Nothing could live in this wind. Nothing could live on a planet with no water, where the air was full of formaldehyde ready to react with proteins, the basis of life.
He lay motionless, watching idly. There was no sound but the wind. The yellow teardrops scattered out. They could have been exploring—or seeking shelter—or nonexistent.
When he got tired of watching them, George put the log aside and slept.
He awoke to find a small congregation of teardrops surrounding the watch strapped outside the suit on his left wrist. The watch was going—wound through habit every twenty-four hours, though that was but a third of a day, here on Venus. The teardrops were curious about it.
How he got the idea they were curious, George didn't quite know. They seemed attracted to it, was all. There were no eyes, so far as he could tell—no ears. If these things had senses, they were not like terrestrial senses. But the teardrops did have an attitude of attention.
George removed his watch, laid it before them. Two teardrops detached themselves from the group to examine his right hand, with which he'd slipped off the wrist-band. Three others perched on the dust-covered deck, the watch between them and him.
George flexed his right hand, twiddled his fingers. The teardrops seemed unafraid. He chose one and lifted it. It seemed light in weight. Its star-foot was slightly prehensile, and grasped his glove with tiny claws arranged in rows on its bottom surface.
The claws seemed for clinging, not for seizing. George put down the teardrop, turned it over, and found no opening anywhere on the surface. If these things lived, he decided, they must be plants, synthesizing their food—they had no way to eat as animals do.
Vaguely, George made up his wavering mind that the things existed outside his imagination. They were alive. They felt curiosity about him. Leathery, he found them—hard and smooth, except for the foot.