"Kindly keep to yourself," she said in effect.
Her leaves had a high hissing note. He marveled that she had managed to retain the same unpleasant approach to life.
She was objectionable again when she had filled her pit and found she could not extend onto the flat earth beyond, because he had already covered the area.
"Come on," he said. "We've got the whole world to ourselves."
"I can't," she answered hissingly. "You have spikes on your stems. They'll tear my leaves."
He shut off the sap from a whole subsidiary system, killing it. She spread over his withered shoots and leaves without a sound of acknowledgment. They both developed toward the marshes.
As he approached, leaving her slower bulb-formation behind as he raced tendril ahead of tendril down the slope, he saw there were other forms of life, in the water.
He said nothing. But he quietly doubled his thorns and built up a reserve in his advance tendrils, so that he could rush an armored shoot across the ground at high speed if necessary. The aquatic life moved and died extremely fast. Whole species expanded from a single specimen, and for no visible reason extinguished themselves. Life on the planet did not seem to be stable. It was highly experimental. He had been down at the marsh for some time before the first crablike object came into existence and began to leave the water in fitful dashes. He gave it an early dose of his thorns. Thereafter it left him alone.
The former Dr. Adelitka Wynn, however, approached the marsh without looking.
He watched with satisfaction. She was a golden brown and tender green, and highly succulent apparently to the crab tribe. She cried for help.