grayscale image.
CECIL
Put it on screen.
The professor displays an image of an unfamiliar organism. It is football shaped. Wings of cilia extend from both sides. Its head looks like a tiny satellite dish. Its posterior contains a small orifice.
Several equations appear beside the image.
KLEIN
According to the data provided, this
microbe utilizes high energy radiation to
break down complex carbon and hydrogen
compounds. Molecular oxygen and water are
among the by-products created.
CECIL
Sounds a little like photosynthesis.
KLEIN
It's much more complicated than that.
According to these equations, the
organism a very robust extremophile, able
to survive temperatures of about three
hundred degrees Celsius, and withstand
pressures fifty times that of Earth's
atmosphere.
CECIL
Do those temperature and pressure
thresholds exist anywhere on Earth? Maybe
the bottom of the ocean, near a volcanic
vent?
KLEIN
It also needs high energy radiation.
JEREMY
How about Venus?
CECIL
I actually thought of that. But both the
temperature and atmospheric pressure on
Venus are nearly twice those limits. They
couldn't survive there either.
JEREMY
How about the upper atmosphere of Venus?
CECIL
That's a possibility. Whatever the case,
this is a job for a genetics lab, not a
space agency.
JEREMY
You should create a new department, one
dedicated solely to the creation of this
organism.
CECIL
Do you have any idea what an undertaking
of that magnitude would cost?
JEREMY
No. But I'll bet the returns would be
greater. Think about it. This lifeform is
completely unknown to science. I'll bet
there's a zone in the Venusian atmosphere
where these things would thrive. It could
be a real kick-start for the terraforming
of Venus.
Klein is astounded by the conversation.
CECIL
What makes you think this organism would
have any measurable effect on the
Venusian atmosphere?
JEREMY
It might not. But unlike Mars, Venus
already has a substantial atmosphere, one
