“But there’s no fences,” protested Dard.
“No, but you take a farm that’s not been touched for a good long time-this stuff coulda jus’ kept seedin’ itself and spread out a lot. I gotta feelin’ this is part of a farm!”
With that Harmon took the lead, cutting across the narrowest section of the ripe crop to a line of bushes. Now that his attention had been stimulated by Harmon’s theory Dard thought that that clump of taller vegetation was strung out as if it might provide a barrier for the grain, a fence for the field.
They worked their way around this line of brush to discover Harmon’s instinct right. For there was no disguising the artificiality of the large dome flanked by several smaller ones which stood surmounted and surrounded by rank vines, tall grass and long unpruned shrubbery.
But it was not those domes which held the explorers’ attention. A constant murmur of sound and a flash of flying things drew them to a tree standing in what once must have been the front yard-if Those Others cultivated front yards.
“The golden apples!” Dard identified the tree from the carved piece he had seen the night before.
Its symmetrical cone shape of blue-green provided the right background for the yellow globes which dragged down branches with their weight. And the air and grass about the tree were alive with feasters.
The Terrans watched the wheeling birds-or were they oversized butterflies-that settled and squabbled for a chance to sink beaks into those ripened orbs. While, on the ground, there was a steady coming and going of hoppers harvesting the soft fallen fruit. And from that scene of activity the breeze wafted a scent which set the watchers’ mouths watering-semi-intoxicating with its promise of juicy delights.
As the men advanced, the busy feeders displayed no signs of alarm. One hopper ran straight between Cully’s feet, a quarter section of dripping fruit clasped in its arms. And a bird-butterfly skimmed Dard’s head on its way to the banquet.
“Well- for-!” Cully caught himself in midstride to avoid stepping on a furry red-brown mass. He picked up one of the hoppers in a completely comatose state. Harmon gave a bark of laughter.