“A warm-blooded microorganism?” she said.

I shrugged. “Looks that way. Hey, how much longer am I going to be the only person working on this?”

“Until you stop discovering new stuff.”

“One guy alone in a lab? That’s not how science works,” I said. “There should be hundreds of people all over the world working on this.”

“You’re not alone in that thought,” she said. “I’ve had three different heads of state call me today.”

“Then let other scientists in on it!”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She looked away for a moment, then back through the window at me. “Astrophage is an alien microbe. What if it can infect humans? What if it’s deadly? What if hazmat suits and neoprene gloves aren’t enough protection?”

I gasped. “Wait a minute! Am I a guinea pig? I’m a guinea pig!”

“No, it’s not like that,” she said.

I stared at her.

She stared at me.

I stared at her.

“Okay, it’s exactly like that,” she said.

“Dang it!” I said. “That’s just not cool!”

“Don’t be dramatic,” she said. “I’m just playing it safe. Imagine what would happen if I sent Astrophage to the most brilliant minds on the planet and it killed them all. In an instant we’d lose the very people we need the most right now. I can’t risk it.”

I scowled. “This isn’t some cheesy movie, Stratt. Pathogens evolve slowly over time to attack specific hosts. Astrophage has never even been on Earth before. There’s just no way it can ‘infect’ humans. Besides, it’s been a couple of days and I’m not dead. So send it out to the real scientists.”

“You are a real scientist. And you’re making progress as fast as anyone else would. There’s no point in me risking other lives while you’re getting it done on your own.”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “With a couple hundred minds working on this, we’d make a lot more progress on—”

“Also, most deadly diseases have a minimum of least three days of incubation time.”

“Ah, there it is.”

She walked back to her table and picked up her tablet. “The rest of the world will have their turn in time. But for now it’s just you. At least tell me what the hell those things are made of. Then we can talk about giving it to other scientists.”

She resumed reading her tablet. The conversation was over. And she’d ended it by laying down what my students would call a “sick burn.” Despite my best efforts, I still had no idea what the heck Astrophage was made of.

They were opaque to every wavelength of light I threw at them. Visible, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, microwaves… I even put a few Astrophage in a radiation-containment vessel and exposed it to the gamma rays emitted by Cesium-137 (this lab has everything). I called it the “Bruce Banner Test.” Felt good about that name. Anyway, even gamma couldn’t penetrate the little bastards. Which is like shooting a .50-caliber round at a sheet of paper and having it bounce off. It just doesn’t make any sense.