How It All Goes Down
Homesick
- Part 4 opens with an explanation that life adapts and evolves to meet the challenges of an environment, though the chapter is, of course, written far more artistically than that.
- The algae and lichens created by the Underhill terraformers are no exception. Their DNA alters, providing them with new abilities to meet the challenges of life. Some strands die out; others thrive; still others consume the dead and the weak.
- And as life changes, the conditions that changed life also change as a result of that life. Think of it as a circle of life. Or maybe a yinyang of life.
- In the form of algae and lichen, the colors green, gray, yellow, and black have come to the Martian landscape.