Chapter 9 - All Work and No Play

Spock had asked Lily-Lee to join him in the laboratory. He had a small sample of an isolated bacterial strain that could be a pathogen of unknown properties.

"We have very little information available yet, apart from the following: this bacteria is gram-negative, elongate, comma-shaped, a facultative anaerobic and possible to cultivate on standard agar medium. We also have the full plasmid gene sequence coming up shortly."

"Sure smells like cholera." Lily-Lee was sitting on the edge of the bench with dangling legs. Some machine nearby indicated a finished process with a 'ding'. The DNA sequencer had aligned the sampled genome to GenBank sequences and come up with a result.

"Cholera."

"You were just testing me, weren't you?"

"That is correct."

"So what are we really analysing? Unless you want to test me some more first, because that's okay. I'm just a rookie here." Lily-Lee licked the tip of her index finger and surreptitiously tried to touch Spock's wrist with it. He pulled away his hand and almost knocked over the cholera sample.

"I find it necessary to repeat my request that you stop doing that. If you do not stop I shall have to make it a direct order." Spock's face looked as if it had been carved from ice.

"Sorry. It's just really hard, you know."

"Try harder. This is the actual sample. It is a marine organism, member of the Pyrrophyta. I have already sequenced it and confirmed that it is an unknown species. Would you perform a full chemical analysis, please?" Spock gave her a small vial, and she opened it. She closed her eyes and pulled in some air. She swirled the liquid and smelled it again. She took a tiny drop on her tongue and looked lost in thought.

"Get some of it fragmented for me, will you Spock? They have tough shells, those little things." Spock took the vial from her and took a few drops to a tabletop sonic disintegrator. After a few short buzzes she got a new vial back.

"Yummy, plankton shake. Let's see now." She took a diminutive swig and sat still. "Okay, I'm done."

"Good, tell me the results and I'll write them down."

"What do you want, exactly?"

"All of it." Spock had pulled up an empty page on the computer and was sitting down to type. Lily-Lee started listing everything, starting with the water and sodium chloride.

"The pigments are chlorophylls a and c2, beta-carotene, and a bunch of xanthophylls: peridinin, dinoxanthin, and diadinoxanthin. There are break-down components from degrading pigments; phaeophytin-a, magnesium porphyrin, and smaller phyllins. The walls are composed of . . ." She went on and on and on. After a few minutes she became silent.

"Are you finished?" Spock asked.

"No, I have more, but I think you are doing this all wrong. This list contains everything whether it's important or not."

"A good record needs to be complete."

"Yes, but, look here, you've read a book?"

"I have read books, yes."

"A good book, a book that made a difference in your life. Something with meaning."

"My home planet Vulcan provided me with such books during my youth."

"Now, imagine that someone asked you to describe one. And the description they wanted was that you make a list of every single word that was used in them, complete with how many times each word was used. Would that be a good description? Useful?"

Spock was silent. Lily-Lee joined in with a bit of silence herself. Not that she had anything against giving Spock the list, it was just... well... not logical. Not to her, at least. He stood up and walked up to the lab bench. There was a box of cotton rounds next to the rubber gloves. He took a cotton round and doused it with some deionised water. With the cotton round in one hand, he rolled up the sleeve to his elbow and then made a slow stroke along his arm from the elbow to the wrist. He handed her the cotton round and she took it in her mouth like a communion wafer.

"I'll leave it to you to come up with a succinct and useful description. I'm sure you'll do a good job." Spock left. Lily-Lee closed her eyes and concentrated her whole mind in her mouth. She kept the cotton round in until she was finished writing down her analysis on why this plankton species might cause toxic red tides. She did the long list, too, right down to the trace elements.

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THE END. Thanks for reading.