Rohan swore, and then he laughed. "I never heard of such conceit. I thought you said Earthmen were civilized. Only savages have that wonderful conception of their own importance."
Armed with curved knives and big sacks of a thin plasticoid substance as flexible as cloth but air tight when it was sealed, the men spread out through the fungoid jungle. They kept more or less together in small groups. Trehearne could hear them talking, a confusion of voices over the helmet phone. He talked a lot himself, not about anything in particular, just talking for the sake of hearing something human. There was a strange and increasingly unpleasant feeling of isolation, locked up in his armor, breathing artificial air, unable to see much because of the helmet that restricted his field of vision. He moved with difficulty over spongy dust that sucked him down almost to the knees at every step. The light was lurid and hard on the eyes, and the ugly growths grew uglier by the minute, their vivid colors more revolting. It was hard to tell who was near him, with everyone masked out of human semblance by the shapeless suits. He tried to keep close to Yann and the two youngsters, checking them by voice.
"Don't bother with the big ones," Yann told him. "They aren't any good. Here, see the little pretties just coming up? Those are what we want."
Trehearne looked doubtfully at the size of his sack, and then at the nasty little mushroom-like heads thrusting up from the ground. "It'll take a long time to fill this thing."
"Hours. Might as well dig in."
Trehearne began patiently to work, bent over double or squattering clumsily along on his knees. The uncleanness of the place began to get on his nerves. Unavoidably he broke the adult growths from time to time and was showered with sooty black, or liverish pink, or ugly red and yellow dust, or was enveloped in clouds of spores. He tried to watch the others, but he lost track of them now and then. Sometimes they did not answer when he called them. A slow claustrophobia grew on him and had to be fought down. He sweated heavily inside his armor. His muscles tired, and still the huge sack was not filled.
The light of the cumulid star began visibly to fade.
Trehearne looked around. A wall of leprous color closed him in. There was no one in sight. "Yann?" he called. "Perri?"
"Hoi!" That was Perri. "Dull work, isn't it?"
"Disgusting. Where's Yann?"