"Even if one does accept the idea of intelligent plants," Clyde Ellery said, "it does seem that some of the things which have happened would be beyond the ability of—say—a tree."
You are wrong, Earth-Man, came the thought. We have been the dominant life on this planet for many thousands of years, by your reckoning of time. Long ago, we knew there was intelligent life on the third planet of our sun, for we could catch an occasional thought, and we knew that your science was less advanced than our own. But we didn't realize until much later that it was animal life which was dominant there. At first, we found it hard to believe our senses.
"Then you did build the space ships?" Spaak asked.
Of course. It was not difficult. The Scarlet Diggers among us dug up the Llantl ore, even as you saw it done this morning. The Flame Tree processed it, and the Great Pounder hammered the hull into shape.
"But how did you power the ship? What were those crimson pellets which we saw pouring into the hopper in the ship?" Clyde Ellery asked.
The seeds of the Flame Tree. They are a more powerful explosive than anything known to your science.
"And the recordings?" asked Ellery.
The seed-bearing cones of our Repeater Tree. It took many trips of our first ship, for our message had to be made up of individual words from your languages. We could not communicate as we are now because of the distance.
"How did you know that we needed help?" Ellery asked.
We felt the waves of force set up by the explosion of what you called atomic energy. We had felt these waves before, coming from other planets, and each time all thoughts gradually died out on those planets and we knew that the intelligent life there had died. The last time it happened was on the fourth planet of our sun, a long time ago.