Lundy came nearer fanning off for keeps then than he ever had. Reaction wrung him out like a wet bar-rag. His heart quit beating; his body jerked like something on a string. Then, through a mist that might have been sweat, or tears, or the edge of the Hereafter, he saw the little blue-grey people looking down at him. They hovered in a cloud above him, holding place with membranes as fluttering and delicate as bird-calls on a windy day. The membranes ran between arm- and leg-members, both of which had thin flat swimming-webs. There were suckers on the legs, about where the heels would have been if they'd had feet. Their bodies were slender and supple, and definitely feminine without having any of the usual human characteristics. They were beautiful. They weren't like anything Lundy had even seen before, or even dreamed about, but they were beautiful. They had faces. Queer little pixie things without noses. Their mouths were round and tiny and rather sweet, but their eyes were their dominant feature. Huge round golden eyes with pupils of deep brown. Soft eyes, gentle, inquiring, it made Lundy feel like crying, and so scared that it made him mad. The flowers kept weaving around hopefully. When one got too close to Lundy, one of the little people would slap it gently, the way you would a pet dog, and shoo it away. "Do you live?" III Lundy wasn't surprised by the telepathic voice. Thought-communication was commoner than speech and a lot simpler in many places on the inhabited worlds. Special gave its men a thorough training in it. "I live, thanks to you." There was something in the quality of the brain he touched that puzzled him. It was like nothing he'd ever met before. He got to his feet, not very steadily. "You came just in time. How did you know I was here?" "Your fear-thoughts carried to us. We know what it is to be afraid. So we came." "There's nothing I can say but 'Thank you'." "But of course we helped! Why not? You needn't thank us." Lundy looked at the flowers burning sullenly in the gloom. "How is it you can boss them around? Why don't they...." "But they're not cannibals! Not like--_The Others_." There was pure cold dread in that last thought. "Cannibals." Lundy looked up at the cloud of dainty blue-grey woman-things. His skin got cold and a size too small for him. Their soft golden eyes smiled down at him. "We're different from you, yes. Just as we're different from the fish. What is your thought? Bright things growing--weed--yes, they're kin to us." Kin, thought Lundy. Yeah. About like we are to the animals. Plants. Living plants were no novelty on Venus. Why not plants with thinking minds? Plants that carried their roots along with them, and watched you with sad soft eyes. "Let's get out of here," said Lundy.