Claws That Catch votsb-4

by John Ringo

  And they sure as hell didn’t get one hit every ten seconds of various rock formations.

  “Chief, I’m getting swamped here,” Plumber squeaked. “I could look at this stuff for the rest of my natural life and not catch up.”

  “What you got?” the chief asked, looking over his shoulder at the oversized monitor.

  “Chither,” Plumber said exasperatedly. “I don’t care what anybody says, you get straight lines in nature. I got ridges, lots of ridges, I got recently cracked boulders. I got landslides. I got a couple of things I don’t know what they are but they’re not ruins I’ll tell you that. And I got more than I can look at in a million years.”

  “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.”

  “That was quick,” Bill said, walking into the lab.

  Miriam had the space spider laid out on a dissection table and was peering at a screen filled with chemical and biological notations.

  “I thought you’d like to know what we were dealing with as soon as possible,” Miriam said. “But you might have to figure it out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know if I’m figuring any of this out right,” Miriam admitted. “Some of it’s certain. This is a Class Four biology.”

  “That’s Dreen,” Bill said, blanching.

  “I said it was Class Four,” Miriam replied. “I didn’t say Dreen. It’s not Dreen. I don’t know where it’s from. It’s more like Nitch. The only thing that I can find that’s close to the design is Nitch but they’re Class Three. Alien unknown organism.”

  “Great, we’re in quarantine for sure,” Bill said, sighing.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Miriam said, pointing to one of the biological readings. “There are no, and I repeat no, microorganisms in this thing that have any important effect on Class One biologies. So there’s no chance of us catching an alien space plague from it. The real biologists on Earth will have to double-check me on that, but this thing is the cleanest organism I’ve ever seen.”

  “Not following,” Bill admitted.

  “Okay,” Miriam said, sighing. “You have any clue how many viruses you’re carrying around right now?”

  “None as far as I know,” Bill said. “I’m not sick.”

  “Thousands,” Miriam replied. “And I’m not talking about individual bodies. I’m talking about species of viruses. Most of them have, apparently, no effect. Some of them might even be doing good things; scientists still aren’t sure about a lot of them. Then there’s your gut, which is packed with E. coli. Most… poop is actually E. coli bodies. Human beings are so chock full of little germs and bacteria and viruses and stuff that it’s surprising we have room for the muscle and stuff.”

  “Didn’t know that,” Bill admitted. “But this thing?”

  “It has four viroids,” Miriam said. “Best I can do on naming them. They’re not anything like our viruses. Class Four doesn’t even use DNA for one thing; it uses third juncture structures, closer to proteins, for genetic replication. The best description is that these are little packets that reproduce, but they can only reproduce on Class Four biologies and if I’m reading this right they’re some sort of enzyme producer that only attacks certain chemical structures. I don’t know what the chemical structures are, but they’re not human or other terrestrial proteins.”

  “It was eating my cereal,” Bill said.

  “Getting to that,” Miriam replied. “It has some more stuff in its gut. Not just its equivalent of E. coli but some bacterialike organisms. Closer in organization to Archaea but, again, using Class Four structures. Six of them. One of them can break down terrestrial sugars. You know how you can eat Adar food and not get fat?”

  “Been on the Adar diet for a long time,” Bill said.

  “Well, these can break down our sugars and convert them into its version of ATP,” Miriam said. “Badly. They can barely sustain themselves and it seems to release secondary materials that appear toxic.”

  “So if they eat too much they die?” Bill asked.

  “I’m not sure they die,” Miriam said. “I think they just don’t enjoy the experience much. I tested the toxins on some of the neurons that were still functional. The response, if I’m reading this right, looked like a pain response.”

  “That’s…”

  “Weird, I know,” Miriam said. “But it looks as if this thing would have little or no interest in, for example, entering terrestrial biologies and ripping them apart. If I’m reading all this right, it would find it actively unpleasant to try.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Bill said.

  “Yup,” Miriam said. “I even tried it on Adar food and got the same responses. I don’t have any Class Four biological material to test it on, so I don’t know what it would do to a Class Four biology. But all the biologies that we’re… friendly with don’t seem at risk.”

  “All good news,” Bill said, letting out a sigh. “I was really sweating quarantine.”

  “And you might, still,” Miriam said, looking at the enigma on the dissection table.

  “But you said…”

  “I haven’t gotten to the really good part,” Miriam said, waving the XO over to the table. She picked up a probe and spread the carapace, using the probe to point to a bit of purple stuff.

  “What am I looking at?” Bill asked.

