When Benjamin Driscoll, a young settler, arrives on Mars, he faints. When he is revived, the doctors tell him that the Martian atmosphere is too thin for him and that he will have to return to Earth. Driscoll, however, is determined to stay. He assesses the problem, realizing there are too few trees on Mars, and gains permission to wander the Martian countryside and plant the seeds for his envisioned forest, viewing this as the purpose of his life. He spends a month traversing the dry, desert-like spans of Mars, planting seeds, and longing for a germinating rain.

On the thirtieth evening, Driscoll wakes to “a tap on his brow” (100). He senses moisture on the air and when he looks up, he sees the “great black lid of sky cracked in six powdery blue chips” (101). A great rush of rain falls for two hours, then Driscoll goes back to sleep. When he wakes in the morning, he turns around for the first time in a month to survey the land he has walked through, and “as far as he could see trees were standing up against the sky” (101).