If M’Benga was fazed at all by the jab, he did not show it. Guess his tour of duty in a Vulcan medical ward lends him the occasional stoicism,Fisher thought, or simple indifference to my situation, at least.
“According to his file,” M’Benga said, already down to business, “Mr. Bohanon here was part of the research team on Erilon. Was he involved in an accident?”
Fisher shook his head. “He was attacked. At least, that’s what I was told. By what, I don’t know.” Once more he directed his attention to the massive hole in the Denobulan’s chest, which had relieved the victim of his lungs, his heart, and a significant portion of his spine.
Reaching out to trace the outline of the wound with a gloved finger, M’Benga said, “It looks almost surgical in its precision. Whatever did this, it struck him with tremendous force.”
“If not for the strength of his rib cage,” Fisher replied, “whatever hit him likely would have just torn him in two.” Tapping a control set into the wall next to the table, he activated a spotlight, which he then directed to better illuminate the cavity. “See how it tapers inward from front to back? He was stabbed—skewered, really—by something that got wider as it went deeper.” Dipping his own gloved hand inside the wound, he gently probed its edges with his fingers. “Its sides are uniform and smooth, but it doesn’t seem to be from some sort of heat cauterization.”
“What else might cause that?” M’Benga asked.
Shrugging, Fisher replied, “Acid. An alien enzyme, maybe. It could simply be a function of his being transported almost exactly at the time of his injury, and the transporter buffer just…tidied things up.”
“You’re suggesting he was literally beamed right off the object that killed him?” M’Benga frowned at that suggestion. “If that was the case, then why wasn’t that object, or even a piece of it, brought up with him?”
Fisher nodded in approval at the observation. “Good question, but you’re assuming the deadly force here was inflicted by a physical object. If he was hit—for example—by a shaped antiproton beam, that might explain a few things.”
“But wouldn’t such an attack leave some residual energy that might be detected at the wound site?” M’Benga asked.
“Not if the stasis field that Mr. Bohanon entered on the Endeavourshortly after his death nullified any energy traces we might hope to find.” Fisher smiled, noting the younger physician’s knit brow as he considered that possibility. “It’s a tangled web we attempt to unweave in an autopsy, Dr. M’Benga, but we have one thing going for us.”
“And that is?”
“It’s pretty obvious how this poor fellow died, which means we get to spend more time trying to discover what was used to kill him.”
Fisher reached for a laser scalpel set atop a tray positioned next to the stasis bed. By applying a deft touch with the device, he carved away a sliver of muscle tissue from the surface area of the cavity and placed it in a waiting specimen dish. Handing the sample to M’Benga, he said, “Let’s see what a molecular scan can tell us.”
The younger doctor led the way across the room to a nearby workstation that offered an array of scanning equipment as well as a standard computer interface terminal. Fisher watched as M’Benga placed the tray under the sensor array and entered a series of instructions into the small keypad set into the worktable. The sample dish was bathed in a soft blue light, the forensic scanner sending its findings to the computer for further processing and analysis. Within seconds, data began to coalesce on the workstation’s display monitor.
And Fisher’s eyebrows rose.
“What the hell is that?” he asked as he studied the information being put out by the computer. “Anabolic activity? These cells are alive?” He leaned closer to better scrutinize the computer monitor, but the data displayed upon it did not change.
“That’s impossible,” M’Benga said. “Something must have contaminated the site.”
“They look like new metabolic pathways,” Fisher said. Watching the computer-enhanced image of the cell sample, the doctor could plainly see that some as-yet-unidentified substance had come into contact with the exposed areas of the open wound, and even now was slowly but surely working to break down the Denobulan’s cells, only to rearrange them into something resembling a crystalline structure. “Whatever it is, it’s mineralizing the muscle cells somehow.”
But what the hell for?
Beside him, M’Benga asked, “Could it be a form of viral infection native to Erilon that was arrested when the body was placed into stasis, and only became active once it was exposed to an atmosphere?”
“The Endeavour’s CMO scanned the body for infection, but found nothing,” Fisher replied.
M’Benga nodded toward the screen. “Shouldn’t he have found this?”
“He wasn’t allowed to autopsy the body,” Fisher said. Frowning as he said that, he nevertheless kept his thoughts on that decision, as well as who had made it and issued the appropriate orders, to himself. “Besides, if there was any kind of contamination, our autocontainment procedures would already have kicked in and sealed this place off. We’re not looking at any kind of contagion.” Turning away from the workstation and moving back to where Bohanon’s body still lay, he called over his shoulder, “Get a portable scanner.”
It took only a moment to survey the rest of the ghastly wound in the Denobulan’s chest and confirm Fisher’s suspicions. Holding the scanner up so that he could see its collected data, M’Benga said, “The same readings. Every exposed area of internal tissue is in the process of gradually being altered at the cellular level.”
“Putting him in stasis halted the process,” Fisher said. He indicated the control panel on M’Benga’s side of the table. “Jabilo, put him back in. I want to study this, and we need to preserve what we’ve got as long as we can.”
“Yes, Doctor,” M’Benga replied, pressing the control that retracted the examination table and its current occupant back into its storage drawer. The door hissed shut and a gentle hum exuded from the bulkhead as the small chamber’s stasis field activated.
“Have you detected a rate of progress?” he asked as he rejoined Fisher at the computer workstation.
Pointing to the monitor, Fisher replied, “Already plotting one out.” The screen displayed a small graph inset atop the main image of the ongoing cellular metamorphosis. “Not that it’s going to help us much. The process is tapering off. At this rate, it’ll neutralize completely before it extends more than a millimeter or two into the surrounding tissue.”
“The process might need more of its catalyst in order to continue,” M’Benga said. “Maybe something native to the planet?”
Fisher offered a small grunt of affirmation. “Could be, but maybe all it needs is more living tissue.” Turning back to the workstation, he began to key in a series of instructions. “We’ve got everything we need to try a computer model. Let’s see what kind of luck we have with that.”
In response to his requests, the computer screen generated a new graph. Fisher watched as the function graph did not slope toward the zero baseline but instead spiked quickly.
M’Benga, who was watching the computer’s progress along with him, drew in a loud breath. “If he’d been alive, he’d have been fully compromised by the process.”
“In a matter of minutes,” Fisher clarified, “and depending on the size or location of the wound, I’m guessing it wouldn’t have been a pleasant experience.”
The sound of a pneumatic hiss from behind them caused both men to snap toward the morgue’s doorway as Rana Desai entered the room.
“Did I scare you gentlemen?” she asked, her tone suggesting that she hoped she had.
“You didn’t, no,” Fisher said, looking at M’Benga, “but we’ve got a case of the willies all the same. How can we help you, Captain?”