The blood test

"What're you up to, Mac?" Palmer looked uncomfortable. Probably the
ropes were hurting him.

"We're going to draw a little bit of everybody's blood," the pilot informed him.

Nauls let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "Right. What are you going to do, drink it?"

Macready ignored him. "Watching what happened to Norris back in there," he gestured toward the infirmary, "plus what I remember from the night out on the ice when one of these things killed Bennings gave me the idea that maybe every part of these bastards is a whole. Every piece is self-sufficient and can act independently if the need arises. An animal unto itself.

"When a man bleeds it's just fluid loss, but blood from one of these things doesn't just lie dormant. Remember what Blair said about each cell being taken over independently? Each one becomes a newly activated individual life form, with the usual built-in desire to protect itself from harm.

"Remember those little pieces of Norris, how they squirmed around and gave off that mewling noise? When attacked, it looks like even a fragment of one of these things will try to survive as best it's able. Even a sample of its blood.

"Of course, there's no higher nervous system, no brain to suppress a natural instinct like that if it's in the best interests of the larger whole to do so. The cells have to act instinctively instead of intelligently. Protect themselves from freezing, say. Or from incineration. The kind that might be caused by a hot needle, for instance." He turned to face the doctor.

"Copper, you do the honors."