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1Green World

By Hal Clement

The planet was an enigma. Among the thousands of inhabitable planets that had been discovered and visited, Veridis alone seemed to defy the laws of planetary development and evolution. It was extremely young, barely 10 million years had passed since it was completely molten and yet now it was covered with life of all kinds; kinds that should have not had a chance to even begin to develop, much less reach their current stage. To investigate this anomaly among the stars, a team of experienced specialists was sent out to delve further into the mystery and if possible, solve it. Other than the obvious fields of planetology and geology, other specialties were included like paleontology and archaeology. The highly dangerous flora and fauna of the planet do not help at all. So, what is the cause? It lies deeper in the Green Planet than anyone thinks and is much more dangerous than they can ever imagine.

2Attitude

By Hal Clement

They had been captured, but by whom? And why where they allowed to build anything they wanted to escape? The space cruiser was powerful and built to fight anything in the galaxy, but somehow, in the empty rift between galaxies, they had been rendered helpless and brought to this prison. Even stranger was that their captors had not harmed any of them at all, used no weapons and allowed them to use all equipment brought from their ship inside the prison. And did not utter a sound. Stranger and stranger. Where were they, and how could they escape? And where could they go if they did? Follow these space men as they match wits with an utterly unknown life form ... and win. This story was first published in Astounding Science-Fiction September 1943. - Summary by phil chenevert

The ship had been built by aliens and though the basic principles of engineering held, their "know- how” methods were utterly — disastrously! — different. - Summary by Original text