Jason climbed into a pocket in the rocks and wiped the perspiration from his brow, cursing the heat from beta Hydri. He checked the thermometer hanging from his suit and watched it drop from forty one degrees Centigrade in the relative coolness of the pocket, dropping to a bearable thirty. The heat of the day had arrived, and he knew that it would be suicide to proceed further. He unloaded his pack and took out the radio. "Jason reporting." There was no answer, so he moved further out of the pocket to clear the antenna. He could feel the heat from the rock in the sunlight. "Jason reporting."
     "Jason, Debra here. Can you mark your location?"
     "I've taken shelter from the heat in a natural pocket along the ridge I've been following. It's not very big. Maybe it could hold three people, packed in. I'm checking the photomap. I'm still on section one thirty six, coordinates are sixty two point seven by nineteen point four. I'll be here the rest of the day. I was hoping to make it across the ridge, but I'd probably have a heat stroke trying to get there. These rocks get pretty hot. Air temp is forty one, and I would suspect it to be rising. The pocket is cool to the touch and the air temp is bearable. I'll be here for the rest of the day. I'm going to try to get in a nap while the sun is high."
     "Any sign of life yet?"
     "None, same old story. This place has been nothing but rock."
     "How are your supplies? Do you need a drop?"
     "No. Don't waste the fuel. I'll make it on what I have with me."
     "Are you sure?"
     "Yes. I'm not going to be out of pocket for that many days. I'll make it fine if the water at the lake is drinkable after purification. From the looks of things, mineral content will be the only possible problem. The distiller should handle that. The rest of my supplies should hold. No need to send anyone after me before arranged pick up unless you hear otherwise."
     "How are you doing?"
     "Fine, now that I've found the pocket. It was getting a bit warm for comfort before I found it. I'll be moving as soon as the air temp drops into the low thirties. Probably be near dark, if not after. Full moons will give enough light. I'm going to try to shift over to a night schedule and sleep protected from the heat during the day. There should be enough pockets for me to do so."
     "Okay. Keep in touch with base. I'll notify the night shift that you will be on their roster. Good luck, Jason."
     "Thanks, Debra. Signing off." Jason retracted the antenna and moved back into the depths of the pocket where it was the coolest, tapping deep into the rock as a heat sink. The heat had tired him more than he imagined, and the coolness quickly lulled him into sleep as his body temp dropped.

     Jason woke to a sound coming from the outside of the pocket. It took him several seconds to waken enough to tell that it was an aircraft and that it was in trouble. He stood with his head out of the pocket, coming up into the heat for a look. The sun had traveled considerably, telling him that he had slept hours from the exhaustion caused by the thermal oppression. A shadow crossed over him, explaining in his mind why he hadn't spotted the craft. He shielded the sun from his eyes at various angles until he spotted the craft. As it departed in angle from the sun, he noted that it wobbled unnaturally.
     He came out of the pocket fully as the craft moved lower in what appeared to be a landing attempt. He judged the distance at just over a kilometer. He pulled out his radio and sent a query on standard channel. In return, he heard a frantic female voice growling.
     "This is Jason, and I'm about a klick away, from the sun from your position. Your shadow just passed over me a few moments ago. Do you need a spotter?"
     "I need a new craft. I'll holler if I need you. I have spotted a smooth spot for landing. I'm going to try to nail it if I can."
     "Good luck. I'll be on channel if you need my eyes." He watched the craft slew and pitch, the stabilizers obviously failing. He didn't give the pilot much of a chance. He headed in the direction of the craft in a run. He made about half the distance before the heat overcame him. He took out a cold rinse pack and drenched himself to rid some of the excess body heat, then continued.
     He was about a hundred meters from the landing area when the aircraft touched down. It came in sideways, scrapping on one side before landing pads touched the ground and snapped away from the perpendicular momentum. Sparks flew wildly from the contact of the craft with the rock surface. It impacted a massive boulder and crumpled to a stop. Jason used another cool pack and then headed for the craft. He arrived across the burning hot surface just as the hatch was blown open. He had to duck from the flying debris. The pilot emerged and started running toward him.
     "Run! It might blow!"
     He moved to meet her, then retreated with her. They reached a protective outcrop of rock and huddled behind it. Jason handed her a cool pack, seeing how she had no supplies with her. She accepted it, but didn't use it right away, having just come from the air conditioned craft, . They waited for an explosion, but none came. After a ten minute wait with nothing being said, the pilot used the cold pack, then rose. "I guess it didn't go over limits. I would assume that it's safe to return. Do you have shelter from the heat?"
