Kim Yoshi handed a slice of the greentail fish he'd traded the Sea Clan for to the spectrophotometer tech, and then crossed the room to get himself a cup of coffee. He didn't expect any good news regarding the fish; he could see a near-crystalline shine in the skin that screamed of the heavy metals and minerals that had frustrated the food investigation team so thoroughly.
The freshly brewed beverage was hot and steaming, so strong it was about ready to jump out of the cup and slap him across the face. Just the way he liked it. He had to sip it carefully to avoid scalding his mouth.
The tech started preparing the sample and commented, "You want to get the next one ready while I'm doing this? Gonna take a while."
"Sure, why not?" Kim replied. Being careful not to spill his steaming cup, he turned to survey the rest of the results of his recent foray. Various fruits, roots, and flesh were colorfully arrayed on the main work table. The whitish flesh of the cured fish caught his eye as the salt grains sparkled in the incandescent lighting. He sighed. Might as well get the salt off of it just to make sure we get a decent reading, even though it's probably as loaded as everything else. He filled a basin with distilled water and plopped the filet into it, smiling nostalgically as he remembered his fellow Omatikaya cook-helper.
He turned to the rest of the items on the table and painstakingly prepped multiple samples of each one for the analyzer. It took hours to do the job correctly. Plenty of cases where seeds of Earth flora were edible and the skins poisonous, or vice versa, he thought as he forced himself to follow the protocol exactly. And it could be that being combined with something else would make one of these things harmless. Get the proper data into the machine and the computer can crunch out all the possible permutations later.
It was late afternoon by the time he'd worked his way through all the Pandoran food on the table, and all the coffee in the coffee pot. He gathered up what was still usable – a mess of chopped up parts – and put it all in a big bucket to be sent to the Avatar kitchen. He smiled as he inspected the contents of the bucket. Na'vi jambalaya, he quipped to himself. Or as my sister back home would say, empty everything in the fridge out into a pot. The memory of that interaction was comforting.
He set the bucket on the counter and spoke to the tech, "Anything pan out?"
"Nah, nothing. You about done?" was the reply.
"Yeah, I'm just gonna take this over to the kitchen. No sense wasting it when the Avatars need to be fed too."
The tech pointed to the water-filled basin, "What about that?"
Kim looked in the indicated direction and swore. "Crap, I forgot all about that. Hang on a minute."
He retrieved the now waterlogged filet from the basin and rinsed it off with more distilled water for good measure. He conscientiously excised a sample and brought it over to the tech, who was waiting for it.
The zoologist went back to the fish and scooped it up to add it to the jambalaya. He washed out the basin he'd used and was about to grab the bucket and leave when he heard a choking noise from the tech. He whirled just in time to hear the man exclaim, "Jesus, Yoshi!"
He almost pulled a hamstring trying to leap across the room. "What? What is it?"
The tech pointed at the display screen. "There! Look at that!"
Instead of the usual kaleidoscope of colors indicating the presence of the normal range of Pandoran minerals, only two were showing on the screen and they were two colors that Kim knew well. He started shaking with excitement and grabbed his colleague's shoulder. "Stay here. Don't move. Don't say anything to anyone! I'll be right back."
He ran a few doors down the hall to the chemistry lab and had to catch himself on the door frame. Several people were working, so he raised his voice and nearly yelled, "Anyone got some ascorbic acid I can use?"
One guy in the back held up a brown glass jar. "Here you go. Good old vitamin C, anti-inflammatory, antiscorbutic, and the best heavy metal chelator that won't kill a living host that you'll find. Made naturally by all animals except humans, bats, and guinea pigs. Man I hate those creepy critters."
Kim grabbed the jar out of the eloquent scientist's hand and ran back to the spectrophotometry lab at top speed. The tech was waiting for him anxiously. The zoologist retrieved the filet out of the scrap bucket, rinsed it again, then plopped it back in the cleaned basin and poured more distilled water on it. He twisted the top off of the glass jar and shook a generous measure of the white powder into the basin.
The tech handed him a spatula that Kim used to gently agitate the water and lift the filet so that the solution could reach every surface. "How long do you think it'll take?" he asked in a nervous tone.
Yoshi looked up at the wall clock. "Let's give it fifteen minutes. If it's going to work at all, we should have a good indication by then. I don't wanna blow this."
The time seemed to crawl by. Kim made a point of waiting sixteen minutes, just to prevent himself from jumping the gun. His hand shook noticeably as he lifted the fish out of the ascorbic acid solution and held it over the basin so that the other man could rinse it well with more water. They set it down on the table, and the zoologist was excruciatingly careful about taking a proper sample.
The tech took it with near-reverence and prepared it for the huge machine. Both men were near to holding their breath as it swallowed their offering. There was a pause of a few seconds as the fish was bathed in multiple spectra of light while the machine recorded the results. The screen lit up with a solid white display, and impartially reported a series of numbers. Kim and the tech took a single look and jumped up screaming, hugging each other and slapping each others' backs in triumph.
It took a couple minutes before they could calm down, then Kim ordered "Soak some more samples and repeat the scans, we'll need detailed information on how much ascorbic acid is needed and how long the fish needs to be immersed to make absolutely sure all of the heavy metals are cleared. I've got to go tell Norm and Max about this immediately!"
The tech agreed instantly and turned back to work, reinvigorated. Kim almost flew out the door, imagining with glee the look that was going to appear on the face of the Avatar Project's leader. Wait until Norm hears this! This is the biggest break we've had! Thank Eywa, we've got food!