Read Online People of Mars by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli - Free Book Online Page A

“Curb your enthusiasm.”
    “I think Anna is
right.” Hassan had just spoken. His unusual statement hushed both
women.
    “That’s a good one!
You agreeing with Anna about something.” Michelle’s voice tone was
sarcastic, but he ignored her.
    “ As far as I know, there’s no reason why bacteria
should selectively absorb some microcrystals of beryllium, so much
as to concentrate them in their cytoplasm. It would be strange even
if they just contained the double the amount compared to the
outside.”
    “They may have been
bound to organic particles already available on the floor, which
the bacteria have then taken via phagocytosis.” Was Michelle just
playing the devil’s advocate in that situation, to avoid easy
enthusiasms, or was there something else she couldn’t stand?
    He grumbled. “Anything
may have happened to this sample. It remained in a damp, highly
contaminated place for many hours. But this is still a bizarre
phenomenon.”
    Anna placed her hands
on her hips. It seemed absurd to be joining forces with Hassan, but
as long as it turned out to be useful, she couldn’t see any down
side. Within the group dynamics, his point of view was the
important and second only to Dennis’s. And the commander always set
great store by his opinion.
    “Have you analysed the
crystal in the original sample?” Hassan turned to her.
    “I’ve handled the
content of the first vial during the observation under the optical
and the scanning electron microscopes. Although I’ve worked in a
sterile environment, I cannot exclude any possible contamination,
given the small quantity. I was going to use the other one for the
chemical analyses.” If Robert hadn’t disintegrated it.
    “You said there was a
sample from a probing pipe,” Michelle said.
    “ Yeah, but it doesn’t come from exactly the same
spot as the other two. There were some beryllium crystals, but
their concentrations were so low compared to the other elements in
the regolith, that the analyses I’ve performed weren’t quite
conclusive. In general I haven’t identified other strange substances …” The sentence
remained mid air.
    “But …” Hassan
prompted her.
    Anna looked at him,
and then she turned to the screen occupied by Michelle’s head and
shoulders. “But … in the deepest layer, where there was a slightly
higher quantity of crystals, I detected some traces of carbon
compounds.” She pronounced the last words in an almost reverential
tone.
    “Organic molecules?”
Michelle asked with scepticism.
    The other woman
hesitated, watching an undefined point in front of her. “Biological
…” She just whispered that.
    “Biological?” Hassan
asked, surprised.
    “Nucleobases,
mostly.”
    “In how many
samples?!” he urged her.
    “Just one.”
    “Ah!” Michelle
exclaimed, pleased. “It’s surely an artefact. You’ll have touched
the inside of the pipes without gloves, maybe Robert did, and some
DNA coming from his skin remained there.”
    “I didn’t say I’ve
found some nucleic acids, but just some components of them,” Anna
protested. Michelle wasn’t listening and was making every effort to
contradict or belittle her. That got on her nerves.
    “Okay, you have found
some degraded DNA,” the other woman said, hushing her up. “So you
haven’t properly sterilised the equipment. That’s all. In other
words, the entire sortie was a disaster.”
    “I have found traces
of adenine, guanine, cytosine, and … uracil. And, before you ask
me, no, there was no trace of thymine, therefore it cannot be
degraded DNA.”
    “Degraded RNA,” Hassan
commented.
    Anna shrugged. The
ribonucleic acid contained uracil instead of thymine, hence, at
least in theory, it might have been degraded RNA.
    “It’s quite unusual to
contaminate something by mistake only with your RNA, unless your
DNA ends up there, too. But we are talking about traces, it might
still be a less than an ordinary artefact …”
    That latest statement
made Michelle