     "There is a cool pocket in the rocks about a kilometer away. Not cold, but comfortable enough. Do you have supplies on board?"
     "Yes, a few. I had two drops left on the route. Thanks for the cool pack. How hot is it here?"
     "My scanner shows forty eight on this flat. We need to get to a safer location."
     "Let me get supplies from the craft."
     "I'll help you."
     "I can manage."
     "You don't want help?"
     "Sorry. This has not been a good day for me, even before this. Come on, you can help me carry some things. I can get extra cool packs. You must have used several to get here."
     "Four, counting the one you used."
     "Let's get this over with. It's too hot to stay here."
     They used three cold packs each in their efforts at unloading the supplies that she would need until a pick up could be made. She brought all cold packs on board, and Jason ended up with six more than when he was taking refuge in the pocket. They were on their way, already off the flat, when the craft exploded. They stopped and looked at each other with sinking feelings. Had the timing been different, they would both be dead, and they knew it together, their first shared profund moment, shivering as one.
     It didn't take them long to reach the pocket and crawl inside. The pilot had reported in on the walk there, so they would make the pick up when they could clear a delivery craft and send it her way. Only one other of the long range craft such as she'd been flying was left after an unlucky two weeks on the planet. They lay down on the cool rock and waited.
     Jason said nothing, deciding to let her initiate any conversation, since she was not in a good mood, as was easily understandable under the circumstances. The craft were well air conditioned and comfortable. Jason had become acclimated to the heat in his duties, while she had not. He remembered the intense misery of the first couple of days of exposure to the heat. He drifted off again in thinking about the developments that brought them to the beta Hydri system for a stay instead of pushing on toward the second site in their star-crossing trip.
     They had been plagued with mechanical problems. Everything on board in terms of machinery was designed with two factors in mind, durability and ease of repair. Both of these factors were their current nightmare. Things were breaking down at a rate that couldn't be believed and proving impossible to repair after the malfunction. All of this started after the first shift awakened from deep sleep between the stars.
     Sabotage was suspected, but investigation could not find a trace of foul play on any of the machines that had now failed. Thus far, the cause remained unknown. But the result was that the ship could not resume interstellar flight. They were fortunate enough to find a planet with suitable gravity, atmosphere, and survivable temperature ranges, barely. The problem with the planet was that there was not a speck of living matter on it yet detectable to human senses and mechanical scans. It was a hot ball of rock and sand with very little standing water. The oceans were extremely high is mineral content. Fresh water was seldom pure.
     Jason was on a foot expedition of one to investigate a lake of this region that seemed to have the highest concentrations of lakes. It was here in the polar region that they had hoped to survive. Equatorial temperatures commonly reached well into the fifties and even sixties in certain locations that tended to retain heat. No human could survive that above ground for long. Thought was being made on tunneling under and surviving off hydroponic gardens. A reliable source of good water was needed first.
     The mechanical problems had followed them from space down to the surface. Jason wondered if they could ever manage to burrow homes at the rate of mechanical failure. It was do that or go back into deep sleep for another century while waiting for a rescue, plus another century to the next scheduled star. He began to seriously question the wisdom of volunteering for the twenty one lightyear excursion in the colony ship.
     "My name is Carol."
     Jason shook himself out of thought to look at the pilot. "Jason Phelps. I'm on lake check duty. I'm headed east."
     "The big one?"
     "Yes. About four more days walk from here."
     "Do you have a scan reader?"
     "Yes, in my rolocart upstairs under the thermal blanket."
     "I flew over it and did a number of scans. You might like to see them. I've got the memory here." She pointed at a carry-all box.
     "Okay. I'll go get it." Jason crawled out of the pocket into the intense sunlight. He dug into the self propelled cart for the reader and was soon back down in the pocket. He settled back into the place he held before and handed her the reader. She dug into the box and retrieved a standard ROM/RAM/PROM module. She activated the reader with it in the slot and ran through the sequences until she had the aerial view of the lake on the screen. She handed it to him.
     He looked at the scene. "Did you notice anything unusual?"
     "Like what?"
     "Nothing in particular."
     "No. Looked like any other lake to me."
     "No Bambou Mama?"
     "Huh?"
     "Nothing. Just a childhood memory."
     "What?"
     "Well, when I was a kid, there was this old man that lived out in the swamps. He was a real tough character, but people said he was affected in the head. He would come to town for supplies from time to time and sit and talk with certain people he trusted. This usually happened in the hardware store. I remember him saying that he had seen the Bambou Mama, the source of all life, in the swamps. He also said that every lake and swamp had a little Bambou Mama, a daughter of the original one that he had seen, there creating life, both in the water and on the land."
