A Study in Moondust

     I stared at the notebook, hoping for a revelation. The black
and white photographs of agarose gels mocked me by displaying
patterns other than the one I had been seeking. What was the
solution? Where was the problem? People think that science is
either inspiration or perspiration. It is neither. The fundamental
characteristics of a scientist are patience and determination. I
have observed men who were insightful, intuitive and intelligent
leaving science due to the frustration encountered. They went on to
become successful doctors, lawyers, writers and even politicians.
But even so, they know that there is nothing like the feeling of a
researcher's patience being rewarded. It is euphoria that is self-
contained and self-derived. A secret has been stolen that the
universe has fought to keep through Murphy's Law. A small piece of
the face of God has been revealed. A flash goes through my mind,
not quite a thunderbolt but the shock of static picked up from the
carpet. A small precaution that may have been necessary but I had
believed to be irrelevant. I left my desk and walked over to the
freezer in order to try the reaction again.
     A shout from down the hallway interrupted my work. I put down
the microfuge tube on my bench and went out into the hall to
investigate. A few people from the labs adjacent to mine had done
the same.
     As I rounded the corner by airlock number seven I saw two
spacesuited figures. One of them drew my attention immediately
because he was not moving. The other was attempting to revive him
without success.
     "What happened?" I asked as I helped his companion set him
down and removed the injured man's helmet.
     "Murder, my friend, murder. His suit integrity has been
compromised." said a deep baritone voice that I immediately
recognized as belonging to my roommate. "Look here."
     I examined the area that Madison Stewart was indicating with
his long fingers. On the air tank of the dead man was a crimson
circle with an arrow extending from approximately the two o'clock
position. Beside this mark was a hole torn in his air tank where it
would have been impossible to reach and apply a patch.
     "What does it mean?"
     "It means that the game is afoot." He replied with a smile.

     I entered into a contract with the Lunar Development
Corporation in 2068. It was my first non-terrestrial work
experience but my credentials as a molecular biologist were more
than enough to qualify me for the position despite this deficiency
in my resume. I had just served as a UN peacekeeper in Shenzen
where I had been shot in a clash with the "Long March" guerilla
faction. My shoulder still ached with changes in the weather. This
wound had shortened my mandatory UN service from two years to
sixteen months. With the rigidly controlled climate of LDC-2 it
should not bother me nearly as much as it does on Earth.
     The ride out of the Earth's gravity well had been
uncomfortable. The trip on the LEO-Moon shuttle had been pleasant
except for the retirees and their continuously beeping heart
monitors. My position, upon arrival at LDC-2, was to design and
construct organisms to terraform Mars and Venus into more
hospitable environments by employing new techniques in molecular
biology that had been developed in microgravity. To secure funding
for this project we also had several short term industrial
contracts.
     Since living space was limited on the Moon, I had to share my
cramped quarters. The name of my roommate was Madison Stewart. He
was about six foot two and lean to the point of emaciation.
However, he possessed a wiry strength that was considerable. I had
noticed this while working out with him in the LDC gymnasium. My
initial impression of Stewart was that he had a tremendous amount
of energy and a formidable intellect but lacked focus. As I
unpacked my bag my new acquaintance described to me the various
highlights of the moon base.
     "The Helium-3 mines are over by the landing pads so the heavy
equipment does not have to be transported very far. Have you seen
the solar panel fields? They have an efficiency approaching 25%. Of
course you have seen the research laboratories. By the way, are you
a member of the Mars Genesis Project?"
     "Not that I know of. What is the Mars Genesis Project?"
     "It is a lobby group which hopes to colonize and terraform
Mars."
     "What is it exactly that you do?" I asked my inquisitive
roommate.
     "Me, I am a deductive reasoner in the truest sense, but since
no one is willing to pay for such a noble profession I support
myself by computer programming. The waste reclamation software
needs constant modifications." He looked at me nervously and asked
"Do you think that our rooms are free of electronic surveillance?"
     "I would think so." I replied while folding my empty bag and
placing it in the footlocker "Such an invasion of privacy would
contravene the UN's Universal Declaration of Privacy from '45."
     "Indeed, it would."

     "Come on!" I felt a forceful tug on my labcoat "Get suited up.
We have to get out and examine the evidence before it gets
destroyed."
     "What are you talking about, Stewart? A man is dead. We have
to notify the proper authorities. They are the ones who will
investigate."
