“Why do they look like crabs, Abba?” I laughed. “You’ve touched on one of the great questions, girl. Do you know how many lifeforms there are in the galaxy that look like crabs?” She was silent. Ahead of us and on our left, the tether of one of the camp’s balloons swayed, red warning flags tied to its length. We were right above the camp then. “More or less everywhere there’s water, life finds a way to make itself crablike. Even on old Earth, life evolved crab shapes at least four or five different times. As we got out among the stars, we kept finding more of them, even in life not based on
...more