     "Sounds weird."
     "He was very serious about it. Religious."
     "The man was affected in the head."
     "Not many could spend their life in the swamps and live. Not a very friendly environment for man. He was smarter than most in survival. Those that knew him listened to him talk about the swamps. He wasn't an idiot. It was just his way of seeing things he couldn't solve in his mind."
     "No, I saw no Bambou Mamas. Nothing alive from what I could tell."
     Jason studied the screen, looking for areas to test when he arrived, looking for the best place to install a pipeline. He found three steep banks that fell quickly into deep water. These he would test first. When he finished, he asked if there were other scans. Those she had made would not be beneficial to his work, so he turned off the reader and returned the module to her. She put it back in the box.
     "How do you stand the heat?"
     "Well, I grew up where it got hot in the summer. Those of us here on the trip that did grow up in warm climates were first tested as outside workers. They figured that with our having once dealt with the heat, we'd be able to do it again."
     "How do you deal with it?"
     "Depends on the terrain. My problem is that I grew up in a humid climate. I'm not real good at dealing with such dry heat. It's not as hard to do, but I'm not as sensitive to danger signs as those that grew up around a desert. Mostly, you divert the sun, avoid reflective areas as much as possible, and look for places away from the sun, like here. So far, I've been able to travel by day. But for the region ahead, I'll be shifting to a night march and find holes like this for daytime sleeping."
     "Am I disturbing your sleep?"
     "Oh, I got some earlier. I probably couldn't sleep much longer. It's only a few hours until cool down up there. I'll start moving when the temperature hits around thirty three. I just wish that we had the time to wait a few months until the winter night sets in. But I guess we'll be our busiest then. We'll have to be underground before spring equinox. We won't be able to survive summer here above ground."
     "I personally don't think that we are going to make it, not with the way things are going with our equipment."
     "We can always dig by hand if we get a big enough start to hold us and our food supply. It may be slow going and crowded, but we can make it. If we can find a decent lake and a cave, it will be easy, relatively speaking."
     "If."
     "We can only try."
     They went quiet again and waited.

     Carol made a call into the flight rescue center and found a suddenly developing storm on the way, delaying her pick up. "I guess I'll stay here." she said, coming into the pocket from above.
     "How well can you swim?"
     "Swim?"
     "This pocket will be full of water in a storm like they described. Below the loose soil we're sitting on are small cracks that drain water, but the soil slows it. Look at the rings around rock. High water marks, all the way up to the opening of the neck. You'd be better outside braving the rain."
     "Why me?"
     "Why all of us? We're all in the same boat if we want to survive."
     "I don't like this."
     "Join the club. My advice is for you to come with me."
     "I guess I'd better consult rescue center and see what they say."
     She called, and they suggested the same as Jason when they learned the nature of what she had previously called shelter. Jason went up and uncovered the solar panels of the cart to assure that the batteries were at full charge. He knew that the batteries barely had enough charge for the nighttime trek. With the storm coming, it would cut off part of the sun remaining that day on which he had counted earlier in his estimations.
     They left shortly after the sun disappeared behind the clouds, a short half hour later. Jason set the cart to rolling before him and he followed with Carol. It soon began to blow very hard into their faces and they both donned their face shields and rain coats. It soon began to pour heavily. Progress was slowed for the sake of footing, wind and rain making the bare rock slippery where it was smoothed by exposure. The rain lasted until after dark, forming streams that could not be forded. They went as far as they could, where two streams formed a fork, and they had to wait until the run-off subsided. Jason felt that a wait would be needed because of the cart's limited power, so he accepted it more easily than Carol.
     Once they were on the move again, the radio finally cleared from the interference from the storm. Carol called in for pick up, but was informed that lightning hit the remaining long distance aircraft, and it wasn't functional. She was told to accompany Jason to the lake and that she would be picked up when it was possible.
     Carol did not agree, but she was in no position to dictate any terms. They pushed on into the puddled night. As dawn showed, they began to look for protection from the sun. They found it just after sunrise. It was a small cave with a sandy floor. Carol dropped off to sleep as soon as she had her bedroll on the floor. Having been awake for twenty four hours and being unaccustomed to walking such distances, she had no trouble sleeping. Jason took a little longer, letting the cover stay off the cart to rechrage the depleted batteries. He waited until they were better than ninety per cent charged before covering the cart to keep its contents cooler during the heat of the day.
