On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Richard Baker wrote:

> If, as you've
> indicated, the sample return involves astronauts (you'd gain maximum
> kudos for having a realistic mission architecture here - ask Adrian)
> then as far as I can see an infection is still very unlikely.

It'll be hard in that case to have an infection that doesn't just Kill 
Them Dead on the months-long trip home.

Something AIDS-like maybe, that they might not notice until they're 
back?  Maybe something that by means of <sci-babble> actually manages to 
amplify infections?

OR take a clue from Bear's _Darwin's Radio_ and _Blood Music_ and have 
the virus being zapped be a human endogenous virus, or have the mutated 
virus be something that triggers one of them, that then reveals that all 
that junk DNA is REALLY....

OR if you include some sort of bacteria for the virii to live in, maybe 
they start metabolizing iron, which would do Very Bad Things to human 
blood in ways that might just be photogenic.

Jim
xGCU Gettin' Into This 

James S. Coleman Battista
PhD candidate, Dept of Political Science, Duke Univ.
james.battista@duke.edu
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man -- J. Springfield