They struggled forward again, approaching the cliff of ice and rock that towered overhead. Headley splashed heedlessly through a small pool of semi-liquid, halted with a tiny cry of excitement.
"Look!" he said. "That rock's alive."
Bart Caxton tilted his gaze to where several clay-colored rocks lay at the edge of the pool.
"You're nuts," he said. "They're just rocks."
"I'll swear I saw one move out of the way of my foot," Headley insisted stubbornly, bent and lifted the first of the rocks.
It was heavy in his hands, and he had the uncanny sensation that it squirmed impatiently as he lifted it. He examined it carefully, ignoring Caxton's impatient words for them to hurry. And even as he watched, he saw the living rock split in his hands, opening down the side, disclosing gill-like fringed flesh that looked like slivers of whitish ice.
"It is alive!" he exclaimed excitedly, then dropped the stone as sudden giddiness clutched at his senses.
Caxton caught at his drooping body. "What's wrong?" he snapped.
Headley blinked his eyes. "Nothing!" he disclaimed. "Just a combination of pressure and lack of oxygen." He reached for his suit's panel, opened the oxygen valve another quarter turn.
He shook his head slightly, then bent to study the rock he had dropped. It had not moved, nor had its mouth-like opening closed. It lay at his feet in the shallow liquid, resembling nothing more than a ruptured rock.