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THE CRYSTALS OF LIFE, A SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY

                 This story was accepted for publication by Books To Go Now in July 2011.

                                          THE CRYSTALS OF LIFE

Jacques Stern was tall and lean and with his Van Dyke beard, exuded an air of sophistication.  As the head of the Martian probe, THE QUEST FOR LIFE, he shouted to all in the command center, “We have a successful liftoff.”  A mighty cheer went up from the men and women in the room who had toiled for so many years on the project to bring Martian samples back to Earth.  They finally would realize the fruits of their labor, a chance to study these historic samples for signs of life.

An earlier probe, SEEKING LIFE, had identified a strange deposit of crystals.  Analysis done by the miniature lab aboard the probe yielded puzzling results.  The crystals were composed of elements found on Earth, but in a distinctively bizarre construction.  There was an unexpected find with their analysis: they could initiate some sort of metabolism when introduced to a nutrient broth.  This stymied the scientists studying the data.  Checks and tests were accomplished on Earth and no fault could be found in the probe or the programs doing the analysis.  This was a mystery that required further investigation.

A new unmanned spacecraft was designed along the lines of the Apollo spacecraft sent to explore the moon.  A mother ship would insert into orbit around Mars from which a probe would be released to gather data and samples from the surface of the planet.  There was no problem in determining where to land.  The previous less sophisticated probe found these crystals just below the surface wherever they explored the planet.  Now, to find the source of the first crystals analyzed, the new probe would have to land close to where the last probe made its discovery.

The miniature lab on the probe was much more advanced to that of the initial probe, SEEKING LIFE, which tested the crystals.  However, this probe also contained a small module that would take harvested crystals and transport them to the mother ship and bring them back to Earth.

Stern, with his vast experience with SEEKING LIFE, was made head of this latest mission.  He retained many of the scientists involved with the last Mars mission. He also enlisted the remaining members of the team responsible for the Apollo missions. With this group of scientists in place, he planned to carry out the current mission.  He hoped the current effort would be successful in returning samples to Earth because the data from the last probe made no sense.  Once the samples were brought to Earth, the mystery could be unraveled.

As he sat in the officers’ club at Patrick Air Force Base, looking out on the brilliant blue Atlantic Ocean, he questioned his friend, Tom Watson, for the hundredth time.  Watson was the exact opposite of Jacques.  He was short and portly, and with his selection of wardrobe, was often confused for one of the maintenance personnel.  He was a friend from graduate school and Jacques often went to him for an explanation of the results found by some of his projects.  Tom, as he often said, ‘was a jack of all trades but a master of none’.  He was a skilled scientist in many disciplines who was often approached to delve out the answer to puzzling data.

“I’ve spent years going over the data, Tom.  I’ve consulted the top geologists and inorganic chemists I could find; not one can explain the findings of the first probe. “What mechanism of nature could possibly allow a pure crystalline structure to show signs of life?”

Watson was used to this line of questioning; he paused to consider the data, and then said, “We have a built-in limit to what we understand.  We gauge all our discoveries by what we have experienced, not by our imagination.  We are prisoners of the known.  

“On Earth, the building blocks of life are carbon-based.  Out in space, it could be sulfur or some other element which we on this planet could never imagine being the backbone of life.  With this next probe we will be able to test the findings of SEEKING LIFE.  If the findings of the first probe are confirmed, the availability of samples will broaden our knowledge of the characteristics of the crystals and perhaps what constitutes life on the red planet.

                                                           * * *

THE QUEST FOR LIFE made its lonely passage through space, through the vacuum and cold toward the growing blood-red dot.  After traveling many months, the probe began its orbit in the ink-black sky of Mars.

Back on Earth, a mighty cheer echoed throughout the command center monitoring the probe’s progress.  Next was the anticipation of a successful landing on the red planet to analyze and gather samples, and then return to the mother ship.

