For a few seconds as they watched there was no change. But suddenly they heard a small, clear _ping_, and a new crystal sprang into existence near the base. Almost at once there was a repetition of the sound and another appeared further up on the adjoining side of the structure--or creature. As the boys continued watching this was repeated over and over--with each tiny sound a new facet came into being somewhere on the pyramid. Before their very eyes the crystal-being was growing. "Boy, that's something!" Jon exclaimed admiringly. "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?" "No telling, but probably if they can find the right sort of soil nourishment. We didn't see any while coming down, but they might've been there and we missed them, not expecting anything like this." "We didn't see any other life-forms, either, that we could recognize. Maybe these're the dominant species here." Jak rose to his feet and looked all about him. There were hundreds of the pyramids to be seen, some towering a dozen or more feet high and as large across each base line; others very small--babies, he thought with a grin.