It lay within the area he had grown over, but he had never bothered to send down shoots and side creepers into it. It was a peculiar sensation to recognize--Dr. Adelitka Wynn. He sent out a sly root and detected that she was a bulb formation. Her indignation was transmitted violently along the ground, in a series of sharp shocks. She stood in tall sheaves of broad-bladed grass which rustled in the wind. He found it was intelligible, though of a different timbre than the deep, rough scraping he made with his own hairy leaves. "Kindly keep to yourself," she said in effect. Her leaves had a high hissing note. He marveled that she had managed to retain the same unpleasant approach to life. She was objectionable again when she had filled her pit and found she could not extend onto the flat earth beyond, because he had already covered the area. "Come on," he said. "We've got the whole world to ourselves." "I can't," she answered hissingly. "You have spikes on your stems. They'll tear my leaves." He shut off the sap from a whole subsidiary system, killing it. She spread over his withered shoots and leaves without a sound of acknowledgment. They both developed toward the marshes. As he approached, leaving her slower bulb-formation behind as he raced tendril ahead of tendril down the slope, he saw there were other forms of life, in the water. He said nothing. But he quietly doubled his thorns and built up a reserve in his advance tendrils, so that he could rush an armored shoot across the ground at high speed if necessary. The aquatic life moved and died extremely fast. Whole species expanded from a single specimen, and for no visible reason extinguished themselves. Life on the planet did not seem to be stable. It was highly experimental. He had been down at the marsh for some time before the first crablike object came into existence and began to leave the water in fitful dashes. He gave it an early dose of his thorns. Thereafter it left him alone. The former Dr. Adelitka Wynn, however, approached the marsh without looking. He watched with satisfaction. She was a golden brown and tender green, and highly succulent apparently to the crab tribe. She cried for help. They were, after all, the only two of human origin on the planet. So he put his reserve to work and sent an armored set of shoots racing across the ground as a barrier between her and the marsh. The crab tribes retreated. "Thank you," she said, regenerating her clipped stems. "That's the first time you've ever said that," he said hoarsely. "I'm sorry. I am ... really glad you're here." "How glad?" "This is a most peculiar world," she said, changing the subject. "I don't recognize it at all."