code: 156.872.119
Genome: 3.8 x 109 bits; Coding/non-coding: 0.028.
Biology: C, N, O, S, H2O, PO4
DNA
Cupric metal-chelated tetrapyroles in aqueous circulatory fluid.
Mobile heterotrophs, omnivores, O2 respiration.
Upright tentacular locomotion.
Mildly gregarious, Polyspecific [1 genera, 12 species]; trisexual.
Communication: modulated sound at 150 to 300 Hz.
Neural connection equivalence NCE = 1.1 x 1014
T = ~260o to 300o K; M = 0.9 x 105 g; L: ~2.5 x 109s
Vision: ~200 nanometers to 720 nanometers; Hearing: 12 Hz to 18,000 Hz
Member: Galactic Polylogue
Receipt galactic nested code: 3.86 x 1010 s ago
Locally initiated contact 0.11 x 109 s ago
Star G1V; Planet: Fourth; “M’gat”
a = 1.669 x 1011m; M = 8.5 x 1027g; R = 7.2 x 106m; p = 3.6 x 107s
Pd = 2.3 x 105s, G = 10.9 m/s2 Atm: O2 20.1, N2 79.6, CO2 0.3;
Patm 0.97 x 105 Pa
Librarian’s note: First direct human contact occurred in 2119 C.E., the very first extraterrestrial space-faring civilization encountered by Humankind. Threat level—8.
I let the numbers cascade through my brain, watching for anything that was so far out of the ordinary that it would put up a red flag. Ordinary when discussing alien biochemistry takes in a huge chunk of territory, of course, but there were some basic rules to play by if the patient was a carbon-based oxygen breather. Hell, compared to some of the critters we’ve encountered out there, methane-breathers and gas giant floaters and fluoro-silicate crystal autotrophs, these guys were practically next of kin.
We’d known the Brocs for over a century, now … since just after the discovery of the local Encylopedia Galactica Node at Sirius. They were our first ET encounter, face-to … whatever it is they have in place of a face. Once we established contact with them, they helped us figure out how to extract the oceans upon oceans of data in the EG, which helped us begin to make some small bit of sense out of the bewildering forest of intelligent life we were encountering as we moved out into the Galaxy. In fact, we were reading parts of the EG only twelve or thirteen years after we logged in; that we were doing so in only thirteen years was due almost entirely to Broc help. They’ve taught us five, so far, of the major Galactic linguae francae, as well as giving us the inside scoop on the slow-motion collapse of the R’agch’lgh Collective in toward the Core. In many ways, they’ve been Humankind’s friendly native guides in our first tentative explorations into the Galaxy jungle at large.
A few have been allowed to come to the Sol System as consultants—so long as they didn’t have astrogation devices that might give away Earth’s most closely guarded secret … exactly where Sol was among the four hundred billion stars of our Galaxy. It pays to be damned cautious in a star wilderness filled with roving predarians and the wreckage of a collapsing galactic empire. These two, according to our pre-mission briefing, had been at Capricorn Zeta to advise us on in-orbit mining techniques.
Unfortunately, they’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time when a Chinese tug declared an emergency and docked alongside. Twenty armed tangos had been hiding on board. As soon as the tug docked, they’d come swarming out of the tug’s cargo compartment and into the mining station.
PLEASE HELP HERM. The words printed themselves out in my in-head as the second, uninjured, M’nangat leaned closer.
Herm. The M’nangat had three sexes, I saw—male, female, and a third that received the fertilized embryo from the female and carried it to term. The wounded one, apparently, was one of those.
They were called life carriers.
I hesitated. I’d already done everything I could for the wounded Broccoli … everything I could, that is, without firing nano into its circulatory system to give me a look from the inside. Putting anything foreign into an alien body was risky, especially if you didn’t know about possible antibody or immune-system responses. The nanobots I carried in my M-7 kit were designed to neatly bypass the human immune response … but how would that play out inside an alien circulatory system?
I pulled out a biochem analyzer and pressed its business end against my patient’s tough, ropy hide. After a moment, I shifted the analyzer to a splatter of blue-green blood near the wound. The readouts downloaded straight into my in-head, giving me a more detailed understanding of the being’s biochemistry than was available on the Net. In particular, I had my AI leapfrog through the incoming data to pinpoint those biochemistries associated with the alien’s immune response.
The immune system for any species is an enormous set of chemistries—varied, complex, and efficient. Even bacteria have their own simple immune system—secreted enzymes that protect the cell against bacteriophage infections. Life forms as complicated as humans have many, many layers of physical and biochemical defenses … and quite a few of those are changing all the time to react to specific threats. I couldn’t expect the M’nangat to be any different.
Our databases on M’nangat physiology weren’t extensive—at least not the ones available to me over the Fleet channels—but I could have my AI run a series of simulations: what would happen if I shot my green patient full of nanobots? The answer came back in a few seconds. There was a solid 86 percent chance that my nano would not trigger an immune response.
Nanobots are designed and programmed with immune responses in mind, of course. They’re coated with buckyweave carbon shells with the active molecular machinery hidden away inside a non-reactive sheath. Still, there was always a small chance—in this case 14 percent—that my nanobots might hit a biochemical trigger and sensitize the organism, telling it in effect that invaders were entering the body and it was time to call out the troops. Those percentages applied to the entire dose of ’bots, of course, and not to each nanobot individually. Otherwise, with a few hundred million foreign particles entering the alien system, sensitization would have been guaranteed.
I looked again at the wound, and decided I would have to accept those odds. The Broc had an entry wound but no exit cavity. The projectile must still be inside.
I felt a shudder through the deck, and then zero-gravity resumed. The meta rockets had switched off. Had the Marines gotten to the controls in time? Or had we just deorbited?
I couldn’t tell, and I was too busy at the moment to link in and query the network. If we hit atmosphere, my work on the alien would be wasted, but if we didn’t burn up on re-entry or slam into the Earth I preferred to have a live patient to a dead one. I kept working.
I used the injector from my M-7 kit to fire a full dose of nanobots into the alien’s hide. As I waited for them to be assimilated, I wondered why we used terms like “Broccoli” or “Stalk” with aliens like the M’nangat. I understood why Marines dehumanized their enemies—especially the human ones—but the M’nangat, as far as we could tell, had been benevolent and helpful galactic neighbors.
The
