The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Native Soil, by Alan Edward Nourse

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Native Soil

Author: Alan Edward Nourse

Release Date: January 14, 2008 [EBook #24274]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATIVE SOIL ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

The
Native
Soil

by Alan E. Nourse

Before the first ship from Earth made a landing on Venus, there was much
speculation about what might be found beneath the cloud layers obscuring
that planet's surface from the eyes of all observers.

One school of thought maintained that the surface of Venus was a jungle,
rank with hot-house moisture, crawling with writhing fauna and
man-eating flowers. Another group contended hotly that Venus was an arid
desert of wind-carved sandstone, dry and cruel, whipping dust into
clouds that sunlight could never penetrate. Others prognosticated an
ocean planet with little or no solid ground at all, populated by
enormous serpents waiting to greet the first Earthlings with jaws agape.

But nobody knew, of course. Venus was the planet of mystery.

When the first Earth ship finally landed there, all they found was a
great quantity of mud.

There was enough mud on Venus to go all the way around twice, with some
left over. It was warm, wet, soggy mud--clinging and tenacious. In some
places it was gray, and in other places it was black. Elsewhere it was
found to be varying shades of brown, yellow, green, blue and purple. But
just the same, it was still mud. The sparse Venusian vegetation grew up
out of it; the small Venusian natives lived down in it; the steam rose
from it and the rain fell on it, and that, it seemed, was that. The
planet of mystery was no longer mysterious. It was just messy. People
didn't talk about it any more.

But technologists of the Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc., R&D squad found a
certain charm in the Venusian mud.

They began sending cautious and very secret reports back to the Home
Office when they discovered just what, exactly was growing in that
Venusian mud besides Venusian natives. The Hom