Explore "Second Landing" by Murray Leinster on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On Thalassia plants no longer seek to attract insects by bright colors or scent or nectar, because there are no insects. Plants which depended upon insects for fertilization have become extinct. Berry-bearing and fruit-bearing trees no longer compete for the carrying of their seeds by offering fragrance or taste. There are no birds. Even species which formerly found it advantageous to grow thorns for the discouragement of herbivorous animals no longer find the practice serviceable. The flowers have lost their scent and the fruit its savor and even the thorns their sharpness, because there are no animals to take notice. -- _Astrographic Bureau Publication 11297, Appendix to Space Pilot Vol. 460, Sector XXXIV, p. 75._
The sound of the surf gave them hope -- that and the Geiger counter readings. They climbed and crawled and wormed their way through channels and around glistening-wet bulges of stone. They had ropes around their waists like mountain-climbers, so that no one would fall alone into the sometimes gaping depths they encountered.