Trehearne trailed out with the rest of them, almost the whole ship’s company, to gather the weird harvest. The radiation-suit he wore was not too heavy in weight—it couldn’t be, for men who had to do hard work—a simple coverall of flexible metallic fabric, with a phone-equipped helmet and a separate knapsack oxygen-pack that could be quickly replaced when its oxygen was worked out.
The world he stood on was like something out of nightmare. Fungi higher than his head grew thickly, like a gruesome travesty of a forest, and in colors ranging from black to crimson and a yellow like spilled brains. The giant star—a sick, mad star, Trehearne thought, like all the short-period true variables—brooded in the poisonous sky, past the maximum peak of its brilliance now but still pouring out its febri
