Masks

"The prospector was climbing a crater slope with its handling members retracted and its head tilted up. Behind it the distant ringwall and the horizon, the black sky, the pin-point stars. And he was there, and it was not far enough, not yet, for the Earth hung overhead like a rotten fruit, blue with mold, crawling, wrinkling, purulent and alive."

from Masks by Damon Knight.

A drawing to go this description would be sooo cool. Artist alert!
Here's the old Playboy cover for the anthology for starters - alas, no prospector in sight.