Further inspection.
Posted on 31 Dec 2022 @ 7:04pm by Lieutenant JG Hannah Wagner
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Morgue lab formerly science lab 4
Timeline: MD08 1700 HRS
1146 words - 2.3 OF Standard Post Measure
It was echoingly quiet in Science lab 4. Hannah found that the water even made it echo just the faintest amount- which was a bit disconcerting considering that it was now being called the morgue lab. It had been so labelled for the alien corpse that now sat in a watery enclosure 4 feet high and 7 feet long. It, or rather she was held by force-field so it could be moved and moved it had been. The whole enclosure of water had been filtered, and sifted for particulates so that the doctor could peer through.
Wagner had peered through, paced around and carefully measured each and every angle of the lady until she could do no more from the outside. She'd brought forth from a capsule a series of nano-scanners, like the types that she used to to microsurgery from the inside. While the doctor could control their every movement, she instead programmed these to scan every surface, vein, bone, muscle, visceral structure and organ until she had a complete map and model of the kelpie.
She'd injected the self propelled scanners into the creature at the tiny hole that had been rubbed through her skin at the neck by her jewelry, and waited.
Muscles began to trace themselves in the air, then blood vessels and nerves. The hologram began to grow and as Hannah covered her mouth bouncing on her toes in delight she allowed her eyes to flicker between the corpse and the hologram. The shapes and forms poured out from the scanners like one was filling a mold with resin. Each breath seemed to flow out before her eyes. Soon, an exact replica of the sea creature hovered before her, in a vaguely translucent silvery form so she could see right through it. If she'd been overly superstitious, she would have said it was ghost like. It had dimension enough, that if she were to focus on a single part of it, that part would become more visible to her eye.
"Please ensure that all measurements are also recorded in the scientific database. I should like more people than myself to be able to look at this specimen."
"Agknowledged, upload will complete once nano-scanners have completed their assigned tasks."
Hannah made a noncommittal noise of agreement, because of course it made sense to wait until the scans were complete to upload results. What use was incomplete data anyway? Not that, any of the data could be truly complete studying a corpse that was 20 years old.
Moving her eye through the creature, she wondered about what she looked like when she swam. She had a series of small organs that she would compare to swim bladders on a fish, that lined the length of the body, on either side of the spine. They extended in finger like projections around the body, and she thought probably helped it remain at the same buoyancy as the water around it. Briefly she wondered if the female had conscious control over that, or if it was a purely autonomic system that controlled the pressure within the unique organ. They did however, seem to have a unique ability to diffuse oxygen from the water inside them. Pores connected them to the outside of the body, and were otherwise hidden in the fur. The bubbles of air, she speculated would catch in the thick fur after being excreted and further aid in warmth and insulation. Could that be the reason for the sharp spines? To protect the creatures 'lungs'? They were highly vascularized, it would make a sort of sense for their biology to protect them.
Hormones were similarly controlled to humanoids, with adrenal glands and a similar set of glands that appeared as if they mimicked the pituitary system...this female had never borne any children from the lack of development in her reproductive organs. Maybe she was an adolescent, or not physically matured yet. Maybe like some other species, they came into season only in a certain period of their lives, and she wasn't yet old enough to have done so?
"I wonder..." her voice took on a tone of childlike wonder as she voiced a thought into the universe. "Computer, what is the wavelength of light, most easily absorbed by the phytoplankton that we have found in the sphere samples?"
"That is variable depending on the phytoplankton species and..."
"Never-mind, just use them all, and place them in my hand beam please. Program for a cyclical rotation through the wavelengths" she interrupted the computer not really wanting to hear the dictation of species specific information that she was sure it could spew out for her. That she could read later, at her leisure.
"Agknowledged."
The hand held flashlight that Hannah was holding shifted in its coloration visibly, then faded even more visibly from her eye. She shone the muted beam of light first at the specimen of fur that was sitting in a petri dish beside her on the desk.
She was rewarded by a glimmer. Then the glitter of phosphoresence on the fur sample made her grin and turn her light to the female of the species that lay on her table. Hannah didn't have to wait long for the result. The flash of luminescence made her gasp, and she rotated her table so that she could see properly.
"Correlate beam to phosphorescent wavelength and stabalize."
There was a small sound, and the light stopped shifting. The doctor burst into giddy, girlish laughter when the phosphorescent glow became lines of bright blue and green in the silvery fur. They didn't fade from the eye, nor change...they just...glowed.
The patterns she had were gorgeous, and she wondered if they were naturally born or if she had painted them in as painstakingly as she'd decorated her fins and spines.
If it was painted, then she reckoned that fur painting and decoration might be a sign of status among the species. They couldn't be tattoo'd like some cultures were, because the tattoos wouldn't be seen through the fur. Unless it affected the follicle of the hair.
"It's not impossible" Hannah mused aloud as she watched the computer paint the lines of phosphorescence on the model. Continuing on that train of thought she spoke "I wonder if it's a vanity thing, or if they have meaning of some sort."
A brief pause and then she asked the computer "Computer, is the retinal structure of the eye sufficient to see the light from the phytoplankton without the need for additional light sources?"
"Affirmative. There is a faceted chamber within the space between the iris and the cilliary body of the eye that appears to collect the non-visible spectrums of light."
"So, the patterns would be visible to her all the time, regardless?"
"That assumption is permissible given the single subject data."
"Interesting. Maybe they're more like us than they seem."
