by Dane Bagley
***
“Tammy’s pulling the report right now,” explained James to Kenny in the dining area. “What’s your vote, human or alien?”
“Now that’s a loaded question. She’s definitely an alien. I mean, she’s not from earth—so she’s an alien. But as to whether or not she’s human, now that’s the question,” replied Kenny.
Tammy walked into the dining area and straight over to counter without so much as acknowledging the two men. She grabbed a mug, and then dropped it on the counter. It didn’t break, but she hit her fist on the counter anyway, in a show of complete frustration.
“Hey Tammy, what’s the word on the report?” inquired Kenny.
She waited a second, before turning towards them. As she shook her head she said, “There is no word. The genetic analyzer messed it up. It came out as nonsense—complete and utter nonsense. I don’t know if the thing is broken, or if I did something wrong. It’s been working fine the whole time; then when I need it, it goes out.”
“So it ran through the whole thing, instead of letting you know that something was wrong?” asked James.
“Yeah, I had no clue at all. It showed everything as fine at the end, too. I’m going to be livid if they have to send in another ship and crew because we can’t gather our most important data.”
“Have you already reported the failure to Central Command?” asked Kenny with some concern.
“No, I’d rather test it again. I’ve been trusted with the most important scientific report ever. I intend to get it right, as long as the stupid equipment doesn’t fail me!” And with that, she kicked the counter.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” asked Steve, as he and Mike entered the room. He wanted to go up to her, and put his hands on her shoulders and rub them, but knew that he could not.
“The genetic analysis didn’t run right. I can’t tell if the machine failed, or I did something wrong. I’ve got to start all over again.”
“It worked fine, when you ran my DNA,” said Steve.
Tammy didn’t answer, but looked like she was deep in thought. In a matter of minutes everyone was at the table eating.
“So, the atmosphere on this world is identical to the atmosphere on the earth. It looks like the only reason to continue with the air lock is to keep the two species from sharing germs, and making each other sick,” stated James to break the silence.
“This is strange,” said Kenny between bites.
“I think that we may need to break the air lock,” said Tammy without looking up from her plate.
Mike looked up though. He looked right at Tammy. “What? We can’t break the air lock, not with her on board.”
“I’ve isolated all of her flora. I’ve got all of her skin flora, her fecal flora, her genital flora, oral flora, ocular flora—I’ve got it all. It is bacteria. It looks like bacteria, it acts like bacteria, it’s not identical to earth’s bacteria, but it’s a lot like it. It can definitely infect human tissue. I’ve tested her strains on human cells, and they cause infections. But they are so susceptible to our antibiotics. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. They must not be using anything like our antibiotics, because these bugs have no resistance whatsoever. I’ve tested our specimens’ tissue with our bacteria also. Its tissue is equally susceptible to infection from our bacteria. It’s a little harder to kill, because our bacteria have a lot of resistance against our antibiotics. But it’s doable. Actually, I think that it has a minor infection already. The lab was ‘sterilized’ before the air lock, and before we acquired the specimen, but I don’t think that it was one hundred percent sterilized. I think that it has caught a bug—one of our germs. It’s respiratory and the specimen has a bit of a runny nose. I gave it a broad spectrum antibiotic injection, and I’m culturing its sputum and nasal mucus now. I’ll know soon if it is from an earth born bacterial infection. If the antibiotic shot works, then I don’t think we have to worry about contaminating it. At least we can clear up the infection.” Tammy explained all of this with ease. She was feeling a little better, as she explained some of her successes.
“So you want to break the air lock to test how we do with each other’s bacteria?” asked James.
“No. I’m just saying that I don’t think that it will present as big of a problem as it could. If neither species gets any serious sickness from breaking the air lock, then it won’t be such a big deal.”
“Then why do you want to break the air lock?” asked Kenny.
Tammy hesitated a bit. “I want to re-run the genetic test. I could just get another sample from the specimen and re-run it. But, I would prefer to get samples from each of you, and run them along with the specimen’s sample. If the machine is broken, or out of calibration, I may be able to see where it is going wrong. I can see how your DNA stacks up against your baseline tests. I really don’t want to lose this report. In order to get your samples, I will have to expose each of you, and that pretty much destroys the value of the air lock.”
“What about viruses, prions, et cetera?” asked Mike.
“I haven’t isolated any viruses from the specimen. I have exposed its tissue samples to our viruses, but I won’t have results for a couple of days. Our specimen appears to be in great health, minus a little infection that we have given it. I think that if we all received antibiotics prophylactically, that we would be fine. There is some risk, and I think everyone should know that, but I really do think the risk is minimal. I’m willing to take the risk. I want the data. I think that we can handle any infections.”
“How soon would you want all of our DNA samples?” asked Steve, with Mike looking and glaring at him.
“Yesterday,” said Tammy, in all seriousness.
“I trust you. This mission has been anything but conventional—both from our deviating from protocol, to the ultimate successes. I don’t think that it is possible to break our barriers of success, by sticking to protocol. I’ll tell Danny and Bob about the risk. Does anyone have any major objections?” Steve asked with a look that seemed to say, “And there better not be any major objections!”
“I hear what you are saying Captain,” said James. “We have to take risks, if we want the whole enchilada. They got to be calculated risks though. I think Tammy has calculated them. I’m in.”
“Captain, the risks we are talking about are both to our own health, and to the success of the mission. We are going for it on 4th and 10 in our own territory. Tammy’s a good quarterback, though. Tammy, if you say you’ve got it, I’m with you,” explained Kenny.
“Captain Jenners, you’re the Captain. I don’t like it. But, I’m not going to fight you on it,” Mike said. He was clearly not very happy about this. But that was Mike. He wasn’t ever happy about anything. Mike, however, had a lot more bark than bite.
Tammy looked around, with a look in her eyes that said, “thank you.” Everything did not feel better. She was still so frustrated inside. But at least she felt like she could proceed. She and Steve exchanged a look. He was doing her a big favor. The look told him that she knew it and appreciated it. He didn’t want to compromise the mission in any way, but he felt that he needed to keep this mission on this ship. If other ships came in, it could become a turf war very quickly.
Chapter 22
