Astronomicon: Behemoth

Chapter 8 - Analysis

"So, what is it?" asked Santiago Alverez, the Arcadian's most senior medical doctor.

Meera peeled her eyes away from the eyepieces of the microscope and sat back on the plastic stool. She groaned, rubbed the sides of her head and pulled her surgical face mask down under her chin.

Two hours earlier, with help from Aron, she had set up a makeshift laboratory in Seating Area 2. A range of basic scientific analysis equipment had been pulled out of storage lockers, along with two folding trestle tables and a couple of white, plastic stools. Meera would have very much liked access to the better equipment in two of the storage pods but Megan would not consider opening those as that would effectively put an end to their colonisation mission, assuming they ever got out of this place.

The equipment available to her was basic but allowed her to make a decent start at her investigation of the mystery gel. After using the automatic analyser on the still-sealed gel containers, to ensure they were not toxic or harmful in any way, she had set about finding out as much as she could about the gel's makeup and purpose.

"It's proving impossible to pin down, Sandy. Why don't you have a look?"

"I seriously doubt I could add much to what you've got already," he smiled.

"I don't have much. It seems to be unstable. Just when you think you've got it pegged, it changes and you're wrong."

"Shove over and I'll take a look."

"Go for it," she replied, sliding off the stool. "At first, it seemed completely inert; The analyser came back with nothing. Now I'm picking up basic amino acids and a couple of things which look a lot like proteins. I could swear those were not there for the first hour."

"Give me a moment," he said, slowly moving the dials to adjust the slide. "It's been a while since I used one of these."

"Amino acids can't just appear out of nowhere," she sighed.

"They did once," he laughed.

"What?"

"Life started somewhere," he replied. "Maybe, just maybe, this is it happening again?"

"I got this sample from an artificial waterfall of gel," she protested. "And I really don't believe that it's capable of biogenesis."

"Well, I see proteins on this slide."

"If this gel could spontaneously produce proteins, why weren't they there when I first sampled it? Why did it wait until we got it back to our ship?"

"That I cannot explain," he replied, "But what you have here is a slide full of protein structures."

The Analyser, a triangular-shaped, white box on the table beside her suddenly beeped for her attention. The touchscreen that filled the entire front-facing surface had popped up a dialogue box to report a new discovery.

"Those weren't there before!" she sighed dejectedly. "I think this Analyser's messed up."

"What's it found?"

"Sugars, in particular, sucrose!"

"And it did not find that the first time you ran the device?" he asked.

"This is the fifth run and I've had different results every time," she sighed.

"Well, what I see is a slide full of proteins and that's nothing to do with the Analyser. I can see them with my own eyes and it looks like there are more now than when I first looked."

"This stuff makes no sense."

"Have you found anything harmful, Meera?"

"No," she shook her head slowly. "Nothing so far. I've screened for a full range of common toxins and found nothing. Foxy is analysing the last sample for all known toxins, just to be sure."