s Major, the greatest of the thickets, with here and there a
jutting spur of it projecting toward him along a gully. Nelsen's hide
tingled. But his first glimpse was handicapped by distance. He saw only
an expanse of low shagginess that might have been scrub growths of any
kind.

Dug into the salt-bearing ground at intervals, he knew, were the fire
weapons ready to throw oxygen and synthetic napalm--jellied gasoline.
Never yet had they been discharged, along this defense line. But you
could never be sure just what might be necessary here.

A man of about thirty had approached. "I meet the new arrivals," he
said. "If you'll come along with me, Mr. Nelsen..."

He was dark, and medium large, and he had a genial way. He looked like a
hopper--an asteroid-miner--the tough, level-headed kind that adjusts to
space and keeps his balance.

"Name's Ed Huth," he continued, as they walked to the reception dome.
"Canadian. Good, international crowd here--however long you mean to
stay. Most interesting frontier in the solar system, too. Probably
you've heard most of the rules and advice. But here's a paper. Refresh
your memory by reading it over as soon as you can. There is one thing
which I am required to show everybody who comes here. Inside this peek
box. You are instructed to take a good look."

Huth's geniality had vanished.

The metal box was a yard high, and twice as long and wide. It stood,
like a memorial, before the reception dome entrance. A light shone
beyond the glass-covered slot, as Nelsen bent to peer.

He had seen horror before now. He had seen a pink mist dissolve in the
sunshine as a man in armor out in the Belt was hit by an explosive
missile, his blood spraying and boiling. Besides, he had read up on the
thickets of Mars, watched motion pictures, heard Gimp Hines' stories of
his brief visit here. So, at first, he could be almost casual about what
he saw in the peek box. There were many ghastly ways for a man to die.

Even the thicket plant in the box seemed dead, though Nelsen knew that
plant successors to the original Martians had the rugged power of
revival. This one showed the usual paper-dry whorls or leaves, and the
usual barrel-body, perhaps common to arid country growths, everywhere.
Scattered over the barrel, between the spines, were glinting
specks--vegetable, light-sensitive cells developed into actual visual
organs. The plant had the usual tympanic pods of its kind--a band of
muscle-like tissue