The Aliens [сборник]

(There was. It's not yet publicly admitted, but four new plastics, a prime-mover principle, and something that looks like the germ of a space-drive are still top secret products of the investigation. Even the dry-area plants-there are four varieties, so far, with possibilities that look too good to be true-are not yet released. And of course the proof that intelligent life exists on other planets and that space-travel is attainable can't be officially acknowledged because it would create panic if revealed before we have adequate space-ships of our own.)

But that morning, and that day on the way out to the wreckage in Seco Valley, and the following two days on the way to San Felice to pass on what he'd found to the proper quarters-during that time Steve didn't think of the affair in technological terms. He was haunted by the end of his and Brady's hunt for the body of the creature who had plunged to his death rather than be captured by men who wished to be his friends. It was tragic that all their efforts were in vain. They found where the body fell, but they couldn't climb a vertical, seamless cliff to reach the shelf on which the poor devil of a Martian bad fallen-alone of his kind on an alien planet-and to which the buzzards were already hurrying.