     "Those bungling bureaucratic fools couldn't investigate my
grandmother's cookie jar."
     "You are not going anywhere, mister. From the way I see it you
are the prime suspect. What were you doing outside with him
anyways?" said a voice from the crowd.
     We looked up from our conversation and noticed the bewildered
researchers surrounding us. The gentleman addressing us was short
and stout with a red beard. His nose was crimson, his face round
and his head balding.
     "My good fellow, do not be ridiculous. We must really be
going. Get suited up Stetson." said Stewart.
     "No, this is not a game."
     "As you wish." he then fastened his helmet on and cycled
through the airlock, before any move could be made to stop him. 
     "Has anyone notified the LDC officials?" I asked the
onlookers.
     "Yes, I sent my technician to call them." replied the balding
researcher.
     "Good, now does anyone know this man?" I asked and as I did so
I took my first good look at the dead man. He was in his early
thirties with short black hair. He had a small nose, a square jaw,
and prominent ears.
     "I don't really know him but I have seen him around the
cafeterias. He hangs out with the mining crews." responded a pretty 
woman in her twenties with hair the colour of honey.
     "Thank you miss and your name is?" I asked looking into her
hazel eyes but before she could respond to my question LDC security
arrived and took charge.
     "All right. All right. Let's break it up. We don't need this
many people loitering in the hallways. I will talk to you, you and
you. The rest of you can get back to work." The security officer
had chosen to speak with yours truly, the young lady and our
suspicious friend.

     After questioning by Security I returned to my quarters and
worked on my electronic journal. Before I had arrived at LDC-2 I
had not thought such a small room could contain such a large mess.
My roommate had an eclectic range of hobbies including the
trombone, non-computerized chess, juggling, chemistry, martial
arts, and anatomy. I wondered how much it had cost to import so
much mass from Earth. Stewart also had huge blocks of memory tied
up on the company server which were protected by a battery of
passwords. Once, I tried to circumvent them and was visited by a
virtual, howling, three headed dog for an hour before I gave up on
trying to get rid of it and unplugged the speakers.
     Stewart had come in later, took one look at the screen,
chuckled, and said "The password is Cerebus if you want to get rid
of it."
     "You are not upset that I snooped in your directories?"
     "No, I actually hoped that you would. I can now check the logs
and evaluate your attempt."
     "For what purpose?"
     "One must always get a true measure of a person when one can.
You never know when you will either have to go up against them or
rely upon them."
     "Tell me how I did then."
     He sat down at the terminal and clicked the mouse a few times
and said "I guess you will have to do."
     "Thanks a lot."
     Since then I have tried to keep an eye on his activities. They
have varied from elaborate gaming simulations to genealogical
databases. I have yet to discern the method to his madness.

     The door slid open and Stewart came in brimming with
excitement.
     "So how did it go?"
     "I thought you were not interested in this case."
     "I am interested but I don't want to become directly involved.
I leave the detective work to those who are paid for it."
     "Well the professionals are a couple of light years behind on
this investigation."
     "Really. How do you figure that?"
     "I investigated the crime scene before the blundering rent-a-
cops could eradicate all the evidence. The key to this crime now
lies here." He seated himself at the terminal and proceeded to
examine a range of files from cargo manifests to exercise records.
"Here we go. Thaddeus Bains is the man I need to speak to next."
     "Don't tell me he left his initials at the crime scene."
     "No, he left something more incriminating. With the number of
people at this moonbase his initials may be shared but the
footprints of Mr. Bains are very distinctive in their depth. The
fact that he is the only person that works at the mines who is left
handed makes him our prime suspect."
     "What do the mines have to do with this? What are you going to
do now, have him arrested?"
     "I will explain about the mines later. I will not be arresting
Mr. Bains as that is not within my authority. I will now proceed in
building a case to convince our well meaning, but dense, head of
security, Monsieur Ernest Levesque, that the guilty party has been
found. Right now, however, it is time for a bite to eat. Would you
like to join me?"
     "Sure. I just have to stop by the lab for a couple of minutes
on the way."
     I took out my vector plasmid and the fragment I wished to
clone. Cloning in real life is much more dull than in the movies.
A single gene or fragment of a gene is isolated from an animal and
placed into a plasmid or viral vector. These vectors can be grown
in large quantities in E. coli, a lowly intestinal bacteria which
is the workhorse of molecular biology. Once large quantities of the
gene are available one is then able to manipulate it. You can
mutate it, produce the encoded protein, study its regulation or
combine it with other genes. The popular notion that one can
reconstruct an organism with only its genes to work from is absurd
with present day technology. 
