Calvin did not answer.
"I feel sorry for you," said the plant. "I do not like to see things suffer."
Raising his head a little and looking around him, Calvin could see the water, risen high around them, so that waves were splashing on all sides, less than the length of his own body away.
"It wouldn't make sense to you," said Calvin then, raising his rain-wet face toward the plant. "You're old by your standards. I'm young. I've got things to do. You don't understand."
"No," the plant agreed. "I do not understand."
Calvin crawled a little closer to the plant, into the hollow, until he could see the vibrating air-sac that produced the voice of the plant. "Don't you see? I've got to do something—I've got to feel I've accomplished something—before I quit."
"What something?" asked the plant.
"I don't know!" cried Calvin. "I just know I haven't! I feel thrown away!"
"What is living? It is feeling and thinking. It is seeding and trying to understand. It is companionship of your own people. What more is there?"