“Clean first, investigate later,” I always say, and do. If you don’t clean first, it never gets done, and with a coating of white phosphorous on all my stuff this time, it was doubly important.
It’s hard to stay at the cleaning, those samples are beckoning, but cleaning off exotic dirt is something too skill-based to leave entirely to the computers. I watch cleaners, and do delicate work they can’t handle, but as I do, my mind races ahead. Honey is already doing the leg work of getting samples prepared and running the routine analysis of weighing, photographing and noninvasive measuring. I take breaks from cleaning to see what she’s come up with so far.
Finally, all the cleaning is done, and I rush to the lab.
The first “alien in a spacesuit” was ... really just an alien in a space suit! The two creatures were, it turns out, just one. It had been split apart by the force of whatever had killed it, and one part had shriveled up much more than the other. The creature was organic, and it had tissues and organs, but the tissues were not built from earthly-style proteins, and there was no sign of DNA or RNA. It had proteins, fats and carbohydrates, but only half the amino acid building blocks were common with ours.
“Bull, this tissue is so different our biologic analysis equipment can’t handle it,” Said Honey.
“Then switch to organic and inorganic chemical analysis ... let’s get what we can. I suspect we are going to bring boom times to the exobiology industry with this little fella.”
I examine data from the second suit and body. My first guess that it was different from the first proves to be a wild understatement. Based on first analysis, it’s as different from the first as the first is from us. The first alien was dog-size and insectoid. This alien is human size and ... it’s hard to say what ... a bear ... a plastic-fleshed bear. The bear’s suit is a lot more robust than the insectoid suit, and made of totally different materials.
When reviewing the videos of the storage room, it appears that those aliens were yet another kind!
<<<*>>>
My mind is reeling. It has been for days. I’ve seen so much new that I’ve stopped thinking about it for now. All I do is look for “new” and catalog it when I find it. There’s so much.
I’ve half-filled the hold with physical specimens. I filled the computer memory with video, a couple days ago, but made some more space by purging some routine logs.
I’ve been here only a week, but I’m done. I can find out more, but I can’t find a place to put it, and I’m so shell-shocked that I can’t add to my knowledge. Sadly, I’m done.
“Honey, time to head home.”
“There’s a lot more here to explore--”
“Yes, but we’ve found more than enough to finance the second expedition. It’s time to head back, and digest.”
“As you wish.”