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There could be two carbons there, and if there are "
"If there are, you have an impossible structure." Status's words came flatly.
"I'm not sure, at this temperature. The point is I'll have a really high
energy molecule with a really low activation energy either for reacting with
others or simply breaking up. That would be the best situation for pre-bio
that anyone's found yet. If it turns out to be true, you check other Collos
patches here and there and find out whether it's general, and then watch what
happens to this one when my enzymes get distributed. If anything does, keep it
confined and watch it come alive if anyone can decide where the fence between
pre-bio and alive is. I think we really have something here or will if you
find that double bond."
As he spoke, the lab unit had extended its iridium-coated scraper and managed
to free a sample, with no more obvious trouble than had been experienced
earlier near Lake Carver, and ingested it. Goodall could visualize the
miniature NMR, neutron, and gamma diffraction devices going to work; he
wondered file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Hal%20Clement%20-%20Half-Life.htm (80 of
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file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Hal%20Clement%20-%20Half-Life.htm briefly how many
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labs they could afford to lose before running out of beryllium for the neutron
sources.
They hadn't brought much, and recycling might not be practical. He could
visualize the patterns they were providing for the computer far above but he
shouldn't do that. He should wait for the data.
Predicting them at this stage was highly improper.
He wanted to hold his breath, but things already hurt enough. It was more than
three minutes before the answer came down.
"The bonds are there." The pain disappeared.
"Then it's well, unless you can think of something else, it's "
"Yeah. Vinyl alcohol, not methanol. Do you want me to figure energies for its
breakdown to water and acetylene, or can you think of other likely reactions,
or don't you care if your enzymes boil the patch off the planet?"
"Think of any you want. I won't care, and it's time for the rest of you to
start the thinking anyway. That's all I really wanted to know; my job's done.
You needn't really hurry with the factory." Goodall looked thoughtfully and
silently at the glistening surface for a moment. His friends were equally
silent. Then he spoke again. "Well, not quite done."
Maria gave a choked, "No "
"I have hours yet on my suit. I'll take a lab unit to the other pool, over by
the rim, and we'll test that too;
it won't be much of a walk, and I haven't walked for a long, long time. It
might be fun." Ginger spoke firmly. "I'll have full tanks in a few more
minutes. I'm going to bring the plane down, and you're getting back aboard.
You've been right again, and we need you to go on being right. This is really
a boost; maybe we can get some really critical knowledge back to Earth while
we're "
"While you're still alive. I've been right too often for your health, and I'm
looking forward to not hurting anymore. Subjective and selfish, but that's the
way it is. Start a systematic analysis of the patch, Peter, Seichi, anyone
with the interest and ideas. We need to know everything that's in the gel.
It's a pity Gene had to blow the earlier unit away; we might have finished
this part of it by now. I'm taking one of these for a walk."
A trifle over three kilometers is not much of a walk under Titanian gravity,
even for a disease-wasted and age- and pain-racked human body. Two or three
times, as his skin seemed to catch fire in another spot, Goodall considered
turning back and initiating his final experiment, but each time curiosity
maintained its grip and drove him on.
Even when
Crius roared overhead once more and settled back to the surface near the lake
he merely file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Hal%20Clement%20-%20Half-Life.htm (81 of
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file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Hal%20Clement%20-%20Half-Life.htm pursed his lips in
annoyance and continued his hike, with no words of irritation or anything
else. If they chose to leave the jet on the ground until he was finished,
there was nothing he could do about it.
Arguing was almost always a waste of time, except of course about points of
reasoning. He was not planning anything reasonable, and the arguments of the
others would be irrelevant.
Since the craft was under remote control, with no one else down even back at
the factory, there was nothing they could do about him, either.
He reached the larger tar patch and had the unit put through its paces. While
he waited for answers, the pain came back, but was somehow not as bad. He
could wonder was there a range of odd materials in the patches scattered over
the big satellite? Or were they all the same? If they were the same, was it
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