“This is Kala Holcroft, examining a potential new lifeform sourced from”—she glanced at Stanos, who mouthed the answer to her—“Station 691 on the eighteenth of March. Subject was submitted by Commander Julian Stanos, who will be assisting me with my examination.”

Stanos gave her a slight nod to continue.

“Subject is round and approximately three centimetres wide.” Kala turned the bottle to get a better look. “It appears black and smooth and currently lacks any other identifying features.”

She pulled her face mask down to cover her mouth and nose then uncorked the bottle. Stanos made no move to cover his own face, so she assumed the creature didn’t contain any spores and wasn’t infectious. She tipped the black ball into one of the glass bowls they used to examine small samples then pulled her desk light forward to shine directly on it. “Subject has shown no sign of response to its environment. It appears either dormant or non-sentient. I’ll begin exposing it to stimuli.”

She picked her first choice out of the toolbar on her desk: a small metal rod, the heat pen, whose tip would gradually heat from room temperature to a little under a hundred degrees. Many lifeforms, especially ones originating on planets close to their stars, went into hibernation at low temperatures, and the heat pen could activate them by simulating a warmer environment.

She pressed the tip of the pen against the ball and gasped. “Uh, okay, that was fast. Subject responded to the heat pen before a temperature was even set. Subject appears to have an appendage, which it’s used to grab the pen.”

To Kala, it looked a lot like an exceptionally ugly leech. The base of the ball had fixed itself to the glass bowl, and the bulk of its body had extended up in a long black tendril to grab her pen. When she pulled the metal rod out of reach, the tendril continued to swivel, probing at the air.

“Subject is definitely alive and active.” Kala put the pen back in its holder and took up a pair of tweezers. She poked at the waving tendril, and it responded instantly, moving towards her and trying to wrap around the metal tool. “Subject shows interest in its surroundings and responds to my voice. It appears to have at least a rudimentary intelligence.”

The next hour passed quickly as Kala introduced new factors to the creature one at a time, noting its reactions. Stanos continued to lean on the desk, not speaking or moving, merely watching her closely through dark eyes.

Most of the experiments resulted in the same sort of reaction: the creature grabbed at anything within its reach, except for when she raised the temperature of her heat pen, and it shied away from the burning metal. Then she offered the creature her pencil. It sucked the writing utensil towards its core, held it for a moment, turned it over twice, then spat it out. The creature seemed to be seeking something, and Kala could guess what it wanted.