Chapter 3 Edith Goddard - Seeking Less Boring Life Forms.
The woman, the young man and the cat made a strange trio as they strode down the street. The woman stopped every few feet to get a closer look at something or point something out to her younger companion, who was clearly not as excited about their outing as she was. The cat stayed close to the pair, keeping an eye out on their surroundings- a little jittery even for a cat.
"There's no denying the power of life here," Edith proclaimed. "It's practically explosive!"
Donovan nodded dutifully, brushing away some of the ubiquitous insects.
Meanwhile, Paracelsus the cat was suspiciously examining a bit of ivy that had worked its way through the stone sidewalk. It was only a few inches tall, but its survival was a testament to the strength of life on the planet.
Paracelsus examined the ivy with his natural eye, then his cybernetic one, then both together. He batted it with a careful paw, then leaped to Edith's shoulder when it rebounded toward him.
"This is a dangerous place," he murmured into her ear. "That plant tried to kill me."
"Really?" Edith excitedly spun around. She assumed there were carnivorous plants on the planet, but hadn't seen any yet.
"This thing?" she asked Paracelsus, crouching down and looking dubiously at the bit of green.
"Of course it looks harmless to you," Paracelsus replied. "You are too big for it to attack."
"Mmmmm," Edith replied noncommittally, not at all convinced they were in immanent danger. "What do you think Donovan?"
The young man didn't bother to bend over. "It's a weed," he said flatly. "We're surrounded by them."
Taking this as a slight, Paracelsus turned her nose up at Donovan and got a better grip on Edith's shoulder. It was a better (and safer) vantage point to watch the street from.
"Ah, what about this?" Edith stopped at a market stall that featured large bluish-purple apples and something that was a cross between a carrot and an ear of corn. Her attention, however, was drawn to a tub of some kind of barley that were three times their normal size.
She grinned to herself as Donovan perked up and reached out to examine the grain. "This is Shiloh barley, but I've never seen it so big before. How do they do that?"
Delighted to find someone so interested in barley, the proprietor immediately started up a conversation with Donovan. As they talked about using hulled nitrates for soil enrichment and the special interaction of chemicals in the soil with those in the air, Edith was quickly lost. She backed out of the conversation. Edith would have preferred Donovan to be interested in the theoretical aspects of Life magic and its unusual attributes on this planet, but if she could coax him into studying something that would improve his beer-making, so be it.
Edith left the pair and went over to examine what looked like circular bananas.