With a long, low moan, Yingxue placed her head firmly on the lab table she was working on. Bitten. The cow was [i]bitten.[/i] Why? By what? How? As far she she knew there wasn't anything like a real predator or parasite in LD10, so the only reasonable solution is that--

"[color=977D9E]--I'll bet Eel bit it,[/color]" she muttered, doing her best to quiet the creeping unease. Unknown creature. And, important and no less discomfiting, its bite had sickened the cow. It must be ill itself, and she hoped to [i]god[/i] it wasn't the patient zero of some mysterious alien illness.

"[color=977D9E]Holiday, does the dentition pattern match any known species that we have on board? Could be some grand accident,[/color]" she asked with undisguised if desperate hope in her voice. She was pretty sure anything on board wouldn't start biting to begin with, so whatever was going on it was an anomaly of [i]some[/i] kind. She finally lifted her head, rubbing her sore eyes tenderly as her attention started to stray back over towards her beanbag. She violently wrenched it back to shape, refocusing on the work in front of her. The Big Important Stuff had come in; the sterile equivalent of a q-tip the tip of which had rubbed on the bitemark had just arrived. The potential genetic information.

It wasn't certain that what she found would actually be [i]whatever[/i] relevant to their mysterious guest, or if enough time has passed for it to decay and leave just the cow's genetics. But, of course, any effect would be better than no attempt. She mounted it quickly and had it underneath the electron microcop like she'd done it a thousand times (which to be fair, she definitely had), before finally looking into the viewfinder at whatever she might appear. A bit of observation later and she suddenly jerked backwardd like she'd been stung, staring at the microscope.

"[color=977D9E]What the hell...?[/color]" she breathed.