     The reflection into the cave started warming the air more than Jason liked, so he covered the opening with a thermal blanket. It darkened the cave for sleeping and kept the cave cooler. Jason lay down with aches all over and fell into a deep sleep.

     The next two days were a steady march at night and sleep during the heat of the day. Little was said between the two except for warnings and conveying plans. Carol was not in the mood to talk, and Jason came prepared to make the journey alone, so conversation was not missed. On the last night on their way to the lake, Carol slipped and Jason prevented her fall, but not without twisting his ankle in turn. He set up a crutch on the tail of the cart and kept going, ignoring the pain. They arrived at the lake before dawn, but the cart was exhausted of charge. Carol went off in search of a cave. She found one well after sunrise, and Jason was able to roll the cart most of the way there. She had to help him over the areas where the cart would have nomrmally had to lift on its jets and set down past the obstruction, had it had enough power to do so.
     Jason wrapped his foot once inside the cave. He took a couple of heavy pain killers and was fast asleep. Carol, for once the latter to go to sleep, sat and looked at the water from the mouth of the cave.

     The water was clear and initial surface tests showed the water to be relatively free of heavy minerals. There was some calcium and iron, but that was deemed beneficial, except for residue from heating and evaporation. A mild acid bath would be needed, but that possibility was foreseen and built into the equipment shipped on the colony ship. When the sun went down, Jason got busy limping around the shore line setting up his testing gear at the first location for use that night. On the cart was an air pressure mortar. Jason attached a tight fitting heavy alloy ball to a remote control/sensor responding capsule and thin bonded kevlar line and inserted it in the mouth of the cylinder. One of the small lift jets on the rolocart was used as the compressor.
     The ball shot out of the mortar and sailed out over the lake where the deep water lay. He started out taking samples at preset depths and reeling them in on the electrical reel, powered by the solar fed batteries which were well charged. He took readings at five foot depth increments in a number of locations. He fed each sample of water in the capsule when it came back full into the analyzer. When it was empty, Jason knew the depth of a spot to five feet by the amount of water taken in. He was also able to chart the thermocline by the temperature readings and oxygen content from sensors that stored their data from each drop.
     After going through the routine seventy eight times from six locations around the inlet he tested, he had a rough computer generated map of the bottom. All figures showed that it was a usable body of water. After learning that, Jason unabashedly slipped out of his clothes and went skinny dipping to get the pressure off his foot and to get clean of the grime of the journey to the lake. Carol watched him having so much fun that she gave in to immodesty and did the same.
     She egged Jason into a water fight, something he resisted until he could no longer take the unceasing maltreatment. A touch of wrestling followed until Carol stepped on his ankle. The resulting pain sent Jason toward the shore for a pain killer.
     After they got dressed, he shrugged off her apologies and pulled out the inflatable drone from the rolocart and got it into the water with her help. He started it going from the cart and let it run over the water taking multiple sonar readings and radioing the results back to the cart, along with the GPS readings that guided it. This gave them a much clearer map of the bottom. When it reached a shallow depth or went beyond a preset position reading, it turned about and made a pass along a line twenty feet from the previous path.
     From the data, they were able to detect no life swimming off the bottom. Jason let it run over the inlet he had tested before he set up the next sequence of sections to read and called in the results over the radio to the orbiting colony ship and to ground base headquarters, sending the full set of readings afterward. They had found their lake from a first look standpoint. Jason left the remote receiver out on a point, visible to all the sections that the drone was programmed to cover, then took the cart back to the cave. They arrived just after sunrise. The walk was difficult in the moisture laden air, but they managed. Jason gulped a couple more pain killers, his ankle bothering him worse than before. He went out like a light. Carol sat and watched him and felt guilty about stepping on his ankle, thinking about the possibilities she'd ruined with her carelessness.

     Jason sat bolt upright from deep sleep, sweat on his brow, breathing heavily, almost panting. He felt fear in every nerve despite the drugged condition of his brain, offset by adrenaline. He knew that he had just experienced something that scared him, but he didn't know what. He was just blank, holding no memory of what had scared him so badly.
     He strained his ears, but besides Carol's slow breath of sleep and the lapping of the small lake waves, there was no noise. He thought back to the words of Cletus, standing in the hardware store, telling warnings about the swamp, his strong low voice speaking with a resonance of one meaning business with the spirits. "The broud will get you in your sleep, telling you time is come for you to see the true essence of all creation or die at the hands of the Bambou Mama, come to use you for new life. Either you will be ready, or she will use you for a new batch of toadpoles and turtle eggs. You better know the truth within your soul when the broud calls."