     I opened the small, hard, polypropylene tube and added the 10
times concentration ligation buffer. I then went over to the -20
degrees Celsius freezer and transferred some ligase to the tube in
order to complete the reaction mixture. The smells of ethanol and
bleach blended to yield the stinging nostrils that I often
associated with the laboratory. I imagined the DNA molecules
floating in solution with both vector and insert colliding. The
ends of the molecules would meet and in some cases the
complementary base pairs would hydrogen bond with one another.
Eventually a ligase molecule would encounter these complexes and
consecrate the marriage of the two pieces of DNA in a covalent
union. This would happen thousands of times over the next several
hours. I would then transform this mixture of constructs into
bacteria and grow up clones that I would screen for the insert
fragment in the correct orientation. This clone would then be used
to produce a neurotransmitter in large quantities to be purified
using microgravity fractionation procedures. This compound, a
valuable therapeutic drug, would then be shipped to Earth.

     The food smelled exceptionally good for an institutional
cafeteria. This may have been due to the fact that I had not eaten
breakfast. We both selected the pizza special of the day which was
Hawaiian. The cafeteria was irregularly shaped with murals
depicting scenes of greenery from Earth. After we had used our food
ration cards Stewart led me to a table in a corner. As we headed
towards it a small, shifty looking character, stood up, nodded
towards Stewart and then left.
     "What was that about?"
     "I pay a small fee to our friend to make sure that this table
is available for my use at certain times during the day. As you can
see it offers a commanding view of this room and of every exit."
     "Do you know that there are free treatments for paranoia these
days?"
     "Yes. There is also an old saying that relates to one being
'crazy like a fox'. But enough of this foolishness. Here is the man
of the hour."
     The man that Stewart indicated walked as if he savoured every
step. As well he should, because the load he was carrying around
would be difficult to manage in one gee. His face was round, like
the rest of him, and he proudly displayed the insignia of an
engineer First Class, on his chest.
     "I think now it is time to have a chat with Mr. Bains." said
Stewart.
     Before we could confront Bains I felt a sudden shove from
Stewart which carried me, as well as my food, onto the floor. At
the same time I heard Stewart say "Watch out Stetson." I was
suddenly quite conscious that we were in one-sixth gee as I
attempted to do a breakfall and landed flat on my back. By the time
I recovered I saw that two unfriendly looking characters had
approached and it seemed that they were intent upon Stewart.
     One of them said to Stewart "Mind your own business snoop!"
and pulled out a knife which he brandished with no small amount of
skill. The other one had no weapon save an oversized set of meaty
fists. I launched myself shoulder first at Mr Knife. There was a
satisfying impact and a grunt of pain as the weapon went flying
from his hand. He grabbed on to me and I proceeded to give him a
head butt. It was a painful manoeuvre but very intimidating. He
reeled back in pain and shock and I was able to take him down to
the floor and pin him after bouncing his head on a nearby table.
After some futile struggling to escape a headlock the thug gave up.
I looked over to see how Stewart was doing against the brute. He
had the larger man in a hold that must have been excruciating,
judging by the look on the hood's face.
     Stewart smiled at me and said "I thought you did not want to
get involved."
     "I never like the odds of two on one." I replied.
     "Thanks. Now we will have to hunt down our good friend
Thaddeus. He seems to have beat a hasty retreat."
     "First there will be an explanation for all of this disruptive
activity, Monsieur Stewart." said the newly arrived chief of LDC-2
security Levesque. Four security officers were accompanying him and
took our adversaries into custody.
     Stewart took Levesque aside and I presume he explained his
interest in the murder and the reasons why he believed Bains was
involved. They returned to where I was waiting.
     "So Monsieur Stewart, you think of yourself as some sort of
amateur sleuth, eh. You have drawn your roommate into your
fantasies as well. I would have thought better of you, Dr. Stetson.
I think you both had better perform the jobs the company is paying
you for. You may leave the detective work to us."
     "Monsieur Levesque, I would be able to do so if I was
confident that you had this case well in hand." replied Stewart.
