Radio presentation of a 1961 short story by Arthur C Clarke detailing a scientific mission to Venus which discovers a strange form of plant like life. Jerry Garfield, engineer-navigator, Graham Hutchins, a biologist, and George Coleman, a scientist, have travelled to Venus on the spaceship Morning Star, and are exploring, in a scout car, the surface of the planet. Garfield and Hutchins leave the car and explore in space suits a rock formation where they come across a colony of plant like creatures, which move across the surface feeding on minerals located in the rock. They are hugely excited at this discovery of epic importance to mankind, take lots of pictures and return to their spaceship. Unfortunately in leaving behind them a bag of rubbish they pollute the planet. The moving plants discover the soiled bag, feed on its contents, and in doing so are infected with earth bacteria which over time will wipe them out completely. The humans, unaware of the crime they have committed, make plans for a return. A beautifully constructed story, with a far reaching message for it's time. Read by Tim Piggot-Smith and originally broadcast in 2008.