This was an outright lie, and Rodriguez proved it by carefully transferring samples of the various germ colonies into buffered, isotonic media and injecting hamsters with the concentrated result. They did not seem to mind.
Raw atmosphere was trapped in large jars and several specimens of minor animal life from Earth, and other planets were allowed to disport themselves within. None of them seemed to mind, either.
Nevile Fawkes—botanist; a man who appreciated his own handsomeness by modeling his hair style after that I shown on the traditional busts of Alexander the Great, but from whose appearance the presence of a nose, far more aquiline than Alexander ever possessed, noticeably detracted—was gone for two days, by Junior chronology, in one of the Triple G’s atmospheric coasters. He could navigate one like a dream and was, in fact, the only man outside the crew who could navigate one at all, so he was the natural choice for the task. Fawkes did not seem noticeably overjoyed about that.
He returned, completely unharmed and unable to hide a grin of relief. He submitted to irradiation for the sake of sterilizing the exterior of his flexible air-suit—designed to protect men from the deleterious effect of the outer environment where no pressure differential existed; the strength and jointedness of a true spacesuit being obviously unnecessary within an atmosphere as thick as Junior’s. The coaster was subjected to a more extended irradiation, and pinned down under a plastic cover-all.
Fawkes flaunted color photographs in great number. The central valley of the continent was fertile almost beyond Earthly dreams. The rivers were mighty, the mountains rugged and snow-covered—with the usual pyrotechnic solar effects. Under Lagrange II alone, the vegetation looked vaguely repellant, seeming rather dark, like dried blood. Under Lagrange I, however, or under the suns together, the brilliant, flourishing green and the glisten of the numerous lakes—particularly north and south along the dead rims of the departing glaciers—brought an ache of homesickness to the hearts of many.
Fawkes said, “Look at t hese.”
He had skimmed low to take a photochrome of a field of huge flowers, dripping with scarlet. In the high-ultraviolet radiation of Lagrange I, exposure times were of necessity extremely short and despite the motion of the coaster, each blossom stood out as a sharp blotch of strident color.
“I swear,” said Fawkes, “each one of those was six feet across.”
They admired the flowers unrestrainedly.
Fawkes then said, “No intelligent life whatever, of course.”