Dave Dryfoos

“ They came in, rolling along the ground as the wind took them, and then extended their stars from some hidden place and moved on them when out of the wind.
That is, they seemed to. But whether they were in the hull or in his mind, George was by no means sure.
Nothing could live in this wind. Nothing could live on a planet with no water, where the air was full of formaldehyde ready to react with proteins, the basis of life.
He lay motionless, watching idly. There was no sound but the wind. The yellow teardrops scattered out. They could have been exploring—or seeking shelter—or nonexistent. ”

“ They'd recognize the next man to land on Venus, might find means to tell of this first expedition. Might lead a man to the buried space-ship, the bodies, the ship's log.
At least they could defeat the wind. The teardrops could keep his life and the lives of his mates from going utterly to waste. Whether men ever found out or not, the teardrops themselves would know that the expedition had reached Venus. ”

“ The pebble was a native object, known to be lifeless, inanimate. The watch was a strange something that moved. The can-lid did not move. The hand—gloved, though they could not know that—was an object that moved.
The dance was a question, therefore. Alive, or dead? The teardrops wanted to know. Is the watch that moves by itself alive? The strangely symmetrical lid of a can, is it alive? The oddshaped hand?
These teardrops had good minds—could grasp abstractions. In a sense, George felt, the difference between animate and inanimate objects is an abstraction. ”