“It doesn’t seem like a very sensible design,” Pazlar said. “Well, as long as a species reproduces fast enough, evolution doesn’t care how self-defeating a design is.”
“I wonder what it’s filled with,” Vale mused. “Hot air, hydrogen, helium?”
“No helium to speak of on this planet. Hot air’s possible, but the mechanism for heating’s hard to guess. My bet’s hydrogen—that can be produced biologically.”
Eviku could see Vale well enough now to recognize that she was furrowing her brow. Humans conveyed a lot of expression with their unusually flexible foreheads. “Maybe we should take the shuttle up, try to grab it before it floats into the storm. Could be doing it a fav—”
Suddenly, lightning flashed again, luckily behind Eviku this time. He turned and looked through the binoculars, only to catch the final moments of the gas bag going up in a puff of flame and vapor, while the more substantial components of the creature plummeted toward the sea.
Pazlar turned to the first officer. “About that bet—”
“No takers. Hydrogen.”
The science officer grimaced. “Well, it could be methane.”
TITAN
Lieutenant Eviku and Ensign Y’lira Modan stood as Deanna entered the exobiology lab. “Commander!” Y’lira said. “What can we do for you?”
“At ease, both of you,” Deanna said with a smile, unsure whether they were deferring more to her rank or to her very pregnant condition. “I’m here for curiosity, not business. I’m actually getting a little bored stuck on the ship, and I just wanted to peer over your shoulders for a bit, if you don’t mind. Maybe contribute in some way.”
“Of course, Commander,” Eviku said. “You’re always welcome. Would you like to sit down?”
At first, she was inclined to brush off the invitation, but her ankles had other ideas. “Thank you,” she said, gratefully easing herself into an empty seat. Near the seat was an aquarium of sorts, a bit larger and more clinical than the one in which Captain Picard had kept Livingston, his lionfish. Some kind of invertebrate creature rested on the bottom. “I think your pet is dead,” she said.
“No, ma’am, just…inert,” Eviku replied.
“What is it?”
“It’s the ‘weather balloon’ organism Commander Vale and I observed three days ago.”
She stared. “I thought that blew up.”
“The gas bladder blew up,” Eviku said. “The rest of the creature’s surprisingly durable. Apparently it’s evolved the ability to survive lightning strikes when it gets sucked into storms.”
“Makes sense…I suppose. It seems it would be easier to avoid the storms in the first place.”
“That’s not the only anomaly. The surviving portion consists largely of sensory organs: sight, hearing, odor, pressure, EM fields, even infrared. And there seems to be very little to the brain that isn’t devoted to the sense organs. Although it’s hard to be certain with no significant neural activity, and I’d rather not dissect it.”
“Well, it’s at the mercy of the winds. I wouldn’t expect it to have much of its brain devoted to motor functions.”
“Yes, ma’am, but what does it need all those highly refined senses for if it can barely react to what it senses? Then there’s the question of how they get by without any evident control over their movements. How do they reproduce if the only way they ever encounter each other is by chance?”
“Spores? Buds?”
“Maybe. In any case, Commander Vale’s name for it—a weather balloon—was apt. A sac of buoyant gas with sensory equipment attached. Now if only we could figure out why a weather balloon would evolve naturally.”
Deanna recalled something he’d just said. “Why don’t you want to dissect it?”
“I’ve been keeping it alive to see if its gas bladder would regenerate after being hit by lightning. As far as I can tell from my studies, it does have that capability. But for some reason it isn’t making use of it.”
“Could the lightning have crippled it?”
“That was my thought, but there’s no sign of damage. It’s like it’s deliberately not healing itself. It’s essentially in a coma, absorbing minimal nutrients—just enough to maintain its physical status quo. And I can’t figure out why.”
Y’lira turned her large, unblinking turquoise eyes toward Deanna, who sensed uncertainty from the golden-skinned Selenean. “With respect, Commander, I’m uncertain how much you could contribute here. We’re basically dealing with animals here.”
“Well…animals have psychology too, Modan,” Deanna said with a shrug. “I’m not in Chamish’s league when it comes to that, but I’m happy to offer my perspective.”
“We could use some,” Eviku said. She sensed his usual low-level melancholy beneath the surface, but for now the Arkenite was caught up in his work. He was one of Huilan’s patients; it wasn’t her place to pry. “The ‘weather balloon’ isn’t the only mysterious creature on the planet. There are other species with disproportionate sensory capability, like the bugeye piscoids. There are creatures that occupy peculiarly broad ranges, such as a genus of zooplankton that’s been scanned by probes several kilometers down but has also been sampled just meters below the surface. Sea life is usually more stratified than that. We’ve also noted a number of species showing unusual behavior.”
“Such as?”
“We’ve observed movements that don’t have any clear motivation such as the pursuit of food or flight from predators. Indeed, there’s a species of piscoid that the squales feed upon, one that actually swims towardthem when it hears their calls.”
Deanna blinked. “Seriously?”