The only unseemly exhibit in this island of the sky was the frozen body of Ghor's father on the ledge above the buried space ship. This, however, could be considered in the light of environment. On an airless bit of rock, where nothing decayed, burial in the ground was like offering the human body as food for the roots of millions of obscene plants. Burial seemed more of a sacrilege than the placing of the body on a rock as a flesh and blood monument.
After a rest during the short, five-hour night, Ghor offered to take the spacemen back to their ship to make repairs.
"It isn't that I wish to hurry your departure," he said, "but I realize that my life here is very dull. Except to tell you of my work, I have nothing to offer in the way of entertainment."
"Wouldn't you want to go back to Terra with us?" Mick asked.
Again that cunning, deceptive expression crossed Ghor's face.
"No," he said. He did not elaborate.
Ghor's method of avoiding the radioactive pellets cast from the buds of the weird plants of the asteroid, was akin to the degaussing process used by ships in mine-infested waters. The plants sensed their enemies through the minute electrical currents that are present in all living organisms, Ghor explained. They cast their pellets at all alien organisms that came near.
"You mean grow near?"
"There are a few mobile plants on Dead Man's planet." Ghor explained.