"Yes, it's a life-form, all right," Jak said more seriously, without taking his eyes from it. "It's all new to us, but I'll bet there's silicon of some sort beneath this carbon-dioxide ice, and that this thing gets its nourishment from that."
"What makes it keep growing?"
"What makes a man or an animal or plant grow when it eats?"
"Oh!" Then, "Do you suppose it has any mentality?"
Jak was silent a moment, mulling that over. Then he looked at his brother, a crease of concentration on his forehead. "I feel quite sure that it probably has, but of a sort we wouldn't be able to understand, even if we could get in contact with its so-called 'mind.' Even reading that, I doubt very much if we'd be able to understand its way of thinking, reasoning, or the motivations by which it lives." He went back to studying the strange crystallization.
"Ummm, probably you're right," Jon agreed after some thought. A moment later he asked, "Is it good for anything? I mean, can man use it for something?"
Jak wrenched his gaze away from that astounding growth to look up in shocked disgust. "Is that all you think about in the face of such a marvel as this—whether it's worth anything or not? Here we've found an entirely new type of life, and...."
"Hey, keep your suit tight, Owl. We have to report this, you know, and I'm just trying to find out what to write down."
"Oh!" Jak spoke slowly, his voice now admitting the lightness of that point of view. "I can't, offhand, see any practical value, especially considering how easily these crystals are broken. But I know geologists—and possibly chemists—will be intensely interested in studying them. There's a lot they can learn here, I'm sure. We'll naturally report all that, you're right, and the location of this valley."
"Think they may occur all over the planet?"