The Martian Race by Gregory Benford Page A

she'd left the sample. She looked around at the usual clutter in her tiny lab. A mostly unused lab, she thought, since she'd not found anything living to study.
    Ah, there it was. She held the sealed bag up to the light. The wiper material appeared to be damp, with a light orange smear in the center of the damp spot. What looked like drops of water had collected on the plastic of the bag over the damp patch. So there was water ice at the top of the vent! That was interesting by itself. It meant there was liquid water somewhere below the surface, and the cloud they'd seen was water vapor. Maybe all of them had found water today.
    She slipped the bag under the dissecting microscope to have a quick look at the orange smear. It was probably just dust previously frozen into the ice, but she always checked anyway.
    She looked through the eyepieces, expecting to see the familiar scatter of grainy dust and sand particles. Sure enough, they were there—but there was other stuff as well.
    She rotated the nosepieces to get a closer view. Her heart caught in her throat. Trapped in the fine fibers of the wiper, it looked for all the world like cellular debris.
    She sat back, her thoughts racing, reviewing in her mind how she had collected the sample and whether it could have been contaminated. The wiper had been clean, still sealed in its sterile wrapper, identical to all the others she had used unsuccessfully before this. And she had used the same technique as always. Except there was no second sample because of Viktor's accident. Could she have delayed sealing the bag? No. She remembered stowing it in her sample pack just before his first cry of pain.
    She looked at the sample again. It had to be real. This was the stuff on the ice at the mouth of the vent. But what was it?
    She changed nosepieces again, altering the size of the image, then fiddled with the light source to see it in different ways. It was actually quite difficult to make out, but after fifteen minutes she was satisfied. It seemed to be a very pale-colored, dried up scum coated with red dust.
    Pale because it lived underground, that fit. But unmistakably organic. Life!
    Her yells brought all three of her crewmates running, or in Viktor's case, hobbling.
    They were a lot more reserved than she was.
    “This is what you're excited about?” asked Raoul, after taking a look through the microscope. “It looks like nothing at all.”
    “Yes, but it's organic nothing.”
    “How do you know?”
    “It can't be anything else.”
    Marc popped in. “What's up?”
    “Julia's discovered organic nothing.”
    “Really? Let me see.”
    She'd learned from Raoul's reaction. “As a geologist, how would you interpret this?”
    Marc settled onto the seat, scanned the sample, changed the magnification, altered the light source. Viktor arrived as he was studying it. “Hmm,” said Marc. “There's water in here.” He looked up. “Where'd you find this?”
    “This is sample from vent?” asked Viktor.
    Julia nodded. “Just outside. I swabbed one of the shiny frozen spots at the mouth of the vent as you started down. Here, sit down.”
    “Looks like sand particles and some dust in a wet patch,” said Marc.
    “What about the other stuff?” she asked.
    “What other stuff?”
    “There are bits of …” She was about to say “organic material,” but said instead “flaky material.”
    “Wha? Oh, yeah I saw that, what is it?”
    “That's just the point, Marc, what is it? I think it's dried organic material, but what else could it be?” Julia was aware of her deflating excitement. What if Marc had a ready chemical explanation? And she'd been so sure.
    “Some kinda weird—no, it seems to be a bit stringy …” He looked up. “I can't tell just by looking. You'll hafta try some chemical tests. Do you have any more?”
    “Nope, that's it. There was more, only—”
    “Science was interrupted to come to aid of fallen comrade.” Viktor came to her rescue. “You think it's