In black, shaggy masses, they came toward
the spring and its stream. Nearby, their heads could be distinguished.
And all of this was perfectly natural.
The cosmos is one thing. Where life exists, its living creatures will
fit themselves cunningly into each niche where life can be maintained.
On vast green plains there will be animals to graze--and there will be
animals to prey on them. So the grazing things will band together in
herds for self-defense and reproduction. And where the ground is covered
with broad-leaved plants, such plants will shelter innumerable tiny
creatures, and some of them will be burrowers. So rain will drain
quickly into those burrowings and not make streams. And therefore the
drainage will reappear as springs, and the grazing animals will go to
those springs to drink. Often, they will gather more densely at
nightfall for greater protection from their enemies. They will even
often gather at the springs or their overflowing brooks. This will
happen anywhere that plains and animals exist, on any planet to the edge
of the galaxy, because there are laws for living things as well as
stones.
Great dark masses of the beasts moved unhurriedly past the ship.
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