Life entails interconnections, links, and shared multiples. The apparent individuals that life has dispersed itself into are illusions. We live one life, distributed. Life is a transforming flood that fills up empty containers and then spills out of them on its way to fill up more. The shape and number of vessels submerged by the flood doesn't make a bit of difference.
Life works as an extremist, a fanatic without moderation.
It infiltrates everywhere. It saturates the atmosphere, covers the Earth's surface and wheedles its way into bedrock cracks. It will not be refused. As Lovelock noted, we have dug up no ancient rocks without also digging up ancient life preserved in them. There cannot be sparse life on a planet.