Progress!
The message was brief — Objective reached; first crew beginning retrieval process; commander following Carpenter repair protocols after suit breach — and hopefully would only be ominous to Major Kazimi. It certainly confused Asenath. What are the ‘Carpenter protocols,’ Commander? I see no records of them in the regulations involving suit repair.
“You won’t.” He had the suit mike off, so Tobias felt fine talking aloud. “It’s a joke that the major made once about the regs involving unknown biological or pseudo-biological contaminants. Specifically, the ones with aggressive growth cycles. She said that what we’d really need were flamethrowers. Then she made the senior staff watch the antique movie she stole the idea from.”
Ah. A manufactured pause. John Carpenter, The Thing, 1982 AD. Kurt Russell, A. Wilford Brimley. Another pause. I believe Childs really was infected, after all.