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Moe stripped down to her work clothes; the two of them maneuvered the boat close to the wall, and Moe walked through the dome. Fifteen minutes later, her hand reappeared on Mannie's side of the dome. Mannie gripped Moe's hand to guide her back through but, despite this effort, Moe still missed the boat to be thoroughly drenched. Eventually, Mannie got her into the boat and they returned to the submarine.
Much investigation established the existence of a new species, obviously sentient, but nowhere to be found.
Under the dome, Moe had found another ocean, this an ocean of apparently viable protoplasm that further research confirmed to be zygotes in stasis, the condition nurtured and maintained by the dome technology.
Moe's report relayed good news and bad. The good news allayed any fear that any substance had been removed from the dome; the protoplasm – even under an electron microscope – demonstrated no affinity to any surface sliding immediately back into the blob of its siblings. The DNA provided the bad news: it matched no arrangement ever encountered making the species totally new, totally unrecognizable, totally unpredictable. The last bit of news, either good or bad depending upon perspective: there appeared to be no sensors and therefore no alarms on the dome so the progenitors had probably not been notified of the human incursion.
No further clue to the progenitors identity or whereabouts could be located. Obviously, whoever they were, they had made their deposit and departed. Whether they intended to return or not became mere speculation as no evidence existed to support any firm conclusion.
Mannie, Moe and Mac believed the progenitors would return. Their logic derived from the apparent fact the aliens had left all their eggs in one basket.