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* * *

Instead of signaling, Dr. Eckels came calling. By the time the skiff came alongside Lady Luck, her entire complement had gathered to learn the reason for the change of plans.

“Colonel,” Eckels said, ducking his head as he stepped through the inner airlock. “Agent Taisden. These other gentlemen I do not know—”

Pakkpekatt supplied perfunctory introductions. “Is something wrong, Doctor?”

“Wrong? No, quite the opposite. I think I have good news for you. Is there somewhere we can work?”

Pleck led them forward to the lounge of Lando’s personal suite.

“You’ll have to go slowly with us, Doctor,” said Hammax as they filed in. “Combat medicine isn’t long on theory, and I don’t think the rest of them have had even that much.”

“I understand. I’ll try to make certain no one needs to be telepathic to keep up,” Eckels said. His voice had the faintest hint of a playful lilt.

“An excellent policy,” Pakkpekatt rumbled. “I follow it myself.”

Taisden cleared his throat. Otherwise, there was silence as the five sorted themselves into the available seats.

“You checked the other cadavers for these Eicroth bodies?” asked Pakkpekatt.

“The first thing I did,” Eckels said. He ran his hands over the soft leather covering of the padded arms, then looked around the cabin, taking in the luxury appointments. “Are all NRI ships outfitted this way?”

“Not generally,” Pakkpekatt said.

“This is a, uh, special-use vessel,” added Pleck.

“What use would that be—bordello?” asked Eckels. “Well, never mind. I’ve long suspected that I took the wrong career path. Yes, Eicroth bodies. They all had them.”

“That confirms it then, right?” asked Taisden. “They’re normal parts of Qella physiology.”

“By itself, it would only be strongly indicative,” said Eckels. “A common parasitic infestation would still be a possibility. But I have other evidence.”

Taisden looked to Pakkpekatt. “So we need to send all three sections of the code.”

“No, no,” said Eckels, waving his hands in front of him. “Sending a third of it should be sufficient. Here, I will explain. In your cells, and mine, and even those of the colonel here, there is a universal pattern—a chemical alphabet with four letters, a vocabulary of words two letters long, a grammar of sentences three words long.”

“Nucleotides, base pairs, and codons,” said Pakkpekatt. “This is elementary biology.”

Eckels’s gaze narrowed as he looked toward the colonel. “Yes,” he said. “Every sentence specifies a component of a biochemical structure. The instructions for building a particular structure may be hundreds or thousands of paragraphs long.”

Pleck sat forward. “So are the Qella part of this pattern as well?”

“Yes—and no,” Eckels said. “Most Qella cells, including reproductive cells, use the same alphabet, vocabulary, and grammar.” He smiled and nodded to himself. “But the Eicroth bodies do not. They use an entirely different alphabet with six letters, and sentences of five words. And they use these extraordinary extended proteins to build structures that seem to exist on the dividing line between living and nonliving.”

“Are you certain?” asked Pakkpekatt. “Why didn’t the people who discovered them know any of this?”

“Because I have something available to me that they didn’t—as do you.” Eckels sat back and laced his fingers together in his lap, clearly enjoying their rapt attention. “They didn’t have any examples of the finished product to compare with those instructions. I have six hundred of them.”

“Six hundred?” Hammax said. “Six hundred bodies?”

“Artifacts,” Pakkpekatt said.

“Yes,” Eckels said, raising an eyebrow. “Six hundred Qella artifacts—no, we will need a new word for them now. We recorded them as being fashioned from natural materials. Now I know that they were not fashioned but—grown. The Eicroth bodies contain their plans.”

“You were able to match your artifacts with the sequences we gave you?”

“Every one of them,” said Eckels. “Do you understand what I am saying, Colonel?”

“Yes,” said Pakkpekatt.

“No,” said Hammax.

Eckels turned toward the