     "Then you may rest very easy for this matter is resolved. I
believe that we will find that the two gentlemen who attacked you
were hired by the Mars Genesis Project. The symbol found on the
murdered man's space suit is very suggestive, non. Of course a man
with your intelligence would have figured this out, eh. But lacking
access to our resources leaves you at somewhat of a disadvantage.
We will interrogate them with respect to this crime."
     "What about Mr. Thaddeus Bains?"
     "Monsieur Bains has no affiliation with any such radical
groups or they would have shown up on our security check. Why do
you ask about this person?"
     "I ask this because Mr. Bains was at the murder scene at the
same time as the victim. I have photographs of the crime scene as
my proof if you would like to see them."
     "I do not believe that will be necessary and if you persist in
interfering with our investigation we may have to invoke the
termination clause of your contract, Monsieur Stewart, and that of
your friend as well. I hope that I have made myself clear."
     "Very clear, monsieur." replied Stewart.

     As we prepared to go out the airlock I started to have second
thoughts about this excursion.
     "Let me check the integrity of your suit. Yes everything seems
fine." Stewart then let me examine his suit and it was in perfect
working order.
     As we waited for the airlock to cycle Stewart explained to me
that the Helium-3 mines were situated 2.5 km away from the colony
and close to the landing pads for the shuttles. He described in
great detail the layout of the mines and how only a small
percentage of the nearby lunar tunnels had been mapped.
     The airlock finished cycling and the doors opened to give me
my first direct view of the lunar surface. We were on the far side
of the moon from Earth and it was the middle of the fortnight long
lunar night. Therefore the only illumination came from the
floodlights mounted above the airlock door. The lights pierced the
blackness in a very sharply defined manner. There was a clarity to
the grey dust that made it seem surreal. Beyond the lit area was a
blackness unmatched by any night on Earth. I was struck by the
tenacity of mankind in bringing life to such a bleak environment.
Stewart and I turned on our suit lights and radios and started out
over the dust covered, rolling hills towards the shuttle landing
pads. The green beacon of the control tower was barely visible over
the horizon and the rolling dunes.
     This was my first time experiencing lunar gravity without the
magnetic slippers worn in LDC-2. It is a strange feeling to have
one's weight to inertia ratio change so drastically. In practical
terms it meant that your weight is less efficiently used for
changing your momentum. I discovered this the hard way while
experimenting with the lunar lope. I was travelling along at a fair
speed, trying to keep up with Stewart, when a boulder loomed in
front of me. I should have just leapt over it but I still retained
the hardwired instincts and experiences of a lifetime. Therefore I
tried to stop but I did not angle myself so that my knees could
absorb my momentum effectively. I bounced and ended up cartwheeling
ungracefully through the thin lunar atmosphere. While doing so my
life flashed before my eyes coupled with images of my eyes
exploding from my skull. Stewart was quick as a striking snake and
prevented a possibly fatal collision by interposing himself between
my tumbling form and the boulder.
     After I regained my breath Stewart checked our suits for any
damage. They seemed intact so we proceeded to the landing pads. The
shuttle landing areas were simply flat areas that had been cleared
of rocks and then marked with beacons . One of the landing pads was
occupied by a LEO-Moon shuttle similar to the one in which I had
recently arrived. This one, however, was a cargo shuttle with
minimal passenger space. The mining equipment that it was carrying
was being unloaded by the crew.
     Once we arrived at the tunnel entrance and descended into the
main shaft Stewart scrutinized the lunar dust. When I asked what he
was looking for he impatiently waved me into silence.
     "Ah-Ha. Here we go!"
     "What is it? What do you see?"
     "A story, a novel, in fact, written in moondust is what I
see."
     "Could you give me the Reader's Digest version."
     "Someone has tried to cover his tracks. They have not been
thorough enough, however, to fool a trained observer. Follow me
Stetson." He then strode briskly down the tunnel. Every so often he
would stop and examine the tunnel floor.
     I followed him, struggling to keep up with his quick lunar
lope. My patience with his melodrama was starting to wear thin. Our
suit radios carried only the sound of our breathing. We made our
way past heavy equipment which we could not hear but could feel
vibrating through our feet. After many twists and turns and a few
sharp descents we reached an airlock. During our silent journey I
had thought about how much Stewart had told me. I needed to resolve
my doubts before we went any further.
     "Why were you the first to discover the body? Did you know the
murdered man?"
     "Come on Stetson, now is not the time for this nonsense."
     "Now is the time. I am getting tired of your condescending
attitude, Stewart. Tell me what is going on."
