“I don’t know, but inform me immediately if it happens again.” In a far corner, she noted the aforementioned lump with no shape yet, but she had no doubt that would change if fed. As for the alien samples she’d been working on before her trip, they remained encased and seemingly no different than before. A lack of nutrition kept them in stasis.
“How was your mission?” Asterion asked as they exited the room.
“Successful.” She waved to the counter. “We brought back lake water and might have found the meteor that fell in that area.”
“Really?” Asterion strode over and eyed the asteroid chunk with interest. “How can you ensure it’s the right rock?”
“By seeing if it contains any alien matter that matches.”
“Wouldn’t the water have destroyed it?”
“It’s possible, but I’m hoping the center of the rock remained untouched enough to give me a proper sample.”
“Anything I can help with?” Asterion asked.
“Not unless you learned how to use any of my machines while I was gone.”
“Alas, I’ve only begun my science studies.” He sighed.
“In that case, keep working with Blue. I want you to feed it more meat and note what happens.”
“I can do that,” Asterion agreed readily.
“Also, let’s try your idea of giving Blue some raw materials to work with.”
“Really?” he exclaimed, before adding a more sober, “What would you suggest?”
“Basic stuff. Maybe some wires, pieces of wood, string. A piece or two of metal. Junk, essentially.”
“You’re wondering if it can build.”
“This is a supposedly space-faring race with advanced energy weapons. Yet, looking at Blue, who refuses to even attempt to learn to communicate, I really have to wonder. Do they get more intelligent as they increase in size? Or is Blue some kind of drone sent out to do the dirty work?”
“You raise interesting questions,” Asterion stated with a nod. “I shall begin my tasks at once and inform you of the results, if any.”
The eager minotaur headed back into the containment chamber, and Leila went to work. First thing, she retrieved one of the alien bio samples she’d stored. No point in testing the lake water if it had no effect.
She placed the flesh on a slide and added a single drop of the fluid she’d collected.
The result proved immediate. The sample shriveled, and when she peeked through the microscope, she smiled. The cells within the matrix didn’t just die, they disintegrated, pulling apart and completely losing their shape. Just to be sure they couldn’t repair themselves, she added a few drops of her blood to the slide. A glance through the lens showed it remained inert. Good news. Still, as a precaution, she moved the dead sample back to the glass box.
She then began the process of analyzing the lake water’s composition. She placed the fluid in various machines and got them running. She wanted a breakdown of the various chemicals that made the water toxic. Hopefully, she’d end up with a recipe that could be mass-produced to use as a weapon, although she’d still have to test it on an alien with a developed exterior skin. Would the poison be able to penetrate, and if yes, how much would be required? Questions that needed answers before she could determine if it would be viable in their fight against the aliens.
While machines whirred, she prepped herself to play with the meteor. The protective equipment seemed kind of redundant, seeing as how she’d already handled it barehanded. However, it could be the water only eliminated exterior biological matter. Who knew what she’d find inside once she cracked it. Best to be safe, even if the hazmat gear made movement more unwieldy—and less sexy. Good thing Grayson didn’t stick around to see her clomping around like a clumsy robot.
She started by taking pictures of the sphere-shaped rock from all angles, followed by weighing and measuring. Definitely heavier than it appeared, about six inches around. Not a big meteor by any means, but then again, other than the one in Toronto, none of the shards that fell to Earth had been sizeable.
Once she began scraping the outer black crust, formed as it passed through Earth’s atmosphere, she immediately noticed its smoothness, unusual given the asteroid that produced it had been shattered. She would have expected more jagged edges, but once fully cleaned, it presented itself as a perfect sphere with almost inch-deep indents, four in total, all equally sized and spaced. Too perfect to be anything less than intentional. Did they used to hold anything? When swabbed, they showed no signs of biological matter.
Rinsing the sphere removed the remaining debris and revealed hairline cracks, but not the kind caused by stress. The almost-invisible fissures ran all the way around the ball-shaped rock, intersecting to create pie-shaped sections. As for their purpose…
She tapped the meteor with a hammer at one of the thin seams, and the rock fell apart, the pieces shedding like petals. The removal of the outer layer revealed a smaller sphere, which featured four more indents placed more closely together, but more astonishing, the cradles in the rock held gray globes about the size of a golf ball. Excitement filled her because poking one showed it as spongy, more than likely biological matter, but of alien origin.
She took images before removing the globes and placing them in a secured glass tank. While excited to check them out further, she wanted to finish with the meteor. A last tap removed a final layer and exposed a single gray lump. Or would the more accurate term be egg?
Now to discover if they were related to their current aliens. It would be ironic if she and Grayson accidentally discovered a different species from space.
Using tongs, she transferred the last, and the most protected, globe to a glass slide. A peek through her microscope didn’t show much. The outer skin of the egg proved to be dense and offered no clues. What was inside? Just in case she released something toxic—or savage—she put the globe in a glove box, a dumb name that accurately described the sealed glass unit with two holes for her to stick her hands in. The thick rubber gloves proved unwieldy, but with determination, she managed to grasp the scalpel she’d placed in the box. It took a bit of pressure to penetrate the tough outer layer of the egg, but once she pierced it, the globe collapsed into a small puddle of goo. No baby alien, kind of disappointing.