     Why he recalled those words puzzled him. Cletus claimed that the broud had called him in his sleep, and that he had claimed to know the breath of the moon on his cheeks when the Bambou Mama had come for him the next night.
     Jason had the feeling that he was being watched, not by eyes, but of presence where eyes were not needed by those that saw clearly with the mind. "Followed," he thought, "not watched." He stepped out into the heat of the sunshine and the chill of fear vanished and the drugs resumed effect as his body settled. He returned to the cave and gave into the drugs. As he fell asleep, he felt an opening of his being, but was slipping off into unconsciousness too quickly to do anything about it.

     Carol woke to find Jason still out. She went out into the fading light and called the base as soon as she got into some fresh clothes that she had washed and set out to dry. She went to the radio and called the base. They reported that everything was being readied for a relocation to the lakeside where the studies were made. A full survey team was being assembled for exploration for the proper location of the tunneling site. Relief was on the way in full supply. The base would come to her.
     She was happy at the news and went to see if Jason was still asleep. He was, and her excitement had to be dampered. She lifted the sheet to check his ankle and noticed it very swollen. She tried to wake Jason, but he remained out cold. She took a closer look at the swelling. It was not discolored or reddened from infection, so she breathed easier, but the fact that he wouldn't wake when prodded bothered her.
     She went out to where her survival suit was hanging and took out her mini-reader and looked over the first aid section for joint strains, and swelling, then looked into the section for unconsciousness.
     She checked his pulse, pupils, temperature, reflex kick with his uninjured leg, then splashed his face with water from the lake. He seemed fine, but he wouldn't wake up. She went back outside and called the base again and reported the problem and everything that pertained that she could remember. Under instructions, she administered a strong stimulant to the largest artery on the inside of his right elbow. He stirred in twitches, but he did not wake. She reported the results. They told her to attach a pulse monitor to his ear and respiration sensor band along the side of his ribs and give CPR if needed until help arrived.

     Jason woke in a field hospital. He looked sideways at Carol asleep in the chair and the iv's in his arms. He reached over onto the table and managed to grab a tissue box and tossed it into her lap with just a flick of his wrist. Carol woke gripping it as if ready to fight. "It won't bite you."
     "Jason, you're awake!"
     "How long was I out?"
     "A couple of days. Are you okay?"
     "Yeah. I feel fine, considering."
     "Considering what?"
     "Carol, I need to talk to the project supervisor. Can you manage to get him here, or do I have to cause such a fuss that he can't afford not to see me?"
     "Is it that serious?"
     "We can't tunnel here."
     "Why not?"
     "There is life here in the beta Hydri system."
     "What?"
     "Here on this planet."
     "What kind of life?"
     "Uh. . . . Water snakes."
     "Where?"
     "Underground."
     "Jason, you must have been dreaming."
     "That is beside the point. I have made contact."

     "Mr. Glockard, please listen to me. I am not crazy. I know what I felt. There is intelligent life here."
     "This thing about snakes. You just probably dreamed it. This star is in the Hydrus constellation, and it was named after the water snake."
     "I know that, but it has nothing to do with what I experienced. There is life underground here. There are already tunnels below the surface of the planet, laced with underground rivers. That is why there is so little water on the surface. These creatures live down there below us."
     "What do they eat?"
     "They don't need to eat. They have a direct means of avoiding entropy without eating. They are very powerful beings. They are responsible for the mechanical problems that we've had."
     "Did they tell you why they've been doing this?"
     "They wanted to study us. We were not in their plans, and they wanted to see what to do about us."
     "What are we supposed to do if we aren't allowed to dig?"
     "Leave the system."
     "We can't leave the system, Jason, or have you forgotten?"
     "We'll be able to leave, now that they've studied us. They understand us now. They know that we are from another system and do not belong here."
     "What if we don't obey this edict from the snakes?"
     "Then everyone will go into a comma like I did. Most of us would die in the first few hours in dreams of utter horror. Then they will use the energies of our lives to create more life native to the planet."
     "You talk about these snakes as if they were gods."
     "They are, in a sense. They are extremely intelligent and powerful."
     "Jason, I don't know how you expect me to believe this."
     "And I don't know how to prove it to you until it is too late."
     There was a knock at the door. Carol answered it to find a man that signaled to Tim Glockard. "Sir, the ship reports that the stellar drive has returned to operational."
     "They got it fixed?"
     "That's not the way they reported. They said that the engine returned to fully nominal status."