     "I was going to meet him about some inventory discrepancies
that I had discovered. They seemed to indicate that someone was
either hoarding supplies or that there was an unlisted facility
using pilfered equipment. Now that we have found it we may find out
why MacMillan was murdered."
     "Did you tell this to Levesque?"
     "Yes, he ignored me. He is afraid I will make him look bad. Is
that good enough for now?"
     "I guess it will have to do." 
     Stewart turned his suit radio off and motioned for me to do
the same. After I complied he busied himself with bypassing the
security codes for the airlock. It took him about five minutes to
break the lock with constant references to his wrist-top terminal.
     We entered into a setting with which I was familiar. It was a
well equipped molecular biology laboratory. There were
ultracentrifuges, agarose gel apparatuses, a sequencing gel
apparatus which was currently in use, lots of fridges,  freezers,
pipetmen, incubators and bottles of solutions. However, unlike most
the laboratories that I had worked in the walls were covered with
posters and pictures of Mars both factual and fictional rather than
charts of restriction enzyme and buffer combinations. It was
obvious even to my limited deductive skills that there was an
obsession with the red planet. This lab appeared to be the work of
the Mars Genesis Project or a radical splinter arm of it.
     "Well, my friend" said Stewart after we removed our helmets
"This is where your expertise outstrips mine."
     "No problem, What would you like to know?"
     "For one thing, does any of this equipment require the low
gravity and/or near vacuum conditions of the Moon to work?"
     I looked around puzzled "Actually, No."
     "The next question, as you may realize, is why set up a
recombinant DNA laboratory on the Moon when you can hide it much
more readily on Earth and avoid stealing this equipment which is
systematically inventoried?"
     "Possibly for containment. In case they produce an extremely
virulent organism, a quarantine would be much more easily
maintained on the Moon."
     "That is a possibility but why would the Mars Genesis Project
be dealing with such organisms?"
     "I don't know, but aren't they somewhat of a radical group?"
     "You have been listening to Inspector Levesque. They are not
radical at all. In fact they are quite harmless and their efforts
probably will be quite beneficial to human progress. Their models
for terraforming Mars have proven useful for simulating Earth's
environment. Take a look at the lab books and see if there is any
indication of what they are trying to accomplish."
     I moved over to a desk and looked through the lab books.
Stewart worked on the terminal to see if he could find some files
that would be informative.
     "Stewart come here and look at this!" I exclaimed.
     "What is it?"
     "They are constructing a virus that would be able to replicate
in the terraforming bacteria and is pathogenic to humans. This
particular gene produces a fatal neurotoxin once the virus has
infected a human host."
     "What purpose would that serve? A vaccine would be produced in
short order." said Stewart
     "Not necessarily. This virus has a high mutation rate. It
would be difficult or impossible to produce a vaccine. Why would
the Mars Genesis Project try to render the planet uninhabitable?"
I asked him.
     "What if they plan to render it uninhabitable temporarily? The
funding for colonization is tenuous enough without any further
complications. They may have a way of destroying this virus. They
could then control the colonization of Mars." said Stewart.
     "They may have another virus that could kill infected
bacteria. The disease construct may have a short extracelluar life
span and without a host the pathogenic virus would then disappear
fairly quickly."  
     "Is there a way you could counter the effects of the toxin
without needing a vaccine? Is there a sample of the antidote virus
present in this laboratory?"
     "It would be extremely difficult to construct a counteragent
to the toxin. The antidote virus is not being constructed in this
laboratory. We might be able to use the information here to
construct our own antidote virus. I will download this information
to a disk that we can take with us if you can get past the security
system on these terminals."
     "Piece of cake, but we better get going soon or we will be
encountering Levesque on our way back which would be extremely
awkward."
     "How do you know Levesque is coming here?"
     "In about one hour he will be receiving an anonymous e-mail
message indicating that there is an unauthorized facility operating
in these tunnels."
     We left the laboratory and the mines. I was acclimatizing to
the lunar gravity and could better appreciate the rolling dunes of
lunar dust and the spectacular array of visible stars. The Lunar
Observatory, presently under construction, would be the answer to
an astronomer's dream. We returned to LDC-2 and to our quarters
unobserved to the best of our knowledge.
     "Levesque should be leaving soon." said Stewart. 
