Ernst went on his usual evening walk through the endless corridors of the Freeport 10, located in the Tau-37 system. The lights were bright in a to him almost annoying extent at this late hour. His gaze did not meet the ones of others, but he kept a careful eye on everyone surrounding, as long as it is possible.
A key to living here is to be always guarded for everything. Drunken miners, bounty hunters and pirates, some aware of each other and some not, tend to cause trouble which usually is solved quite quickly. After a few days he could already tell which ones are going to cause trouble and which ones don't. The ex-Cryer and new member of the Commonwealth does not interfere though, getting involved in a fight between miners, bounty hunters and outcasts is simply stupid for somebody who only has quite basic experience in unarmed and fights with handguns.
After walking a little further, the medical scientist entered a smaller hall that offered a good view on the Tau-37 suns and the rings of the blue one. He put his sunglasses on which enabled him not to go blind when he tried to take a peek at the rings. Occasional drifting ice asteroids caused a dull sound when they hit the graviton shield which ensures the protection against such collisions and the random destruction of several windows throughout the station.
Shortly after, he found himself infront of the Sylvania dome, the artificial wind - to create a more realistic and calm atmosphere - gently strokes his hair as he stepped into the dome. He walked away from the usual path, onto the grass and near the artificially created lake, beneath the artificially planted trees. Everything here was artificial - not quite natural atleast - and his mind drifted off to the events of one day amongst many, months before.
The truth was revealed to him, a truth that he could never denie, and the hope for something to become another truth. One, that would save the natural, the primordial, that starts to fail and fade slowly over the years. The primordial gets harvested, destroyed, stripped to the core and used for artificial, either to replace the primordial or to destroy both. A neverending cicle, until one day the primordial ceases to exist and without it, the artificial cannot survive.
This is the thought that was planted into his mind, one that he cannot let go. It caused him to get away from Cryer. They were restricting, they could not accept the truth and were blinded by cowardice, fearing radical change, sacrificing few for the many.
He once again touched the lush grass within the dome, and calmed at the soft sound of dripping and flowing water. An orchestra of natures sounds, playing one symphony after another, seemingly eternal, reached his ears for an hour, that passed way faster than it should have.
Ernst Reinhardt slowly stood up, and went to the exit of the dome and back to the laboratory. It was a section that he wanted - or needed - solely by himself.
The crates, that he ordered from the TAZ, containing a lot of Alien Organisms that grew in Baffin, have been moved into the lab already. "Perfect", he thought to himself. It appeared that Phase 1 could begin.
Some of the samples were put in divided containers, to check which conditions are needed to keep them alive as long as possible, and give Ernst an idea how to expand the number of conditions under which they can live long enough. Extreme heat and cold would let most of them die off.
He decided to make use of his classes in genetic engineering, and tried to make two good things into one even better, wiping out some of the weaknesses.
Adding and replacing strains of the Alien Organisms by using sequencies of certain other malicious parasites, viruses and all other sorts of harm, his attempt at creating a more resistant version of the organisms was on a good path.
He put the group A-1-1, the enhanced version, into one container, and group A-1-2 as a control group into another, and make them endure the same situation as before. Foremost, extreme heating, about half the amount of the temperature at the surface of your ship with shields offline, and then cooling a little cooler than the level of the side of New Berlin covered in shadows.
It appeared that group A-1-1 indeed could last longer under these conditions, although some samples of A-1-2 survived aswell.
"Interesting. I could incorporate more sequences of resistant viruses into the organisms. It should be able to live at any place in Sirius for a certain amount of time, if done correctly and possible at all."
"Now, the only thing I have to check and possibly improve is their .. virulency."
The room was bathed in a faint green glow. Whispers of machines, the tools that make humans superior and capable of living like this at all, slowly find their way into the ever so vigilant ears of the Rheinlander Ernst Reinhardt.
Words and numbers, mostly incomprehensible to amateurs, rushed from one end of the small datapad he is holding to another. A frown adumbrates on his face, his expression getting more grim with each line disappearing at the top of the screen. With the click of a button, the contents of the datapad get transferred towards the bigger screen at the opposite site of the room.
The atmosphere thickens, and the Rheinlander radiates frustration. The results from the Baffin group, A-1-1 and A-1-2 arrived.
Fluorescent letters on the screen bathed the laboratory into a hostile red, revealing what Ernst expected, but was afraid of happening.
[Failure]
It appears that the organisms from Baffin were not suitable. These certainly tried to avoid too much heat, and could not adapt.to sudden changes. Failure, it once again echoed in his head. It is, however, quite enjoyable that a group of the Commonwealth, including him, already got new samples from a different position.
This time, it led them to a point beyond Omicron Alpha, to hostile regions where more agressive samples reside, parasites longing after your very ship, and most certainly even for yourself, into the grasp of a planet that has, in his opinion, an unfitting name, as it certainly does not appear to be an isle of the blessed.
His opinion could however change if those samples prove to be just perfect for his plans.
He moved away from the screen, and towards the adaptive environment simulator that kept the harmful organisms alive. It was a rather unfortunate turn of events that his experiments - so far - did not go the way he would want them to go, but he already predicted that they would most likely not be suitable. Baffin is not a hostile system, at all, and harsh conditions are rather unmet. These samples are, in theory, more suitable going by that logic.
He repeated the same procedure as before, attempting to turn them into more resistant & lethal parasites, marking them as B-1-1 and B-1-2. After a few of the modified group were done, he cultivated their reproduction, to highly increase their number using more tools, with resemblance to a simple breeding box, the technology that advanced throughout the years veiled by its simple appearance and the clean white hull.
Let's hope they'll make it past the R.O.A.S.T (Realization Of Artificially Simulated Temperatures) test, which is basically to take bacon and the organisms, put them on a grill, then attach said grill to the front of your ship and fly to the edge of the suns corona. As soon as the bacon has the perfect colour, you get back to the station and examine the samples. If all goes well, you now have hopefully positive results for the heat resistance and, of course, delicious bacon for breakfast. As soon as enough of the organisms have reproduced, to fully integrate the imported strains into their own genetical code over the shortlived generations of the organisms, Ernst is going to take them on a ride towards the bright Tau-37 sun.
As soon as there are good results ready to be presented for Achille, he will induct him fully into his plans aswell. He is not sure whether he requires assistance of others in the research wing yet, but that will sure show with a little more progress.
For further experiments, there are still more methods and locations required ..
Should the current samples survive the suns embrace, the next step would be to survive extremely cool temperatures. Remembering his childhood in Rheinland very well, he is quite certain that their planets are quite suitable concerning extremely cold temperatures.
Then, there are of course the test on humans. They'd need to get some subjects, which will be quite difficult, considering that nobody would like to volunteer for lethal parasites.
He attempted to grab a beer from the side, but found that there are none left. "Why is there no beer left?"
The room was bathed in red light once again, with more fluorescent letters appearing on screen.
[ALERT: NO BEER DETECTED]
Ernst sighed. "Thanks, Sherlock.", he said and left to the bar.
It was a rather unfortunate turn of events that his experiments - so far - did not go the way he would want them to go, but he already predicted that they would most likely not be suitable. Baffin is not a hostile system, at all, and harsh conditions are rather unmet. These samples are, in theory, more suitable going by that logic.