                                                           * * *

As the probe inserted into orbit around Mars, a cold and unfeeling intelligence monitored the probe’s progress.  The intelligence was passive, subject to the whim of any life form it encountered.  Millions of years had gone by since this calculating entity had been ferried to its present home and occupied the surface of Mars waiting for a new life form to visit.  If no contact was made, it did not matter, the presence could wait millions more years until it could enact its cycle.  The intelligence occupying the surface of Mars had been patiently anticipating the arrival of a new life form, with the outcome of this encounter up to the invaders.                                                        

                                                            * * *

Stern gave the command for the mother ship to release the probe.

An intense atmosphere filled the command center.

“The probe has been disengaged,” reported one of the engineers from her station.

After a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, another station reported, “We have ignition of the lander.”

Minutes later came word that the probe had landed on Martian soil.  Another cheer enveloped the command center.  Backs were slapped and the champagne opened.  Off in one corner stood Stern wondering if the result from the last probe could be duplicated, and if some of the more sophisticated tests incorporated in the current probe would unravel the secrets held within the mysterious crystals.

Stern, along with the rest of the staff, monitored the progress of the lander.  Again, white crystals were found after breaking through the surface layer of red soil.  A sample, uncontaminated by the surface soil, was scooped up and introduced into the chamber with nutrients which would duplicate the tests performed by the previous mission. The results were the same.  A battery of further tests was unable to explain the metabolic activity possessed by the crystal samples.  The mission staff experienced relief that the results could be duplicated, but apprehension that this mystery might not be unraveled.

A command sent to the probe had samples introduced into a chamber for transport back to Earth.  Once the mother ship obtained the proper position, the probe fired its engine and slowly lifted into the black Martian sky starting the long journey back to Earth.

“We have the returning capsule locked and secured,” called out one of the engineers.  The mother ship fired its engines and left Mar’s orbit, heading home.

The mission specialists monitored the progress of THE QUEST FOR LIFE as it glided toward Earth.  Stern spent this time conducting meetings at universities and centers of excellence in geology and inorganic chemistry.  He filled notebooks with reports speculating on the science behind the unusual activity shown by the Martian crystals; how minerals could show metabolic activity.  The common consensus was that either microbes were harbored on or within the crystals or the crystals themselves caused some sort of breakdown of the nutrient broth that mimicked metabolism.

Stern sat once again with his good friend Watson, this time in Stern’s sprawling ranch near Cocoa Beach.  “Tom, in a matter of months we’ll have the Mars probe back on Earth.  The excitement level in Houston, where the crystals will be analyzed, is tremendous.  NASA has assembled some of the world’s foremost geologists, biologists and physicists to conduct an extensive battery of tests.  This is the first time man has had an opportunity to examine material from another planet in our solar system.  We could gain knowledge of a new life form, or a chemical process not found on Earth.

“I’m disappointed that I will not be present when the probe is opened in Houston, but once it splashes down in the Pacific, my responsibility for the mission is finished.”

“These are historic times,” said Tom.  “It’s a great era in which to live.  Perhaps the answer to one of the major questions mankind has pondered will finally be answered.  Are we alone in the universe or just a speck of inhabited rock adrift in a cosmos teeming with life?”

                                                           * * *

THE QUEST FOR LIFE sailed toward a distant speck in the black void of space.  The spec grew, becoming a small disc and finally a planet with clouds in the atmosphere and dark expanses of ocean.  As the probe entered the first hint of the Earth’s atmosphere, the crystals altered their configuration ever so slightly, sensing the prospect of renewed life.

Aboard the U.S.S. Hornet, latest in a new line of aircraft carriers and named for the historic vessel of World War II, preparations were under way to retrieve the probe.  Stored below deck in the carrier’s massive hangar was the steel vault that would be used to carry the precious cargo from Mars to Houston for study.