     Another man arrived behind the first. "Sir, base reports that all craft, except for tunnelers and wrecked fliers, have returned to functional status."
     "How can this be?"
     "It's like I told you, Mr. Glockard. They are ready for us to leave."
     "Start at the beginning, Jason, and don't leave out a thing."
     "I had sprained my ankle and I had been taking. . . ."
     "What happened after you fell asleep?"
     "Okay, the first contact was in my sleep, I think. I may have been aware of them subconsciously before then, though. Let me go back to that first and the story Cletus Jackson told in Harvey's Hardware back on Earth, since his names for these forces apply quite well, and I find myself naming them as he did.
     "Cletus was a man of the swamp. He lived there off his wiles. He loved the swamp as no other man I could name. His religion was based on the things from the swamp. At the top was the Bambou Mama. This is the controlling force and source of creation according to Cletus. It was a primal element, a thing of protoplasm that separated as it travels, sort of scattering itself behind as it grew and broke apart. These parts became the life of the swamp from which everything else evolved in the practice of birth. It was ugly and foul and very deadly to the touch if one was not prepared mentally to meet it. It used your body for an incubator if you were weak of spirit.
     "Then there was the broud that preceded the Bambou Mama. It took stock of the swamp and warned everything that the Mama approached in dreams. This was the palace guard, so to speak. On the first night, the broud would enter your dreams and judge your worthiness while you slept. If you were unworthy, you'd never wake up and the Bambou Mama found your body as easy pickings for a place to leave her seed of life. It also was said to bring the scent of heat from the females to the males on the wind. If one was found worthy when the broud visited you, you were left alone with just the dream that you couldn't remember, or you were rewarded with a fortunate turn of fate, such as good hunting or a beautiful mate, but you moved out of the direct path of the Mama to find it.
     "The third section of the group were the Little Mamas. Cletus always called these the Bambou Mamas, and you had to pay attention or you'd get them confused with the first one I mentioned. But these were the daughters, direct descendants of the original. At every body of water the first Mama visited, she would leave a single piece of herself behind that was large enough to evolve into a being just like herself, a daughter, and this is what kept the lake or whatever full of life."
     "What does this have to do with a lifeless planet?"
     "I told you that it's not lifeless below the surface. There is a genesis occurring here, and this is the spot where it's beginning. This lake has been chosen for the first life on the planet. Carol and I went swimming and left life, our microbes, behind us in the water. That is the purpose for which we were brought here. I assume others have been swimming here as well. When you first arrive here on this world of heat, a lake that is to human drinking standards is a magnet for swimmers. You've probably been in for a dip yourself.
     "We've served our purpose here. Everyone down here has probably contributed their microbes and skins cells washed off into the water. The entities that live here plan on using these tiny bits of life to populate the surface. The broud will draw them together for the Bambou Mama, and she will give spark to the new life forms. Since we have done our part, we have been asked to leave. There is an area on map one oh five, coordinates seventeen point two, forty three point nine, where we are to park all our equipment that we want to take back into orbit with us. Anything that we leave in this area in a little less than twelve hours will be lifted into orbit, people excluded. We are to lift on our shuttles after the equipment reaches the barrier of the atmosphere. Anything left behind will either be junk or building blocks for their genesis, if it is living material. We need to start gathering if we want all our equipment to go with us to the next stellar system."
     "You expect us to take your word on this?"
     "Did you just get a report that everything that has been giving us trouble has returned to functioning state?"
     "Yes."
     "That is so we can leave. They were responsible for all our strange mechanical problems."
     "How will the equipment be lifted?"
     "The broud will lift it. I know this sounds crazy to take a man for his dreams literally, but it is something we must do if we are not to die. We will be used for our DNA if we do not follow their warning. If we do not gather our equipment for lift, we will not pass their test, and the offer to depart will be rescinded."
     "But you said that they are water snakes."
     "In form, they are, living below the surface."
     "What do they eat?"
     "They don't, like I said. They are entities, not animals. They are not like snakes found on Earth. Similar, and that is why I call them snakes. They are tubular with a head on front, but no eyes or mouth, and they swim in the underground rivers in the same manner as snakes do. They chose this form since it gives them the easiest means of propulsion in the underground rivers. No fat spots to catch when going through a small crack between caverns.
     "Mr. Glockard. Please. We must do this or die. I know it sounds like I'm deranged. But with all the equipment suddenly working, it wouldn't hurt to bring them together in one spot to give them a thorough inspection. All it would cost is twelve hours. If it happens, then the shuttles can come down for us, those of us that are not already there, previously unable to lift. If nothing happens, then everything is here where the operation would begin anyway.
