"I want to live with you," Baba repeated. "Remember what the song says about parting. You stay here with me."
It was Johnny's turn to look unhappy. He didn't want to leave his father and mother, any more than Baba wanted to leave him. The hard climb was all for nothing.
"I can't, Baba. You know that," he said sadly.
"I can't either," Baba said.
Johnny continued arguing for a long time but it did no good. Baba wanted to be with Johnny: there wasn't anything more to say.
"I'm still hungry!" clicked the little bear, plaintively. Then, with a bounce, Baba was up and away. The little bear was crazier about fresh diamond-wood nuts than anything else, even chocolate.
Johnny felt sad and confused. He got up. Below him stretched the sweet green lands of Venus. The hard angles of the walls and the squat grey buildings of the settlements were somehow out of keeping with the rest of the land.
There was an almost park-like look about the jungle from this height. In the distance the towering groves of diamond-wood trees, where the marva lived, shone blue green against the light green clouds that were the skies of Venus. Between the blue groves of diamond-wood were the meadow lands, soft and rolling. At the edges of the meadows were the lower and darker green meat trees, where the saber-tooth leopards stalked. The land was laced with rivers that shone in the green light.
It was all so beautiful, and so deadly. In a few hours evening would begin—almost three Earth days of twilight. Venus turned so slowly that there was a whole Earth week each of daylight and dark. But of course people had to sleep and work by Earth days. The thick permanent clouds surrounding Venus glowed with light hours after sundown, making the twilight last and last.
Beyond the marshes was the sea—filled, too, with savage life, flying crocodiles who made nests of the bones of their prey, great dinosaur-like monsters and shark-snakes. But none of these dared come onto the land, for the land animals fought them as fiercely as they fought man.