As soon as the chopper came to rest on the ice, Peterson, Benson and three other men, dressed from head to toe in silver biohazard suits, entered the swirling wash of snow and set out toward the meteorite. As though rehearsed, all five men reached the outer perimeter of the crater simultaneously and froze.

"Oh my god," Stewart, one of the interns, said as he gazed into the crater.

Peterson looked at Benson with a smile stretching wider and wider. "You're with me."

Slowly and calmly, Peterson and Benson descended into the crater which was six feet deep and smooth. The ice melted and refroze. It was tricky navigating the steep angle but the bio-suits had been designed for use in the arctic and the built-on crampons bit into the ice. Once at the bottom, Peterson opened his hip pack and took out a small device he had designed specifically for his line of work. He called it a geospectrometer. Geospeck for short. The device could scan any object, geological, biological or man-made, and tell you what it was composed of—instantly. What was more important to Peterson was the device's ability to detect the presence of life, or even the residue of life, down to the microscopic. It was the astrogeologist's magic wand. Many finds which would have taken years to scrutinize now took seconds with a degree of error that put human analysis to shame. Every find was valuable, but thus far none had contained even a hint of life.

He looked down at the object. It was the size of a football and deep red in color. This is definitely something new, he thought, and then frowned. Or waste ejected from the space station.

He held the Geospeck over the object and watched as an array of numbers danced across the LCD screen, working calculations and identifying the rock's chemical and physical makeup. The numbers changed to words, listing out all known elements, several of which were common in all meteorites. Then it stopped.

Peterson's eyebrows furrowed deeply. That couldn't be it. Nothing in the list of elements listed on the Geospeck could account for the vibrant crimson color. Before he could voice a complaint at the device he had created, a new set of words were displayed on the screen.

Unknown element: classification - 001EL

Unknown element: classification - 002EL

Unknown element: classification - 003 EL

Geologic Analysis: Unknown materials present.

Biologic Analysis: Unknown potential.

Peterson's jaw went slack. Not only had they discovered three new elements, solidifying that this was indeed from another world, the biological analysis came back: Unknown potential. This by no means meant that he had discovered life, but something in, or on, this rock had confounded the geospeck. And that was something worth getting excited about.

"Unbelievable," Peterson said to himself. He looked back at Benson, Stewart and the others. "We've found something...something...I don't know...."

Stewart's excited eyes widened behind the bio-suit's mask. "Life?"

Peterson smiled. "Maybe."