     "It's not like I'm asking you to go out of our way in this. We don't want to stay here. There are no truly suitable planets for us in the system. We do want to press on, if I remember correctly. With everything now functionaI, the only thing to hold us here is the equipment we dropped to the surface, and they are offering that a free ride back into orbit."
     "Okay. I'll bring it all together at the site you mentioned. I hope for your sake that it does lift off. How are you feeling?"
     "Fine."
     "How about your ankle?"
     Jason slid his leg from under the covers. The swelling had vanished, and he twirled his foot about to demonstrate a lack of pain.
     "This will be inconvenient if you are not conveying the truth. I'm not accusing you of lying. I can see that you believe it. But it will be inconvenient. We have buildings to dismantle and move to the site. If they don't lift, then we'll have to set them up again."
     "Yes. I know that it will be work. If the doctors will release me, I'll be out there working as hard as anyone."
     "If it weren't for the sudden change in status of our equipment from broken to functional after all the odd troubles we've been having, I'd discount your story as raving. But this is not Earth, and what you describe could be true. I'll notify the doctor to release you." Mr. Glockard turned and walked out of the room. Carol came over and sat next to him.
     "I'm sorry again about stepping on your ankle."
     "Let it slide. You just fell into the influence of the broud, just as I did, and probably many of the others. I wouldn't be surprised to see a large number of children born from the last several days. They wanted us to breed in or close to water. There were parts I didn't tell Mr. Glockard. They are intelligent, but the do not have the same social standards as we do. They are here to create life, and that is their primary motive. I did not wish to get too deeply into that part of it."
     "So what we felt in the water wasn't exactly our own feelings?"
     "Let's just say that we were nudged in that direction, the scent of heat on the wind, as Cletus would have said. The excitement of the water being pure, a small victory, was enough to make us jubilant. From that, it didn't take much. You just got carried away, just as I did, just as many of others undoubtedly have as well."
     "Yeah, but I blew it."
     "Well, if it means that much to you, we can certainly try again."
     "You mean that?"
     "I don't see why not. My ankle is no longer a problem. We had enough time to see each other fairly well under stress. I helped you, you helped me, we survived a hostile world together."
     "I wouldn't call beta Hydri II hostile."
     "The sun kills, Carol. It is hostile."
     "Well, there is that."
     "No food but what we carried, flash flooding, harsh terrain. Had we been more careless, we could have died like the others that fell to this world. In fact, that is one thing that I did not dare mention to Glockard. We have to leave our dead behind. They will not let us take them. But that is not to be revealed until after the equipment rises to orbit. The bodies will not rise with it."
     "More building materials?"
     "Yes."
     "And I should keep quiet."
     "Yes. It won't make me popular with Glockard, but he is the type to insist that we take our own, if given enough time to think about it. On a snap decision, he will leave them here and regret it. I'm going to be the target for the turmoil it creates, but it's better than us staying and dying painfully."
     "Okay." Carol reached out and took his hand, avoiding the iv. "It's so odd to think that suddenly we're going on. I had resigned myself to staying, finally, and then this. Do they read our minds?"
     "They read us, not just our minds. To them, our minds are but a tiny part of the whole. Think of how you look upon an animal that you've never seen before, then studying it as you encounter it more often. At first, it's an enigma, a new experience, and there is interest enough to keep you watching. Then you see things repeated and see reason in response. Repeated chains. To them, it's the mind that is secondary. They are interested in how it affects the rest of the body. To them, the process of entropy manipulation is what spells life, not thought. Thought is only the guiding mechanism for the unrooted. When we look at our equipment, we look at the process, not the controller, except as an integral part."
     "But with the story you told, it seems it would be important."
     "No. Were it important, we would not be left behind to keep living. I don't know how you are going to take this, but the one thing above all that I didn't dare tell Glockard, is the way they view the protoplasmic living. In their dealings with us, it has an analogy in human politics. To be polite, they view us as we view the problem of waste management."
     "What?"
     "We are the vermin of their refuse, their dysentery. They will not tolerate our competing with them. In an essence, that is why we have sewers in our homes, to remove competing organisms. When our bodies get sick, that is saying that we are losing the competition."
     "So why do they want life here?"
     "Waste management. We're just not exactly what they want. They don't want something that will burrow below the surface and compete with them for their own space. They want something up here that will stay up here, that will serve their purpose."
     "So why did they bring us here?"
