Carson squinted his eyes against the light as a mechanized voice spoke, "SUBJECT IDENTIFIED AS CARBON BASED LIFEFORM DESIGNATED CARSON OF SPECIES DESIGNATED TERRAN."
"Who or what are you?" Carson called back.
The light faded away revealing the Sample had split open the crate revealing an array of mechanical components made of liquid metal extending from within the rock that had somehow not shown up on any scans. Carson tried to pick out which component had produced the light or voice, but couldn't make any sense of the thing.
"INITIAL OBSERVATIONS INDICATE SUBECT CARSON SUFFERS FROM A CONDITION KNOWN AS ADVANCED AGE. THIS CONDITION CAUSES CELLS TO DEGRADE OVER TIME REDUCING FUNCTIONALITY COMPARED TO OTHERS OF ITS SPECIES," the Sample continued not acknowledging Carson words.
While it was true Carson was the oldest member of the crew, he hardly would qualify as "suffering from advanced age", "Excuse me whatever the hell you are. I don't think you understand how we work. Why don't you slow down let me explain how us carbon based lifeforms work?"
"INITIAL OBSERVATIONS INDICATED THAT REPLICATING THE SUBJECTS' LANGUAGE PATTERNS WOULD PUT THEM AT EASE. CONCLUSION APPEARS FLAWED. REANALYSIS OF DATA WARRANTED."
Carson was half tempted to trigger the Cargo Bay's emergency air lock and be done with the thing, but standard protocol dictated evidence of sentient life had to be delivered back to Earth for study unless there was an immediate threat to the crew. To avoid being brought before a tribunal back home he'd have to wake the crew and follow the proper review process to evaluate the thing.
As her turned to exit the room, an arm shot out from the Sample and wrapped around his waist. Lifting him off the ground the arm pulled him back to the Sample. Once he was about a meter away from the rocky surface a panel slid back revealing what appeared to be a nozzle which released a cloud of some kind of gas in his face.
"What the hell was that!" Carson sputtered as he felt his lungs starting to burn.
"CELL REPAIR FORMULA 04875 ADMINISTERED. INITIAL SCANS INDICATE FORMULA BEGINNING TO REVERSE EFFECTS OF SUBJECT CARSON'S CONDITION."
Carson didn't know what that meant, but he knew he wasn't too keen to let this thing experiment on him. He had to get away from this thing. And then what? He could try to trigger the airlock which would leave him stuck in the control room until the environmental systems cycled. On the other hand he could try to get to decontamination in Medical or the cryopods in Crew Quarters.