"You have to do something."
"Do what?"
"Something important. Something to feel satisfied about." A wave, higher than the rest, slapped the rock a bare couple of feet below them and sent spray stinging in against them. "You have to say, 'Look, maybe it wasn't much, but I did this.'"
"What kind of this?"
"How do I know?" shouted Calvin. "Something—maybe something nobody else did—maybe something that hasn't been done before!"
"For yourself?" said the plant. A higher wave slapped at the very rim of their hollow, and a little water ran over and down to pool around them. Calvin felt it cold around his knees and wrists. "Or for the doing?"
"For the doing! For the doing!"
"If it is for the doing, can you take no comfort from the fact there are others of your own kind to do it?"
Another wave came in on them. Calvin moved spasmodically right up against the plant and put his arms around it, holding on.
"I have seeded ten times and done much thinking," said the plant—rather muffledly, for Calvin's body was pressing against its air-sac. "I have not thought of anything really new, or startling, or great, but I am satisfied." It paused a moment as a new wave drenched them and receded. They were half awash in the hollow now, and the waves came regularly. "I do not see how this is so different from what you have done. But I am content." Another and stronger wave rocked them. The plant made a sound that might have been of pain at its roots tearing. "Have you seeded?"