The CU already suspected that Mezan life used DNA. The stratomezans freely supplied microscopic imagery of baser life-forms, mainly land coral along with a smattering of insects and animals which included—and here the CU caught a real break—the hulking omegamezan.

At the cellular level, the Mezan blueprint of life was a near twin to Earth's. All the usual structures were present: membranes, mitochondria, nuclei and ribosomes. While the scans lacked the resolution to identify DNA base pairs, the stratomezans hadn't bothered to obfuscate the wads of chromosomes packed into the nuclei, having probably assumed that the individual molecules could never be teased apart. But this was just the sort of task that the genetic-algorithm-AI was designed for. With enough chromosomal frames, some of which were in the act of division, transcription or repair, they could reconstruct the entire genome of an omegamezan. Having done this, the CU just needed the stratomezan DNA with which to cross analyze it. This was a much taller order.

Even though the stratomezans had only a rudimentary understanding of genetics (they had yet to discover transposons and epigenetics, among other things), they understood enough to know that the DNA double helix was something special. Indeed, it was generally assumed that it was central to the action of the soul-wind. They were not about to hand over their genetic code any more than humans were willing to divulge their own.

With little expectation of success, the human AIs ransacked the data feeds for clues. After less than an hour, what came back was not a nugget but the goldmine itself: the fully sequenced DNA strand of a stratomezan. It had come over in the largest set of data packets, a collection totaling half a zetabyte of highly compressed data in response to the question, Tell us about your art.

The stratomezans had spent a full three days responding, but in this case the delay was not due to reluctance or caution. Stratomezan art was embodied in their architecture. Each sparnica expressed a unique aesthetic, elaborated and refined over countless millennia and boasting its own version of the Taj Mahal or Buckingham Palace. Some styles were reminiscent of gothic, art deco or Ionian; others could have graced the cover of a sci-fi novel. Naturally, every sparnica wanted its achievements represented and excluding any would have been a major snub. In the end, the adjudicating council decided to send the entire lot: a 3D simulation of every sparnica down to the millimeter with even higher resolution for masterworks.

One sparnica was of particular interest to the CU. Its entire aesthetic, from skyscrapers down to paving stones, was based on stylized representations of biological molecules. Filamentary bridge-ways wove between buildings in the shape of complex polypeptides. At street level, lightposts resembling motor proteins cast benzene-shaped rings of light. Through this molecular landscape wound an unbroken path of colored tiles.

The tiles were arranged in a familiar twisted ladder arranged side-by-side in a skinny-to-fat configuration. While the rungs looked repetitive to the casual glance, they were in fact non-repeating and non-random. Their arrangement followed a familiar mathematical model of triplets. When fully unraveled—all million miles and 100 billion rungs of it—it constituted the full genome of a stratomezan. As a matter of artistic expression, the city planners had built the genetic code into the very sidewalk. Lest there be any doubt it was their own and not some other creature's, the path completed its journey in a courtyard where it spilled forth from the fingertips of a crouched stratomezan sculpture.

The human CU had its DNA. Wasting no time, it set to work cross analyzing it with the DNA of other Mezan species. After just a few micro-seconds, the AI sequencer came back with what certainly had to be an erroneous result. It was not just similar to the omegamezan's; it was one and the same.