DuChane shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I think we'll find that the shell broke up along this stretch of coastline and all the life of the planet is concentrated here. It must have commenced releasing the life it brought as soon as the water reached it."
"But before that—how long—? The clay is hard as rock!"
"Dave—that's something to think about. I've an idea it was terribly long. That earth of ours—for all we know man finished his evolution there—billions of our kind were born and died—while we lay in the chrysalis waiting for conditions to ripen. Worlds aren't finished in a day—unless you're thinking of cosmic days. Not even when it's a case of gathering up the debris of an asteroid belt and molding it into a planet—a New Earth."
Marlin stared. His mind sought to envision the slow natural processes that would achieve such a result.
"It's not hard to conceive," continued DuChane reflectively. "Earth scientists generally agreed that the original life spores reached our system from distant parts of the galaxy. When you think of the distances and eons of time they had to traverse, our little moment of suspended existence fades into insignificance."
"You've been awake—longer than I have," Marlin confessed dazedly. "My rusty brain can't follow you."
CHAPTER XVI
They wandered down the coastline, the two together faring better in the hunt for small game and edible growths than either had succeeded in doing alone.
Whenever he found a scattering of the baked clay fragments, or even isolated lumps, Marlin made it a point to carry them down to the water's edge, where in due course they would add to the life of the planet. It would be splendid to locate some larger pieces. There might be something to those stories of goats and sheep trapped by the ooze. A dog would be a find.