Strange and wondrous beings of colorful energies danced in the Helix Nebula. They resembled jellyfish, luminous with dynamic plasma flows, their bodies composed of mysterious particles and forces which very much interested governments, corporations, militaries, and academics.
The nebula, also known as "the Eye of Sauron", or simply NGC-7293, was located in the Aquarius constellation, between human and blorban space, and it was there, six-hundred and fifty light-years from home, that Danard had lived for the past five months.
Doctor Danard Zangwah was a particle physicist, aged forty-three, though gene therapy kept his biological age closer to twenty-three. His older sister was the governor of the Jovian sector, which he was sure played into why he was selected for the honor of doing such groundbreaking work on a newly-built station. His skin was considerably darker and his hair curlier than his sister's, but they had the same last name, and it was hard to get away from the political theater that seemed to entangle everyone in his family.
He had never married, though he certainly had some fun in the academy of science with several partners over the years. Sometimes it was a more formal kind of relationship, other times it was just hooking up for fun. The occasional romp between the sheets had helped to take the edge off the intensity of his intellectual pursuits. But now he was committed to his work, and the only human faces he saw in-person belonged to the crews of the supply ships that came out to the research station once a month.
The United Nations had a contract with the Blorban Stellar Union to jointly staff the deep-space science station as a part of the research agreement between the two governments. There was a lot of outrage from the science and the finance departments of the UN when the blorbans only sent one scientist, obligating the humans to only send one as well, as per the dictates of the contract. Understandably, this ruffled some feathers because the UN built the station to accommodate a crew of fifty. Danard didn't mind having a spacious habitat almost to himself, which was luxurious compared to the spartan, space-efficient stations he was used to.
The station was shaped like a wheel within a wheel, and spun around a counter-rotating docking section at the axle. It was nearly a mile to walk all the way around the inside of the outer ring, which had a comfortable, earth-like gravity from the rotation. The inner ring was low-G, being closer to the axle, and there was a zero-G laboratory in the central section.
Danard sat in a padded, swiveling chair in the particle analysis lab located in the inner ring. He was typing up a report on his latest batch of experiments on the exotic nebula gases expelled by the "jellies". His degree wasn't in xenobiology, but studying these space-dwelling creatures required expertise in particle physics, given their non-carbon-based structure.
The door behind him quietly swished open. He focused on finishing the sentence he was typing, then stretched, cracked his neck one way, then the other.
"I'll never get used to that," Doctor Xib said as she effortlessly slid across the room to the electron microscope. She was followed by a small cleaning robot that scrubbed the floor.
Doctor Xib was his research partner, the one other sentient on the station. She was blorban, from the Curator Order of Makarafruma, a tropical world where her species evolved three million years ago. Her people were molluscoid organisms, and indeed, she looked very much like a pink snail. Her large, opalescent spiral shell was as tall as Danard was from head to toe, and from it her moist "foot" emanated, as well as her long, pink "neck" and pair of tentacle-like arms, which had three small feelers on each end, which she used like fingers.
"Why is that?" Danard asked in his silvery voice, swiveling in his chair.
"I don't have bones," she answered. "When a blorban hears cracking, we associate it with cracking shells, which is a bad thing. An evolutionary reflexive reaction."
In the first few weeks on the station, whenever Danard looked at her, he felt a reflexive revulsion from her appearance, but the reaction faded as the weeks turned into months, and he had learned to appreciate her looks as a scientist does a unique and interesting life-form. More than that, her shell was beautifully pattered with bold, almost neon-bright colors, and it had a mesmerizing effect on creatures with good eyesight. Certain patterns were considered more attractive by many blorbans, but Danard was thankful he didn't have blorban sentiments. It was confusing enough to hear Doctor Xib's deep, melodic, womanly voice coming from the wide lips of such an alien creature. Her accent was subtle and interesting.
Blorbans were musically gifted and could modulate their voices in part thanks to their elastic vocal organ. Though natural blorban speech sounded very alien to humans, Doctor Xib sounded as human as any woman born on Earth, and she had an adept sense of humor about it.
Beyond their work, they had talked about philosophy and ethics, and he found he very much enjoyed her company. He respected Doctor Xib as a scientist, but he also considered her a friend.
"Good morning, by the way," Danard said.
"We're not on a planet, Doctor Dan," she replied as she had many times before. "There is no 'morning' or 'evening' out here."
"I wish you a good morning nonetheless," he said with a smile as he swiveled back to review his report.
"I have a theory that there might actually be a morning here 'someday'," she curled her wide lips in a smile. "I think the jellies are building a protostar."
"Building a...." he trailed off quizzically as he swiveled slowly back to face her.
"You've been tracking the distribution of particles in the nebula," she stated. "I'm surprised you haven't come to the same conclusion."
Danard glanced to his report, which did indeed contain data about the movement of gasses and dust in the nebula, which showed the spin of the nebula was minutely, gradually increasing since they began taking measurements, but he couldn't make the leap to her theory.
"The nebula is spinning faster, isn't it?" She asked rhetorically.
"Um...yes, it is. But that could be from galactic electromagnetic currents."
"They don't match up. I've found a correlation with the movements of the herd."
Danard blinked. If there was a connection, then these life-forms could be the equivalent of interstellar beavers, building massive fusion furnaces.
"Why would they do that?" He asked.
"I'm sure I don't know," she answered. "But the implications are...immense. For all we know, these creatures could live inside stars. They could be inside every star in the galaxy. We haven't exactly been looking for them there."
Danard's eyes flicked back and forth as he considered the idea. It was possible. If it were true, and they could prove it, it could completely upend conventional theories about star formation.
"I'm going to check the scopes." He bounced to his feet and quickly walked from the room, up the curving hall to the observation room, where monitors displayed telemetry data from the tracking of the jellies' energy signatures.
He expected to find the jellies spread out in their "grazing" patterns, but right away he noticed the herd was tightly grouped, which was unusual. What was more, there was a solid object moving amongst them. An asteroid, he wondered? He pulled up a visual feed from one of the telescopes.
The jellies seemed to be playing with the object, passing it back and forth amongst themselves. A spectrographic analysis showed the object to be metallic.
He tapped the intercom.
"Xib?" He transmitted.
"Yes?" She responded.
"They have something. Metallic, three meters long, two in girth."
"Really? We must get a closer look!"
"I'll take the shuttle. Back me up from flight control?"
"On my way."