but more than once or
twice--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 equals
death.

I could picture Moya and the crew speculating that I'd taken complete
leave of my senses.

But sometimes you have to play the game blindly--"by the seat of your
pressure 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 enough
evidence to negate indiscriminate baptism.

I felt supremely foolish--for a while.

My thoughts began to focus, and I recalled the little plant that had
grown up through the hole in the pelvis.

Casting about, I located adult specimens. They seemed to fit the
requirements. Again it struck me that they bore a familial kinship to a
variety 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 were
clustered to form a rough funnel. Their inner surfaces were coated with
a glutinous substance. The main body of the plant was studded with warty
projections about the size of walnut halves. And just below the terminal
funnel was a corona of tapering members like leaves beneath a bizarre
blossom. They ended in sharp points, bore flimsy surface bristles, and
seemed 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 bark
segments on its trunk. There was a branch close enough to the ground to
be reached if my leg would support the necessary spring. I tested the
leg 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 any
lingering feeling of foolishness.

I sat there for quite a while, sickened. I thought about the crew of
231, and the other pieces of the puzzle. One of them had to be
arrogance--the natural arrogance of picked people that leads to a belief
in corporeal immortality: