Parked in front of the cabin were half-assembled machines carted from the wreckage of the ships. Gradually, Irma was reconstructing new implements from the remains of the old. The fuel pipes of the ships were now sewage drains. The control board wiring carried electricity from the water-driven generator to the cabin.
Standing glumly in the shed beyond the cabin were a variety of indigenous herbivores, drowsily munching moist hay. A number of species had been collected; it wasn't yet established what each was good for. Already, ten types with edible flesh had been catalogued, plus two types secreting drinkable fluids. A gargantuan beast covered with thick hair served as a source of muscle-power. And now the big-footed dobbin that Dieter used to pull his cart.
The dobbin raced determinedly down the road; in a matter of seconds it had hit full velocity. Feet flying, it sped like a furry ostrich, tiny head erect, legs a blur of motion. Blop-blop was the noise a running dobbin made. The cart bounced wildly; Louis and Irma held on for their lives. Delirious with joy, Dieter clutched the reins and urged the thing faster.
"This is fast enough," Irma managed, gritting her teeth. "You haven't seen anything," Dieter yelled. "This thing really loves to run."
A wide ditch lay ahead, a tumble of rocks and shrubs. Louis closed his eyes; the cart was already on the verge of bursting apart. "We won't make it," he grunted. "We'll never get across."
As it reached the ditch, the dobbin unfolded two stubby, ratty-hided wings and flapped them energetically. The dobbin and the cart rose slightly in the air, hung over the ditch, and then bumpily lowered on the far side.
"It's a bird," Irma gasped.
"Yes!" Dieter shouted. "It can go anywhere. That's my good dobbin." He leaned precariously forward and whacked the thing on its shaggy rump. "Noble dobbin! Majestic bird!"
The landscape shot past. To the far right rose a hazy range of mountains, mostly lost in the drifting swirls of fog that kept the surface of the planet always damp. A solid skin of growing vegetation and creeping insects... everywhere Louis looked there was life. Except at one charred spot at the base of the mountains, a black sore already beginning to turn green as plant-life quietly covered it.
The scout domes had been there. The non-Venusians who had preceded them, cooped up in their "refuges," their airtight stations. Now they were dead; only the eight Venusians remained.
When the second ship had landed, the ambulances were already on the way. The second landing was more successful; nobody had been hurt, and the ship was virtually undamaged. The ambulances had collected the injured and taken them to the installations set up in anticipation of their arrival. During the first month, the non-Venusians had cooperated fully—in spite of orders from the Crisis Government. Then, toward March, the Crisis Government had stopped transmitting. A week later a heavy-duty projectile had come bursting down on the non-Venusian domes; within a day only the eight Venusians were extant.
The death of the non-Venusians was a shock, but a shock they could recover from. The problem of their own existence was simplified; now they were totally on their own, without communication of any sort with non-Venusians.
Between the ruined domes and their own ships and installations there was ample intact equipment at their disposal. Promptly, they had begun carting it off and putting it into operation. But a lethargy crept over them. Finally they had ceased the regular pilgrimages; they stopped collecting the Earth-manufactured materials, the elaborate machinery and industrial products.
None of them really wanted to go on from the point at which they had left off. In actuality they wanted to start from the bottom up. It was not a replica of Earth-civilization that they wanted to create; it was their own typical community, geared to their own unique needs, geared to the Venusian conditions, that they wanted.
It had to be agrarian.
They already had crops and simple cabins, irrigation ditches, clothing woven from plant fibre, electricity, a pair of dobbin-drawn carts, sanitation and wells. They had domesticated native animals; they had located natural building materials. They were shaping basic tools and functional artifacts. In their first year, thousands of years of cultural evolution had been achieved. Perhaps, in a decade—
Off beyond the meadow was a long gully. Occasional drifters lay here and there among the shrubbery; a cloud had come settling down, the week before. And beyond the gully, in the shadows of a wide ridge, rested an immense wad of white material.
"What's that?" Dieter inquired, interrupting Louis' thoughts. "I've never seen that life form."
In the second dobbin cart, Frank and Syd approached. The Venusians gathered silently, uneasy in the presence of the ominous mound of white. In Syd's arms the baby stirred fitfully.
"It doesn't belong here," Frank said finally.
"Why do you say that?" Dieter asked. "Who are you to pass judgement?"
"I mean," Frank explained, "it's not Venusian. It came down a day or so after the drifters."
"Came down!" Dieter was perplexed. "What do you mean?"
Frank shrugged. "Like the drifters. It descended."
"I saw another one," Irma volunteered. "Apparently it's a second interstellar life form."
Abruptly, Louis' hand closed around Dieter's shoulder. "Take the cart over to it. I want to examine it."
Dieter's face sagged resentfully. "Why? I want to show you my corn."
"The hell with your corn," Louis said sharply. "We better take a look at that thing."
"I looked at the other one," Frank said. "It seemed harmless. I couldn't see any special characteristics... it's a single cell, like the drifters." He hesitated. "I broke it open. It's got a. nucleus, cell-wall, granules within the cytoplast. The usual stuff; it's definitely a protozoon."
Dieter headed the dobbin cart toward the wad of white. In a moment they had drawn up beside it and halted. The other cart followed. One of the dobbins sniffed at the white wad; without comment he began to nibble.
"Leave that alone," Dieter ordered nervously. "Maybe it'll poison you."
Louis leaped down and strode over.
The wad was faintly moist. It was alive, all right. Louis got a stick and began prodding it experimentally. Here was a second life-form out of space, a rarer form, not as common as the smaller drifters. "Just two?" he asked. "Nobody's seen any more?"
"There's one over there," Irma said, pointing.
A quarter of a mile away a third wad had recently landed. From where they stood they could see it sluggishly stirring... the wad was making its way slowly over the ground. Its movement slowed. Presently it came to rest.
"It's dead," Dieter commented indifferently.
Louis walked over toward it, across the spongy green surface of plant life. Tiny animals scuttled underfoot, hard-shelled crustaceans. He ignored them and kept his eyes on the looming wad of white. When he reached it, he discovered that it wasn't dead; it had found a hollow depression and was laboriously anchoring itself. Fascinated, he watched it exude a slimy cement. The cement hardened, and the wad was tightly fixed to the ground. There it rested, obviously waiting.
Waiting for what?
Curious, he walked all around it. The surface was uniform. It certainly looked like a cell, all right: a giant single cell. He picked up a rock and tossed it; the rock embedded itself in the white substance and stuck there.
No doubt it was related to the drifters. Two stages, perhaps; that was the probable explanation. The drifters, he knew, were incomplete; they lacked the ability to ingest food, to reproduce, even to stay alive. But this thing was clearly staying alive: it was getting itself set up. A symbiotic relationship, perhaps?