1n1REzE

Peter Watts 186 Blindsight
Coriolis breeze.
No visor this time, either. I knew he hadn't lost it.
He fixed Cunningham. "Your findings."
Cunningham swallowed. Bits and pieces of alien anatomy
flickered with color-coded highlights as he tapped his fingers.
"Right, then. I'm afraid I can't give you much at the cellular level.
There's not much left inside the membranes. Not many membranes
left, for that matter. In terms of gross morphology, the specimen's
dorsoventrally compressed and radially symmetrical, as you can
see. Calcareous exoskeleton, keratinised plastic cuticle. Nothing
special."
Bates looked skeptical. "Plastic skin is 'nothing special'"
"Given the environment I was half-expecting a Sanduloviciu
plasma. Plastic's simply refined petroleum. Organocarbon. This
thing is carbon-based. It's even protein based, although its proteins
are a great deal tougher than ours. Numerous sulphur cross-bonds
for lateral bracing, as far as I could tell from what your grunts
didn't denature." Cunningham's eyes looked past us all; his
consciousness was obviously far aft, haunting remote sensors.
"The thing's tissues are saturated with magnetite. On earth you
find that material in dolphin brains, migratory birds, even some
bacteria—anything that navigates or orients using magnetic fields.
Moving up to macrostructures we've got a pneumatic internal
skeleton, which as far as I can tell doubles as musculature.
Contractile tissue squeezes gas through a system of bladders that
stiffen or relax each segment in the arms."
The light came back into Cunningham's eyes long enough to
focus on his cigarette. He brought it to his mouth, dragged deeply,
set it down again. "Note the invaginations around the base of each
arm." Flaccid balloons glowed orange on the virtual carcass.
"Cloacae, you could call them. Everything opens into them: they
eat, breathe, and defecate through the same little compartment. No
other major orifices."
The Gang made a face that said Sascha, grossed out. "Don't
things get—clogged up Seems inefficient."
"If one gets plugged, there's eight other doors into the same
system. You'll wish you were so inefficient the next time you