“I’ll bump it up,” the chief said with a sigh. That meant to the XO. “Makin’ bricks without straw.”
“That’s the Navy way, Chief.”
Miriam was not a biologist, but she could hum the tune and do a few of the dance steps.
Fortunately, the Blade’s biology department was as automated and modern as anything on Earth. There were many benefits to information technology and automation, but they all came down to the word “productivity.” Since it was anticipated that the Blade was going to be doing major science missions — an anticipation that had mostly been unrealized — and given that the maximum number of science crew was restricted, making the science section as productive as possible had been the goal.
Thus, rather than slow and tedious “wet” chemical analysis, a full chemical work-up could be obtained by sliding a small sample into a chamber. Molecular Resonance Imaging, gaseous chromatographic structuring and even atomic level X-ray analysis was automatic. Pop in the sample, wait twenty minutes and you had a full description of every molecule in the sample, complete with three-dimensional topology. The device was state-of-the-art, very capable and, because it was in the Blade, very small. It was, thus, very very expensive. “No expense spared.”
Knowing what you were looking at, though, was something else.
But before any of that, Miriam could start on the one part she really knew: Dissection.
“It’s not a spider,” Miriam muttered.
“Would you like to record this analysis session?”
One part of the bio section Miriam did not care for was the new Vocal Interactive Network. Vinnie was a pain in the ass unless you turned him all the way off. He wasn’t an AI, just a bloody “smart” program, but the programmers had tried to make him as much like an artificial intelligence as possible. Which just meant he was a revolving busybody.
“Vinnie, leave me alone,” Miriam said, pinning down the carapace of the alien bug.
“Procedure 419 dash 587 dash 326 Delta indicates a preference for recording of all analysis sessions.”
“I know that,” Miriam said. “I don’t want to talk to you right now, Vinnie. Go away.”
“Recommend initiate procedure 419 dash 587 dash 326 Delta.”
“Shut up, Vinnie,” Miriam said, positioning the laser scalpel.
“Procedure 419 dash 587 dash 326 Delta is highly recommended but can be overridden by following procedure 876 dash 239 dash 12540 Alpha. Do you wish to initiate procedure 876 dash 239 dash 12540 Alpha?”
“Oh, God!” Miriam snapped. “Okay, okay! Vinnie, initiate procedure 419 dash 587 dash 326 Delta recording of analysis session!” The alternative was a five minute procedure required to turn the damned thing off.
“Initiating procedure 419 dash 587 dash 326 Delta,” the program responded happily. “Full audio and video. Please maintain running commentary for thoroughness. Beginning Procedure. Step One: Ensure quarantine of biological specimen.”
“Quarantine ensured,” Miriam said.
“Analysis indicates that specimen is not in quarantine zone. Ensure quarantine of biological specimen.”
“Skip,” Miriam said. “Quarantine breached.”
“Quarantine breach logged and noted,” the program replied as blast doors slammed down. “Quarantine field activated in science section. Quarantine breach report sent to Ops. Step Two: Ensure safety of session personnel. List materials used in session.”
“Laser scalpel,” Miriam said with a sigh. “Pins. Probes.”
“List by stock number,” Vinnie said, primly. “Item one: Laser scalpel. Two possible systems. Item One: Bogdan Slicer Laser Scalpel, Federal Stock Number…”
Miriam got up from her stool, placed the arachnoid in the refrigerator, then walked to one of the computer stations. Sitting down, she cracked her fingers and started typing.
Three minutes were required to hack into the administrator permissions on the mainframe. Another ten seconds were required to find the core of Vinnie’s program. The voice in the background, which was still requesting information, shut off abruptly. It took about an hour to reverse engineer the program, find the appropriate sections, rewrite them, then recompile and debug. There weren’t any bugs.
“Vinnie, this is Miriam Moon, Ship’s Linguist,” Miriam said, standing up and going back over to the refrigerator.
“Yes, Mistress,” the program replied in a deep Transylvanian accent.
“I’d like you to record this dissection session and record any results from the analysis of this organism,” Miriam said.
“Yes, O Great One.”
“Oh, and drop the quarantine restrictions,” Miriam said. “These things are all over the ship.”
“It shall be done.”
“Begin recording,” Miriam said, laying out the creature. “Analysis of aterrestrial organism tentatively designated astroarachno titanus common name Tiny’s Space Spider. Creature is approximately ten centimeters from mandibles to tip of carapace. Exoskeleton color is purple shading to red in places. There are two eyes and a complex but truncated set of antennae. Creature has ten tri-segmented legs and two scorpionlike claws, each claw approximately three centimeters in length. Claws overlap, indicating cutting ability. Body is multisegmented and doesn’t conform to arachnid body type. The carapace is flexible.” She drove pins through the edge of the carapace and slid a laser scalpel down the center, just opening up the abdomen.
“Space Spider has book lungs with closure points on exterior. Removing sample of internal fluids for analysis.”
She sucked up a bit of the fluid with a pipette and carried it to the analysis chamber.
“Begin analysis of internal fluids,” she said, shooting the sample into a chamber.
“By Your Command!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I would have sworn this algorithm was good,” Bill said, looking at the results. “Hang on.”
He brought up an underlying subprogram and ran a validation on some of the matches.
“See, this ridge shows as a valid match,” Bill said, shrugging. The ridge was now outlined with a purple shape that shaded to light blue. “Seventy percent positive. I can bump the stat up but then who knows what we’ll miss? At ninety percent the system misses the Great Wall of China.”
“Which mostly ain’t straight, sir,” the chief pointed out.
“Which is why it doesn’t just look for straight lines, Chief,” Bill replied tightly. “We’re going to have to do an eyeball sort. That’s all there is for it.”
“Sir, I’ve only got two eyeballs,” the imagery specialist pointed out. “I’m just glancing at most of this stuff, but…”
“We’ll have to get more eyballs on it.”
“Captain Weaver to Biology Lab,” the 1-MC bellowed. “XO to Biology Lab.”
“Get the Marines on it,” Bill said. “They’re just sitting there.”
“So what you’re going to be looking at,” Eric said to the assembled platoon, “is stuff from the scopes. Most of it’s going to be ridgelines, rivers, stuff like that. But if you see anything that looks strange, kick it to me. If I agree, I’ll kick it up to the specialists. Try to use your brains, but let me make the final determination. Queries?”
“Sir?” Lance Corporal Wagner said, raising his hand. “Are we going to land on this planet?”
“Not unless we find something worth checking out,” Eric replied. “So hit the bunks; we’re going to be at this for a while.”