Managers in Houston followed the probe’s path to splashdown and radioed the carrier that they should soon be able to make visual contact.  Hundreds of sailors crammed the deck and scanned the sky.  A cheer went up when the three parachutes were spotted which would bring the craft gently down in the Pacific and end its long voyage of discovery.  As soon as the probe was sighted, two Navy helicopters launched from the deck, bearing frogmen to recover the spacecraft.  The primary helicopter hovered over the probe, now surrounded by an inflatable collar, the prop wash dampening the ocean waves.  Two frogmen jumped into the ocean and attached a cable that would lift the space vehicle for transport to the Hornet.  Once it was transferred to the deck, a group of scientists examined the vehicle to ensure there was no damage.  “We have a good vehicle,” they reported.

While the recovery was being accomplished, NASA, along with naval personnel brought the vault topside and rolled it near to where the helicopter would place the probe.  A specifically designed forklift gently maneuvered the vehicle into the vault.  The mission was accomplished.  The vault was sealed and returned below decks for the journey to California and then on to Houston.

                                                           * * *

After the Johnson Space Center in Houston received word that the probe was safe and secure, years of anticipation had come to an end.  Now it was time to get to work and find out what those crystals were.  There was a celebration.  Jacques Stern approached the podium to address the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, today we made history.  We secured, for the first time, samples from another planet.  You are all to be congratulated for the excellent work you have done to see this mission to its successful conclusion.

“Now it is up to the scientists at Johnson to analyze these mysterious crystals and uncover the secrets hidden within their structure.”

Stern finished his speech, and that night driving home, wondered at the mysteries that might be revealed.

The Hornet’s journey to California took nearly a week.  This wait added to the eagerness among the scientists waiting to work with the crystals, for there wasn’t an aircraft able to take off from the carrier that could accommodate the vault.

Dr. Jeff Watts, a leader in crystallography, was head of the team selected to study the Martian samples.  Jeff was in his mid-fifties but looked ten years younger.  With his short-cropped salt and pepper hair and a runner’s build, he looked nothing like the world-renowned scientist he was.

Assisting Watts was Igor Stanovich, a highly respected Russian physicist.  Stanovich was in his mid-sixties, muscular, and a short solid man. He projected a no-nonsense air yet hidden beneath his gruff exterior was a caring heart for those who were willing to break through his protective shell.

The third member of the team, and youngest, was Beverly Yochum, already a legend in her field of geology at the age of thirty-five.  She accomplished an impressive number of discoveries and was an expert in the study of the most hostile environments the world offered. Blue-eyed and blonde, with a model’s figure, she often turned heads but kept busy in her work.  Married at twenty-five, she lost her husband in a car crash five years later and looked to work to consume her pain.

The team gathered in San Diego and anxiously awaited the Hornet’s arrival.  Once the ship docked, the team hurried aboard and stood in the Hornet’s hangar staring at the vault containing the samples from Mars, feeling the excitement of their quest for knowledge of another planet.

Dr. Watts said to his colleagues, “I have a great deal of anticipation for the project we are about to undertake.”  His words were refined but his voice betrayed the excitement of a child in a toy store.

The vault was brought ashore and trucked to an awaiting Air Force C-17 cargo plane to continue its journey to Houston.  The three scientists rode to Texas with their precious cargo.  They sat in silence, observing the vault and wondering at the secrets that lie within.

Even before the Mars mission was launched, construction had begun on a special laboratory, isolated from any other structure, to study the Martian crystals. It would be equivalent to the labs used to study the most highly contagious pathogens known to man.     Once completed, it was equipped with all the state-of-the-art instruments required for geological and biological research. The scientists and technicians working in the lab would go through a vigorous cleansing and gowning procedure, donning spacesuit-like gear to ensure that no contamination was released or introduced. 

While the lab was being built, Watts and his team planned the experiments needed to solve the crystals’ mysterious qualities of appearing as a mineral yet having biological properties. 

Upon reaching Houston, the vault was carefully unloaded and taken to the lab which would act as both a storage chamber and laboratory for the crystals and the probe.  Now that the vault was safely in the lab, the scientists were full of anticipation ready to examine their precious samples.

The next morning, Watts began, “Now comes the moment we have anticipated for years, and that mankind has dreamed of ever since the red planet was discovered.  We stand on the threshold to answering the age-old question, Is there life on Mars: are we alone?

