"He was my father." Ghor spoke simply. His words were carefully and slowly enunciated. Mick supposed that Ghor was unused to talking and his brain worked slowly in the matter of words. But that brain was keen. It seemed to read Mick's thoughts, answering an unspoken question about the Dead Man. "You must have an interesting history," Alf suggested. "I have," Ghor replied. "But so have you. Tell me how you happened to find my home. You might have repaired your ship and gone on, without discovering me." "There was a field of queer acting plants--they looked like maize, except that they tried to kill us." "Oh! My cornfield! I forgot the nasty habit the cornstalks have." "You mean that stuff was corn?" Alf asked. "Real roasting ears?" "Well, almost." Ghor's lips cracked into another of his nerve-racking smiles. "You see the plants are really native of Dead Man's planet, but I modified them into something quite close to terrestrial maize." "By grafting and cross fertilization?" "Oh no. There is a much different process of propagation of the species here, much simpler. My corn was regenerated." Ghor hobbled across the room toward an ultra-violet lamp beneath which were two pots of flowers, both looking much like American beauty roses. Ghor returned, with the same mincing steps, walking as if a leg injury had limited the use of his knees. "These flowers are beautiful," Ghor said, like a doctor of philosophy announcing the first premise of a step in mathematics. "Yes," Mick replied. "We noticed numbers of them growing in the rocks." "I know. I placed them there, to make Dead Man's planet beautiful. But they are quite useless." "Oh, I wouldn't say that." "I know what I am talking about. On earth, roses serve many purposes aside from beauty. They help maintain the atmosphere by exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen; they fertilize the soil; they supply insects, such as bees, with food. These roses extract carbon from the rocks and give nothing in return, except their beauty. The soil is not fertilized. There are no insects to feed. This flower has no pollen, for it is purely ornamental, developed by myself for beauty's sake." He took his fingers and pinched off the rose. As it dropped to the floor, a whitish, gleaming pellet half emerged from the flower, but Ghor quickly ground it underfoot. "You see? That little projectile might have killed me. The flower is vicious. Like other plants on this planet it utilizes organic radioactivity to destroy other living plants." "So that was what it was." Mick said. "Organic radioactivity!" Ghor did not reply. His eyes were on the stem of the plant. It was swaying gently, as if it possessed muscles. A little green bubble formed on the end of the stem. "Watch!" Ghor whispered. The bubble enlarged and suddenly burst. There, in full bloom, was another rose, just like the first that Ghor had broken from the stem.