gather water too scarce to
collect in merely vertical holes.

They went on and on, admiring and amazed. All about them were
curiosities of adaptation, freaks of ecological adjustment, marvels of
symbiotic cooperation. A botanist would have swooned with joy at the
material all about. A biologist would have babbled happily. Babs and
Cochrane admired without information. They walked interestedly but
unawed among the unparalleled. Back on Earth they knew as much as most
people about nature--practically nothing at all. Babs had never seen any
wild plants before. She was fascinated by what she saw, and exclaimed at
everything. But she did not realize a fraction of the marvels on which
her eyes rested. On the whole, she survived.

"It's a pity we haven't got a helicopter," Cochrane said regretfully.
"If we could fly around from place to place, and send back pictures ...
We can't do it in the ship ... It would burn more fuel than we've got."

Babs wrinkled her forehead.

"Doctor Holden's badly worried because we can't make as alluring a
picture as he'd like."

Cochrane halted, to watch something which was flat like a disk of
gray-green flesh and which moved slowly out of their path with
disquieting writhing motions. It vanished, and he said:

"Yes. Bill's an honest man, even if he is a psychiatrist. He wants
desperately to do something for the poor devils back home who're so
pitifully frustrated. There are tens of millions of men who can't hope
for anything better than to keep the food and shelter supply intact for
themselves and their families. They can't even pretend to hope for more
than that. There isn't more than so much to go around. But Bill wants to
give them hope. He figures that without hope the world will turn
madhouse in another generation. It will."

"You're trying to do something about that!" said Babs quickly. "Don't
you think you're offering hope to everybody back on Earth?"

"No!" snapped Cochrane. "I'm not trying anything so abstract as
furnishing hope to a frustrated humanity! Nobody can supply an
abstraction! Nobody can accomplish an abstraction! Everything that's
actually done is specific and real! Maybe you can find abstract
qualities in it after it's done, but I'm a practical man! I'm not trying
to produce an improved psychological climate, suitable for debilitated
psychos! I'm trying to get a job done!"

"I've wondered," admitted Babs, "what the job is."

Cochrane grimaced.

"You wouldn't