     "To study. They wanted to see how we worked, and we needed to be close by for it to be accurate. Under the microscope, so to speak. They wanted to see our processes, not have us permanently. This lift is their way of getting rid of unwanted garbage."
     "What about the bodies?"
     "Compost. Some garbage you keep."
     "And this you want to keep from Glockard?"
     "Until we're out of the system."
     "It makes me feel unclean."
     "We are, inherently, compared to the beings below us. But no worse than before, so don't let it bother you. We look on other life in the same way. Why should it be any different for them?"
     "I don't know. I guess the stories you told. They were romantic. This look at it isn't."
     "Cletus was a romantic man. There were correlations. Makes me wonder if there were similar beings on Earth, perhaps relatives of these, that led to our evolution. That first spark of life had to come from somewhere. It could have been lightning in the sea. Something could have cooked it up that way. Cletus was not a man to lie in his own set of parameters. He may have seen the Bambou Mama, just as I saw these entities. My mind kept going back to his words many times. I guess the reason I told his tale and not my own was that his was more romantic and more inspiring toward getting us out of here. If it fails, I have my own to counter."
     "You want to get off of this planet?"
     "Yes. This world is no place for man, like the desert. I want to push on."
     The doctor walked in and started looking at Jason's leg, halting the conversation.

     Most everything they wanted to take back to the ship with them was inside the flat expanse of stone and sealed for vacuum. Among the cargo were the bodies of those that died on the planet. Carol stood next to Jason, both still sweating from the hard chores they had performed in the daylight heat. They had both chosen to stand in a place where the could see Glockard. Jason glanced at his watch.
     "Getting to be near time?"
     "A couple of minutes."
     "How will it happen?"
     "Things will just start rising and slowly accelerate toward orbit. It won't be as fast as a rocket booster. They can afford to take their time with the lift."
     "What are you going to say to Glockard?"
     "Depends on his reaction."
     "Shouldn't you tell him beforehand?"
     "Do you think I should?"
     "Yes. He won't get so mad if you do it beforehand."
     "Perhaps you're right."
     Jason walked over to him casually. "I noticed coffins out there. I don't think that they will be lifted with the rest of the things. From my experiences, I feel that we are to leave them here."
     "What?"
     "I think that the bodies are needed for building blocks."
     "When did you hear this?"
     "It was something I felt. There was so much else in the telling that I forgot until I saw the coffins."
     "No way."
     "Mr. Glockard, burial in the ground is customary. People are buried there all the time to nourish the life of trees and other life. This would be doing the same thing. Our dead will go on to become the life that inhabits this world in the future. If we take them with us, they can feed nothing, their bodies not fulfilling their role after life."
     "But. . . ."
     "Mr. Glockard, if we want off the planet, they stay here. I doubt that they will let us leave on our shuttle if we try to take them with us. We'll be here with dead shuttles, ou equipment in orbit or worse."
The equipment on the field started to rise off the ground and head straight up. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked on in awe.
     "Do you want to lock horns with a force that can do that?"
     The coffins were the only items not rising into the sky.
     "You'd better call the shuttles down for pick-up."
     "How serious are they about keeping the bodies?"
     "I would say very."
     "Exactly what happened in this dream of yours?"
     "I'd rather wait until we're bound out of the system until I give my full report. We are being given a chance to depart. I don't want emotions blocking the opportunity for the good of all."
     "Are you hiding something bad from me?"
     "Nothing universally so. Controversial, perhaps. Dissent could sink our chances of getting off planet. It's not so much bad as difficult to understand without going into depths. Things could be misinterpreted without the full scope of what I encountered. Partial understanding could ruin our chances of departing the system. I wish us to be out-system bound before I start."
     Glockard looked skyward and at the coffins. "Okay. I'll leave them." He walked off toward the radio transmitter to request the shuttles.
     Carol walked up behind Jason and placed her hands on his arms. "That was close."
     "Timing is everything."

     Jason Iooked out the tinted portal to see yellow beta Hydri receding imperceptibly. Carol had already been placed back into deep sleep with most of the rest of the crew. He wished for her silent support, finding himself missing her these last few days. He knew that he would be called to report on his dream experiences in a few hours. The administration was about at the point where further delays would not be tolerated.
     He did not look forward to having to face the ruffled feathers his story would raise in the telling. He had formulated an opening statement loosely in his mind, practicing and revising it for days. He'd been trying in effect to keep anger down to a minimum, and then figure out how to hit them with an opening line. An idea struck him as humorous, and he laughed. In his mind, he was twelve years old, attending a county fair, watching a cow chip tossing contest, from a different point of view.