"Could lichens grow here?"
"Some could, possibly, though not exactly like the kind we'd find on Earth. If there's life here, it's probably a type that can convert energy directly from the elements in the ground or ice, instead of using photo-synthesis or other methods of obtaining nourishment we know about."
Half-sliding, half-climbing, they made their difficult way to the little patch of gray-greenness, which Jak examined with growing delight.
"Hey, that's gneiss."
"What's nice about ... Oh!" Jon grew red-faced at having been caught that way. "You and your education!" he snorted.
"See how brittle it is," Jak ignored the interruption as he touched a stem, only to have it snap off like a slim glass fibre. "Can't tell without a more thorough microscopic examination, but I'll bet this is some sort of silicon-based life—crystalline instead of being like the gneissic rocks back home."
Jon, meanwhile, had been surveying the valley with his binoculars. Suddenly he gave a gasp, and focussed his glasses more steadily on something that had caught his eye.
For some minutes he studied it, then called excitedly, "Hey, Owl, give a look over there. See, beside that spire of rock," he pointed as his brother rose and unlimbered his own pair of binoculars. "There's movement of some sort there, though it's very, very slow, on that sort of pyramid a yard or so high."
For long moments the two studied the spot through their high-powered glasses, then Jak said slowly but with mounting excitement, "I think you're right, Chubby, and that we've got to see."
In their excitement, the two started off faster and more carelessly than was safe. They found out that fact when both, almost at the same time, lost their footing and fell, coasting down the remainder of the hill. Faster and faster they slid, shaken and becoming bruised, although luckily neither broke any bones.