  “Reproductive organs,” Miriam replied. “Here, here, here, here, here…”

  “Uhmmm…”

  “No,” Miriam said. “That’s not normal either. And all of them had some formed embryos in them. I’m not sure if they were dead or just… hibernating. Some of them seemed to be active for a short time. But this thing looks as if it’s supposed to breed faster than… Well, a hamster would go ‘Whoa!’ And they’re parthenogenic. Which means…”

  “They don’t need other spiders to breed,” Bill said, breathing deep. “One of these things could…”

  “Wipe out a world,” Miriam finished.

  “I need a bottomline here, people,” Prael said, trying not to look at the linguist. He recognized, now, that he needed her. It didn’t mean he had to like it.

  “I don’t think we can give one, sir,” Bill replied. “Miss Moon is not a biologist.”

  “I’ve discussed the findings with Dr. Chet,” Miriam said. “He’s confirmed everything I found and does not consider them a threat. But it will be up to the science team on Earth to concur.”

  “We’ve caught four more,” Bill said. “Miriam.”

  “They’ve been given various Earth and Adar foods,” Miriam said. “Some of those are compatible with the Hexosehr. The only thing they’ll eat of Earth foods is cereal. They avoid the sugary ones, going for the blandest stuff we stock. And even then they don’t like it.”

  “Put a big pile in the cage and they’ll go over from time to time, nibble on it, then lie down,” Bill said.

  “And I was able to confirm that it’s painful for them to eat,” Miriam said. “They only do it to survive, poor things. I wish I had some Class Four biologicals to feed them.”

  “I’d prefer that we keep their numbers down, Miss Moon,” the CO said. “They are still a huge potential biological hazard. Anything else?”

  “They hibernate in vacuum,” Miriam said. “When exposed all their external openings close tight and they curl up. Their carapace is remarkably resistant to exfiltration. I don’t know how long they can maintain it, but I’ve put them in hard vacuum for fifteen hours and revived them. At this point, it’s how I’m storing them.”

  “So we can’t even kill them by evacuating the ship,” the CO said, grumpily. “Where did they come from? Cheerick?”

  “No, sir,” Bill said. “No way they came from Cheerick.”

  “I think it was my fault,” Miriam admitted.

  “How?” the CO asked.

  “The asteroid mining,” Miriam said. “I think these things can last a long time in vacuum. Maybe for years or even centuries. There was probably one sitting on the asteroid. Who would have noticed?”

  “Uh,” Bill said, shaking his head. “I think there’s a more probable explanation, if that’s the case.”

  “Go,” the CO said.

  “Last mission we got some material from a comet. We really didn’t use any quarantine procedures since what could you get from a comet?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Miriam said happily. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they could get some nutrition even from comet ice. There’s a hint of complex organics in it! Wow! Glad it’s not my fault.”

  “So am I, Miss Moon,” Prael said, gritting his teeth. “But to get back on p
oint. This does not appear to be a threat to the ship?”

  “No, sir,” Bill said. “Not to us. But they’re a threat to somebody.”

  “How’s that, XO?” the CO asked.

  “Gotta make a Star Trek reference, sir,” Bill said, grinning faintly.

  “I’ll survive,” the CO replied.

  “If they got the right food, they’re worse than tribbles. Tribbles didn’t have claws that catch.”

  “Nada, CO,” Bill said. They’d been at the process for a week, checking out all of the rocky planets and the bigger moons, even if they were outside the standard life-zone. “The only one thing that seems to be in this system was that installation the Hexosehr trashed.”

  “So we keep looking,” the CO said. “Suggestions? Astro?”

  “HD 243170 is a G0 type star, very similar to Sol in other words, about four light-years away. That would be my next suggestion.”

  “XO?” the CO asked.

  “Concur,” Bill said. “Main sequence stars have longer life-zone periods than any other type of star. Theoretically, they’re the most likely to have developed life. My only query is about that point. We’re looking for a star-spanning species; they could be anywhere.”

  “In which case HD 243170 is also the closest star,” Lieutenant Fey pointed out.

  “Which was why I concurred,” Bill said, shrugging. “We’re just going to have to start from here and expand out. It’s going to be sloooow…”

  “Oh God,” Berg moaned. “I can’t believe I’m longing for some nice exciting paperwork.”

  The guys in the platoons had been told to send anything that might be an anomaly on to their chain-of-command. Then they’d been told to send stuff that only really looked like an anomaly. Which meant that Berg was only getting a file every minute or so. He was currently looking at a suspicious hill, if by “suspicious” you meant looking remarkably like Little Round-Top, tree-cover included.