"What happened to our seeds is one of them. Some of the roots extend into microscopic threads hardly more than streaks of single molecules. You can't dig them out and they escape all the ordinary weed-fighting methods. One of their cute little tricks is to attach themselves to other plants and seeds and absorb them, strangely enough not harming their own species. Add to that the rapid growth, almost comparable to the motion of the minute hand of a clock, and planting anything from Earth among them is something like throwing a housecat into a den of wild lions."
"A very pretty picture," McBride groaned. "We can't go back to Earth for a year, everything on Venus is poison and we have less than two months' supply of food. Now you as much as admit that there will be no garden. I'm suddenly getting a headache."
"I didn't say we had failed," Flaunders said sharply. "I'm never going to. By thunder, we'll beat this hellhole if it takes every minute of our time!"
That was a sane enough statement. They had the seeds and they had the soil. With good health and the will to work, what was to stop them?
Only weeds.
"Only weeds," McBride said ten weeks later. "They couldn't be responsible for this! Ten weeks of breaking our backs and losing our minds, and you can't even tell that we've done anything. It must be a nightmare!"
Flaunders was a man all washed out, a man badly stung. How hard for an optimist to face defeat!
"Ten years," he said reflectively. "That's what it seems like. Thirteen since we crashed. Lucky number."
"A week since we've had anything to eat," said McBride. "Or has it been two? Anyway, it's too late to think about a garden. And if you and Thompson can't find a way to make this stuff fit to eat—" There was no need to complete that sentence.