As before, the plants opened a path for them. Healey drew a deep breath of relief, but he felt uneasy, and stayed on the ground until the other men were inside. He was ten feet from the Jacob's-ladder and just ready to follow the men inside when he heard a soft shuffling and looked around to see the plants crowding in on him.

It was eerie. The long leaves waved and danced, and a noise came from all of them that sounded like the wind sighing through the pine trees.

Commander Healey was terrified. He took a step backward, and one giant of a plant, nine feet tall, slithered over the alkali and came to a stop in front of him, between him and the ladder. Its leaves were gesticulating and that odd rustling noise came from it in a broken stream, with breaks and pauses and variations that made it seem almost like a person talking.

Healey had a sudden nightmare vision of being captured by creatures that were not even of the Earth. He ducked under a waving leaf and ran for the ladder. He shot up it and snatched it up after him and slammed the hatch.

Five minutes later, still trembling, he reported to the staff.

He was quite aware that for a moment he had lost his head.

He had run, and he wondered what the Old Man thought. Now that he faced the captain, he thought it would have been better to be a captive of Mars than to have the Old Man think he was a coward.

But Pickens merely looked at him casually.

"Quite a sensation, isn't it, Commander, being on a strange planet?" he observed.

Healey breathed easier and began to get control of himself. Now that the Old Man had forgiven him, he was able to compose himself.

The Old Man was the first to cross-examine him, then the ship's biologist took over.

The biologist asked questions about the plants.

"I am trying to decide whether they should be classified as 'human,'" he explained to the Old Man. "They're unquestionably mobile, and probably sentient."

Somehow the word "human" struck Healey wrong. He was a commander in the Rocket Service, and could he let it be said that he had run from anything human? He spoke up fast.

"They couldn't be human," he said. "They haven't 

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