Watts opened the vault and inside lay the probe.  Using a special wrench, he opened the chamber containing the crystals.  There was a whooshing sound as the sterile air from the lab entered the chamber.  Watts pulled from the chamber a cup-like device containing crystals.  The entire planet witnessed this historic moment via miniature cameras attached to the headgear of the scientists.

The three gathered around the crystals.  Watts said, “They appear to be pure white, like grains of salt but coarser.  A few have a reddish-brown discoloration which must be Martian soil.”  The excitement in his voice was evident.  After a few more moments of inspection, he carefully placed the cup on the floor of the vault and secured the door.  He then turned to his colleagues and said, “Tomorrow we begin our work.”

As the scientists slept, cameras trained on the vault were constantly monitored by NASA personnel.  The vault must be observed at all times to ensure the crystals had not been tampered with.  This would also make it certain that all findings made would not be subject to doubt of any type.

It was two thirty in the morning when the technician monitoring the vault saw the first bulge in its side appear.  By the time Watts and his team were alerted, all sides of the vault were peppered with disfigurations, as if someone was firing a shotgun at the walls from inside.  Then, before the horrified eyes of all watching the monitor, the vault’s door burst open.  From inside they could see a mass of white forms.

Watts shouted, “Quick, we have to get to the lab.”

After an abbreviated decontamination, the scientists donned their protective suits and entered the lab.  Near the vault, they could see spheres the size of basketballs with octagonal surfaces lying on the floor.  Within the vault there were several similar objects, which, although smaller, appeared to be growing.

Watts leaned forward and picked up one of the white masses.  Immediately he let out a blood-curdling scream and watched in disbelief as his hands penetrated the giant crystal.  Before his unbelieving eyes, his thick protective gloves dissolved, followed by the skin of his hands.  He looked down on his muscles and tendons and the veins and arteries, coursing blood through his hands and fingers.  Soon his hands were no more than bone and the growing globe dropped to the floor shattering and raining crystals on all three scientists.  The crystals immediately melted through the suits, seeking the life-giving water within.

The technicians monitoring the vault were in shock as it appeared that all three suits were now empty, and the crystals continued to grow at an alarming rate.

It wasn’t long before the white masses breached the lab.  The entire building was ordered evacuated.  The military was alerted and established a perimeter a half mile away from the rapidly disintegrating building.  Tanks and artillery pieces trained their guns on the growing mass of white.  Suddenly, the air was filled with the roar of fighters dropping bombs and obliterating the crystals in fire and smoke.

No scientists were consulted on this plan of attack.  If they had been, the officers in charge of the operation would have been told you cannot kill a crystal. The wiser approach would have been to bury them.  Soon Martian crystals were swept up into the jet stream.  Some were deposited in the ocean, and this provided the first clue about their survival.  Ships in the warm southern Atlantic reported monstrous icebergs.  But what they truly saw were giant mountains of crystals attached to the ocean floor and growing at a fantastic pace.  More than one vessel accidentally sailed into the crystalline islands and disappeared.

Too late to save the planet, the growth requirement for the crystals was discovered to be water.  When the probe was opened, water vapor entered and initiated the process.

Now with the abundance of water on Earth, a growth process that could not be halted was in progress.  It was not long before huge white mountains were seen where the land was once flat.  The oceans began to recede as a vast number of white crystalline islands began to appear.  The Earth’s population not directly absorbed by the crystals died from lack of water, and Earth soon resembled its sister planet Mars, barren of life.

Once every molecule of water was consumed, the massive crystal mountains began to crumble leaving the planet covered in a thick layer of white.  But the planet was not entirely dead.  It was still geologically alive.  Volcanoes erupted and earthquakes spread a thick layer of new rock and ash covering the crystals.  The great cities of the Earth, all signs of the civilization that once existed, were buried.

                    * * *

Millennia later, a bright, fast moving light appeared in the dead planet’s sky.  The light intensified and entered the orbit of the desolate planet.  From the orbiting visitor, a smaller light emerged and headed for the planet’s surface.

                                                       THE END

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