his wits abouthim.
"A combination of weather, soil, et cetera," the medic said. "Completelyinnocuous."
"About the toxin," I said. "Given time, could you work up an antivenin?"
"Probably. But I'd need plenty. Both time and toxin." He looked at me."Oh, I see what you're getting at." He became professionally parochial.
"In other words--" I said.
He snapped his fingers.
"You know how it hit you."
The confusion persisted, so I allowed the medic to use a pressure hypo.
Hours later, I felt better--physically.
On the vid screen, the magnified surface of the insular mass seemedalmost to beckon. _Sireni_, I thought.
Little remained of the weather front. Over the area of the plain and therolling hills were meager wisps of clouds. Darkness again was creepingacross the face of E-T.
"That storm didn't amount to much," Moya said.
_Storm_, I thought. _Rain._
"I know what I'd do," Moya continued. "I'd radiate and have done withit."
The medic dissented on clinical-curiosity grounds.
"I can't reconcile things yet," I said. "But let's assume that it was atragedy of errors. Let's say that what hit me, killed them. But what wasit? Where did it come from? And why? No, I'll have to go down again.It's my burden to find _all_ the answers."
Moya growled: "There's a time for stubbornness."
I caught the rest of the crew staring at me; their expressions were amotley.
* * * * *
Back at the same old stand, open for business, looking at the pitifulalteration, feeling lonely, feeling vulnerable, too, despite the bugsuit, Moya's parting blast still burning in my mind.
He'd ferried me down to the hilltop in the long shadows of earlymorning. I'd had to order him to return to the star ship. I stood nowbeside the communal mound. Moya had said, pointing down the hill, angermaking him illogical: "These are the people you sold out when youtransferred to Interstel. They could have used your kind of brains.Post-mortems aren't going to help them, now."
It was simple, wasn't it?
Something on E-T was a killer: quick and deadly.
If it got any sort of clean shot at you--
Something visible. Something big enough to make a mark. And not static,like a thorn. A ground crawler? My pant's legs had been tucked securelyinto my boot tops. A flier? It would have to be strong enough to piercea GS uniform and make an entrance into flesh. Or to leave a scratch froma glancing blow. And I hadn't seen anything.
But only a recent problem.
And restricted to the area beyond the stream.
And random.
And terribly innocent. Innocent enough to be overlooked until it wastoo late.
_Think._
I thought and came up with a brainful of nothing.
_Think again._
Strong enough to pierce two thicknesses of cloth--It must have goneentirely through, although the overzealousness of the crew had removedany possibility of proof.
How about the bug suit?
Assume the plastic was protection enough--
Wouldn't the wearer notice a blow? Or hear something?
I'd felt but not heard.
But then the rain had been falling.
No insect had hit me forcibly before--
Moya and his helper had noticed nothing after--
A few meager drops of rain, sibilantly soaking into the eager soil ofEpsilon-Terra.
Whoever first mouthed that bit about cursing being the audiblemanifestation of a mediocre mind completely missed the point.
There's something infinitely comforting in the crackle and sweep androll of heartfelt invective.
I left the site of the common grave and made it back to the hillside andshuttler IV as fast as discretion and terrain and my game leg wouldallow.
* * * * *
"I _am_ thinking," Moya grumbled over the comm. "If these details are soimportant, why--?"
"Don't blame Interstel," I said. "The tapes were put together by GSheadquarters."
"Well, whoever. They should have included more information."
"Thompson," I prodded.
"Sure, sure, I remember him. Big, awkward, slow-moving--always babblingabout plants."
"What kind?"
"_All_ kinds."
"But anything particular? Something that he wanted to extract somethingfrom."
"Well, let's see--He brought back lots of sample specimens, but there_was_ one that he played with all the way home. It was an insectivorousor carnivorous species, as I recall--"
"Yes? Yes?"
"That produced a chemical he thought might prove useful if it could beextracted and concentrated or synthesized--Now, hold on. Are youtrying--?"
"Why not? And why didn't you mention this sooner?"
"For the simple reason--What got you off on this tangent?"
"_Rain._ The kid's diary said '_rain_ potential.' The captain's logmentioned a _surface weather front_. And it _rained_ just before I washit."
"I fail to see the connection. But think about this: It rained on thesurvey team I ferried here, too--not often, but more than once ortwice--and nothing happened to them."
That was the trouble with firing off at half thrust.
But there was still this nagging conviction: rain plus vegetation equalsdeath.
I could picture Moya and the crew speculating that I'd taken completeleave of my senses.
But sometimes you have to play the game blindly--"by the seat of yourpressure suit," as the pioneers stated it.
I went to the shuttler's locker, located a canteen in a survival kit,filled it and left the ship.
I started where I'd found the largest collection of remains.
Moya's memory had failed to particularize the plant, but I had enoughevidence to negate indiscriminate baptism.
I felt supremely foolish--for a while.
My thoughts began to focus, and I recalled the little plant that hadgrown up through the hole in the pelvis.
Casting about, I located adult specimens. They seemed to fit therequirements. Again it struck me that they bore a familial kinship to avariety that occurred on the plain.
I couldn't place the difference.
Finally I selected one about two feet tall.
It was bulbous, thick skinned, terminating in broad members that wereclustered to form a rough funnel. Their inner surfaces were coated witha glutinous substance. The main body of the plant was studded with wartyprojections about the size of walnut halves. And just below the terminalfunnel was a corona of tapering members like leaves beneath a bizarreblossom. They ended in sharp points, bore flimsy surface bristles
, andseemed to serve as protection for the trap.
I prodded the green-and-yellow mottled skin of the thing. It was tough,resistant, almost pneumatic--
I had this sudden, strong feeling.
About ten feet away was a tree with dull-reddish, overlapping barksegments on its trunk. There was a branch close enough to the ground tobe reached if my leg would support the necessary spring. I tested theleg for leap and the branch for support. They held.
I uncapped the canteen and sprinkled the remaining water over the plant,making sure that some reached both the funnel and the corona.
I ran.
Seconds later, perched monkey-see, monkey-do on the branch, I lost anylingering feeling of foolishness.
I sat there for quite a while, sickened. I thought about the crew of231, and the other pieces of the