Metal Boxes - Trapped Outside Read Online Free PDF Page B

dataport, turned, and disappeared down the corridor.
    Menendez flicked through the files she’d received, scanning them quickly, and said, “Ensign Stone, I expected to have more time reviewing your case to see if we can find something my colleagues might have missed. In that regard, I requested Doctor Triplett’s assistance.”
    Stone smiled. “Yes, sir. I assume Doctor Triplett has made a study of drasco spit’s analgesic properties?” Triplett nodded and he continued. “Your next question is ‘how often have I let my drasco’s put their spit on a cut, scrape, scratch, or any other open wound’. Well, my answer is, I don’t know. I guess about a couple of times a week over the past year.”
    Menendez shook her head. “It shouldn’t work.” Triplett nodded in agreement, still not looking up from her reader. “Different planets evolve using different DNA strings. At best, drasco bodily fluid shouldn’t have any effect on a human. At worst, it should have killed you long ago.”
    Stone poked himself in the chest. “Nope. Still here.”
    Finally looking up, Triplett said, “This is no time to be flippant, young man. Those drascos need to be turned over to me for study. I have been put in charge of a new team to investigate them.”
    Stone all but shouted, “No. I have talked to enough lawyers in the past six months to know you can’t take them without proof they are a danger to everyone, not just me. Such a confiscation is a direct violation of my chartered rights. Besides, all you want to do is dissect them. So, no.”
    Triplett said, “They are a danger. One of them actually bit a researcher. I have the report by Doctor Emmons.”
    “I don’t blame Peebee one little bit. I would bite you too if you poked me in such a sensitive area without my permission.”
    Triplett shook her head in absolute denial. “Be that as it may, you have a serious medical condition made worse by your constant contact with those creatures.”
    “I’ve heard about my medical issues. I know somehow the drasco spit has rapidly mutating DNA and I have drasco DNA strands in my system.”
    Menendez said, “Fortunately, the alien DNA isn’t making any attempt at this point to combine with your human DNA. It remains free floating.”
    Stone said, “So, no harm, no foul at this point.” He’d been scanned by every medical device on the base and one doctor had actually gone so far as to take an actual blood sample rather than trust the scanners.
    Menendez shook her head. “Not exactly. We don’t know what’s going on. Drasco DNA is wildly flexible. Surely, you’ve seen this in their own rapid growth. Something has caused them to become larger than our database indicates they should be and their DNA is designed to enhance said growth.”
    Something caused Jay and Peebee to grow stronger and larger than their mother. He had his theories and doubted DNA was the entire culprit. He thought maybe their current environment triggered something in their system, some internal growth mechanism enabling them to overcome the size of their most predominant challenger. Suited marines most often challenged his drascos on Lazzaroni Base. Their growth to such an unusual size in such a short time may have been from exercising with a squad of combat armored marines after lunch, their nitrogen enriched meals, or this was just normal and his experience with drascos on Allie’s World was too limited to know any different.
    No one knew much about drascos, his was the only known pair anywhere in the galaxy except those found on their native planet. All scans indicated they both had drasco-sized wombs filled with both fertilized and unfertilized eggs. As a species, he and Danielle Wright had discovered drascos shortly after discovering Allie’s World. Wright, a veterinarian, noticed that drascos were born ready to give birth even if there weren’t any male drascos nearby to impregnate them. While trapped on the new planet, he and Wright only