<USS Cervantes> LOG: DNA Dances

"DNA DANCES"

By Oriana Bell

<This log takes place after The Prime Directive." 

Why did time have to go so quickly? 

Oriana watched the ticking clock on the wall, an antique given to her by her 
betrothed. The Betazoid Gobanna showed rising sun, setting moon, and played a 
melodious tune every hour, dependent on the time of day. 

This morning, 8 am, it played a cheery 4/5 waltz. 

Too bad it didn?t match Oriana?s mood. She?d been up all day, then all night, 
and working on all day yet again.

Good thing she?d paid attention in her basic genetics classes at the academy. 
She just wished her genetics training went BEYOND the basics. 

She studied the DNA structures on the computer screen, observing their changes 
as she paired them differently. Adenine and Guanine twirled across the screen, 
waltzing and pirouetting, Cytosine and Thymine mirroring their steps in 
balletic opposition. The threads of the double helix stretched to accommodate 
her new pairings, taught yet yielding like rubber bands. Oriana's hand shook as 
she entered the commands for the gene splices; she was infinitely grateful that 
automatons had replaced the infinitesimal tweaking of microscope and glass 
slide. A red light flared as she made an error, and she wondered what momentary 
monster she'd created. A phage? A dormant idiocy? A new splice returned the 
calm green color, and with a rapid stroke she summoned an image of the virus: 
spiny and forbidding, a miniature echidna with the knowledge of reproduction 
nestled deeply within its acids. 

All at once, it came together. Yes! It was the cliched "Eureka" moment; the 
apple falling on Newton?s head, Euclidides getting into the bathtub, Windell 
Mick receiving the first telepathic thought in a Betazoid laboratory. Only this 
time, it was the calming, familiar voice of the Cervantes computer: "Match 
found." 

There was still more work to be done, however. Computer simulations, after all, 
were just that?no more real than Admiral Kirk on the holodeck. But first, it 
was time for some breakfast. <END>


Dawn Schloesser Freelance 
Writer/Editorwww.geocities.com/WriterDawnSWriterDawnS@xxxxxxxxx 


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