A Meeting With Medusa Read Free Page A

water.
    And then, when it was only ten feet away, the velvet tide checked itself. On the right and the left, it still flowed forward; but dead ahead it slowed to a halt.
    ‘We’re being encircled,’ said Jerry anxiously. ‘Better fall back, until we’re sure it’s harmless.’
    To his relief, Hutchins stepped back at once. After a brief hesitation, the creature resumed its slow advance and the dent in its front line straightened out.
    Then Hutchins stepped forward again—and the thing slowly withdrew. Half a dozen times the biologist advanced, only to retreat again, and each time the living tide ebbed and flowed in synchronism with his movements. I never imagined, Jerry told himself, that I’d live to see a man waltzing with a plant…
    ‘Thermophobia,’ said Hutchins. ‘Purely automatic reaction. It doesn’t like our heat.’
    ‘ Our heat!’ protested Jerry. ‘Why, we’re living icicles by comparison.’
    ‘Of course—but our suits aren’t, and that’s all it knows about.’
    Stupid of me, thought Jerry. When you were snug and cool inside your thermosuit, it was easy to forget that the refrigeration unit on your back was pumping a blast of heat out into the surrounding air. No wonder the Venusian plant had shied away…
    ‘Let’s see how it reacts to light,’ said Hutchins. He switched on his chest lamp, and the green auroral glow was instantly banished by the flood of pure white radiance. Until Man had come to this planet, no white light had ever shone upon the surface of Venus, even by day. As in the seas of Earth, there was only a green twilight, deepening slowly to utter darkness.
    The transformation was so stunning that neither man could check a cry of astonishment. Gone in a flash was the deep, sombre black of the thick-piled velvet carpet at their feet. Instead, as far as their lights carried, lay a blazing pattern of glorious, vivid reds, laced with streaks of gold. No Persian prince could ever have commanded so opulent a tapestry from his weavers, yet this was the accidental product of biological forces. Indeed, until they had switched on their floods, these superb colours had not even existed, and they would vanish once more when the alien light of Earth ceased to conjure them into being.
    ‘Tikov was right,’ murmured Hutchins. ‘I wish he could have known.’
    ‘Right about what?’ asked Jerry, though it seemed almost a sacrilege to speak in the presence of such loveliness.
    ‘Back in Russia, fifty years ago, he found that plants living in very cold climates tended to be blue and violet, while those from hot ones were red or orange. He predicted that the Martian vegetation would be violet, and said that if there were plants on Venus they’d be red. Well, he was right on both counts. But we can’t stand here all day—we’ve work to do.’
    ‘You’re sure it’s quite safe?’ asked Jerry, some of his caution reasserting itself.
    ‘Absolutely—it can’t touch our suits even if it wants to. Anyway, it’s moving past us.’
    That was true. They could see now that the entire creature—if it was a single plant, and not a colony—covered a roughly circular area about a hundred yards across. It was sweeping over the ground, as the shadow of a cloud moves before the wind—and where it had rested, the rocks were pitted with innumerable tiny holes that might have been etched by acid.
    ‘Yes,’ said Hutchins, when Jerry remarked about this. ‘That’s how some lichens feed; they secrete acids that dissolve rock. But no questions, please—not till we get back to the ship. I’ve several lifetimes’ work here, and a couple of hours to do it in.’
    This was botany on the run… The sensitive edge of the huge plant-thing could move with surprising speed when it tried to evade them. It was as if they were dealing with an animated flapjack, an acre in extent. There was no reaction—apart from the automatic avoidance of their exhaust heat—when Hutchins snipped samples or took