     "He will happen to find evidence of your involvement when he
arrives, Mr. Stewart. It was so kind of you to let yourself be
recorded by our hidden cameras." said a voice that emanated from
the terminal speaker.
     "Mr. Bains, how nice of you to join us. I have been trying to
get in touch with you but you have been quite elusive. What can I
do for you now?" said Stewart.
     "Spare me the idle chatter. Now that you have discovered us we
will have to abandon that installation. But you will find that we
are like the hydra. You may succeed in cutting off one head but two
more will grow and replace it. I am calling to warn you not to
interfere with us in the future. We may not be so generous next
time. We are the disciples of the god of war and we will not let
the likes of you defile his home." As he finished this statement
Bains cut off the link. Within three seconds of his departure the
Meteorite Impact Alarms were sounding.
     "Stewart, what the hell is going on?" I asked
     Stewart did not respond immediately. He scrambled to the
terminal and typed frantically. "No time to explain. Eureka! Come
on Stetson. Let's go. Bains is trying to escape."
     We ran down hallways that became more and more crowded with
people heading towards the solar storm shelters. It became too
crowded and too noisy to question Stewart any further. After about
fifteen minutes we arrived at airlock number seven just as the
cycle was complete. We could see on the monitor a bulky figure
exiting to the lunar surface.
     "Hurry, we have to catch him before he makes it to the
shuttle." said Stewart.
     "What about the Impact warning?" I asked.
     "Bains set up a false alarm in order to cover his getaway."
     We rushed to get into our suits and skipped many of the
mandatory safety protocols. I had to trust my safety to Stewart's
expertise. We hurried out onto the surface and started towards the
landing pad.
     Stewart bounded ahead with his practiced strides until all I
could see were his suit lights as they flickered across the gray
dunes. I struggled to keep up with him but my efforts were futile.
I was starting to tire from the exertion and thought that Stewart
had completely lost me when I saw lights ahead. As I approached I
could make out two figures, one of which was obviously Bains. He
had not noticed me yet so I switched off my transmitter and scanned
to see if he was transmitting. I found that Bains and Stewart were
conversing on band 107.
     "It was quite foolish of you to come after me Stewart,
especially after what happened to MacMillan." said Bains.
     "My brother always told me that common sense wasn't my strong
point. What sort of weapon have you rigged up to work in a vacuum,
if you don't mind me asking?"
     I was 20 yards behind Bains now and I switched off my suit
lights.
     Bains replied to Stewart "It is a magnetic accelerator,
similar to the supply catapult to Mars. It is similar to a handgun
in size and shape but the projectiles are less massive than a
bullet. It is the velocity that counts rather than the mass. You
are about to be provided with a first hand demonstration of its
usefulness."
     I launched myself into Bains with a powerful thrust of both
legs. Even though my weight is less on the Moon my mass is
thankfully unchanged. I crashed into the back of his air tanks and
we tumbled into a shallow depression.
     As I reoriented myself I stared into the barrel of his
miniature catapult. Before he could fire, a flash of grey caught
his eye and he turned just as the trajectory of a large rock
intersected his helmet. The projectile impacted solidly with his
visor and his head bounced like a basketball from pavement.
     Time seemed to dilate as I watched as the spider crack in his
faceplate spread. The glass fractured as it could no longer
maintain the pressure difference between the inside of the suit and
the near vacuum. Bains only had time for a short scream followed by
a gurgle and then silence as the air escaped to become part of
Luna's almost nonexistent atmosphere.
     I turned on my transmitter and said "Thanks, Stewart."
     "Just returning the favour, Stetson. You saved me first. Let's
call it even." he smiled through his visor.
     I looked at the body. Beside it was a small white, pressurized
case. Stewart picked up the package and said "Let us take our leave
of this scene, Stetson. I am sure that Monsieur Levesque is capable
of finding Bains. Try to keep on the well travelled path so that we
leave as few traces of our presence as possible. We wouldn't want
to underestimate Levesque too much."
     We left the site of Mr. Bain's demise and returned to LDC-2.
We found an empty Solar Storm Shelter and waited for the impact
warning to end. Once it was over we returned to our quarters.
     "Now what happens?" I asked Stewart
     "I will upload this data, anonymously, to security and then we
shall go to the cafeteria and wait for Monsieur Levesque to inform
us that he has solved the case without our interference."
     "OK, but I have to stop by the lab first and transform some
bacteria. That lab notebook gave me some ideas."

                             The End