Gek waved as if to clear away the lieutenant’s skepticism. “Oh, you know how we all tend to talk down here.” He offered a small, nervous laugh. “After our data feed from Erilon was cut off, well, you know how rumors can start. Then, Commodore Reyes told us about the attack on the Endeavourand the research team, and then, well, I mean…the idea of a life-form being found among the ruins? Well, that’s just…”
Certain he was unhappy with the notion of the Endeavour’s last mission and the tragic circumstances surrounding it becoming gossip fodder, Xiong tapped his finger atop his desk. “Don’t believe everything you might have heard and misunderstood, Doctor. As yet, we have no explanations for what happened at the site.”
Gek chuckled, a gesture Xiong found as obvious as it was clumsy. “Oh, I know, I know! But, you have to admit it’s fascinating to think about. After all, the Erilon artifacts are a million years…”
“We don’t know that,” Xiong interrupted.
“Um, hundreds of thousandsof years old,” the Tellarite amended. “Regardless, the idea of finding a life-form inside is astounding!” He paused as if awaiting affirmation. When Xiong remained silent, Gek cleared his throat and sat a bit straighter in his seat. “What did it look like? The life-form, I mean.”
“It looked pretty damn deadlyis what it looked like,” Xiong snapped, doing nothing to curb the irritation brewing in response to Gek’s callous badgering. As the Tellarite regarded him in wide-eyed silence, Xiong recognized that part of his colleague’s insensitivity stemmed from his cultural upbringing. As a race, Tellarites typically exhibited the same temperament and level of interpersonal tact as…
As you.
“Well, that is…I was merely curious, Lieutenant,” Gek said, breaking the suddenly awkward silence.
Sighing as he sank back into his chair, Xiong shook his head. “I know, Gek. I’m just…tired, that’s all.” While he was not at all interested in recounting what had occurred on Erilon, he recognized that his friend was the most logical person in whom to confide. In addition to being one of Starfleet’s top minds in theoretical chemistry and molecular physics, the excitable researcher also was the person most likely to spread details of Xiong’s observations among their colleagues, sparing Xiong from having to share the details more than once.
“I saw a good number of people die at that thing’s hands, Gek,” he said after a moment, his gaze fixating—for no apparent reason—on one particular data slate sitting atop the stacks of paperwork on his desk. “It’s not that easy for me to be so objective about it.”
Hesitantly at first and then with greater ease, Xiong described the attack in detail as well as the perpetrator, at one point stifling a chill as he recalled the towering black apparition and the carnage it had wrought. To his surprise, Gek said nothing, obviously trying to restrain himself from prying or pushing for more information than Xiong was willing to give.
“I’ve never heard of anything like you describe,” Gek said, when Xiong paused in his recitation. “Can you recall anything else?”
Xiong shook his head. “Not really, no.” Shrugging, he added, “There just wasn’t much to it, but I remember every detail of what I saw. It’s not something I’m likely to forget.”
“No, that’s all right,” Gek said, his smile forced in an obvious attempt to conceal his disappointment at the lack of detail in Xiong’s description. “I imagine it was quite the frightening experience.”
“Yes,” Xiong replied, offering a slow nod, “it was. I was sure I was going to die.”
His expression displaying frank discomfort at the open admission, Gek stammered, “I’m…well, we’re…glad you didn’t, Lieutenant.”
The Tellarite’s uneasiness was not difficult to understand, Xiong knew. Neither of them had ever shown a propensity for talking to one another—or anyone else, for that matter—about subjects outside the scope of their official duties. The lieutenant had always viewed such a separation as being important, a perspective he believed had served him well on this assignment in particular.
Following the events on Erilon, and the continuing need he felt to talk to someone, anyone, about what had happened, Xiong decided his earlier stance now required reexamination.
Gek, as if sensing that the time might be right for a change of subject, rose from his chair. “Anyway, Lieutenant, when you’re…well…ready, we’ve been collating the new information transmitted to us from the research team on Erilon.” His voice faltering as he spoke the last word, the Tellarite cleared his throat once more. “That is, before we stopped receiving their feeds. We’ve been running various tests between their findings and those from Ravanar IV, and our preliminary results might interest you.”
“Really?” Xiong asked, his interest piqued.
He followed Gek to one of the conference niches, the main table of which was festooned with several slates and data cards of assorted colors as well as a tri-sided tabletop display monitor and a workstation interface. Waiting until the doctor settled himself at the computer station, he watched as Gek’s puffy hands played over the rows of switches, activating the tabletop monitors.
“As you can see,” Gek said as he pointed to the viewer, “we’ve created a comprehensive mapping of the genetic sequence found in the samples collected on Ravanar IV.”
Though he had seen computer-generated images of meta-genome samples countless times since being assigned to this project, as he studied the image arrayed on the viewer, Xiong once again found himself drawn in by the unparalleled complexity of what he was seeing. Determined to possess more than three million nucleotide subunits, the genetic information encoded within the DNA samples found on Ravanar IV far outstripped the ability of the human mind to comprehend. Equally staggering, he knew, was the potential the meta-genome possessed to alter the fundamental understanding of life itself.
What we could do with that knowledge,he thought, not for the first time.
“We’ve only just gotten started on doing the same for samples found on Erilon,” Gek continued. “It takes a great deal of time, as you know. We’ve had to develop entirely new coding schemes just to keep track of it all. Still, we’ve made enough progress to make some early comparisons.” Adjusting several controls on the computer interface, Gek brought up another image on the viewer, which he aligned next to the original picture. “At first we thought we had a match to the Ravanar sample, but we also found a few new proteins, which we believe act as a sort of containment scheme designed to hold the base DNA.” Looking up at Xiong, he added, “Then, things get interesting.”
The image on the viewer shifted, and Gek pointed to the new graphic. “We found several distinct check sequences, which appear designed to protect against any errors during the replication process, and from that point the two samples are nothing alike.”
His eyes narrowing as he studied the data, Xiong said, “I’m not seeing anything here that might act to initiate the replication process.” Though more complex than the samples found on Ravanar, the Erilon specimen still seemed to be lacking key components.
“Despite the differences,” Gek continued, “it’s the same basic story with both specimens. The core genetic structures appear to be identical, but after that, nothing is the same.”
“Meaning?” Xiong asked.
Gek leaned back in his chair. “Only a fraction of the total information within any one sample appears to be necessary for the generation of life-forms, so why include the rest of it?” He shrugged in answer to his own question. “To me, it’s obvious. This genetic material was artificially engineered. The designers created a basic template—ostensibly for use in a virtually unlimited number of ways, most of which are far outside anything we might possibly imagine. What we’ve found on Ravanar and Erilon is but the merest scratching of the surface.”