We Contain Multitudes — Part Three
By Geoff Holder
It turns out the human body contains trillions of microscopic organisms. Most live in the digestive system, but they’re also distributed through other tissues and body parts. The majority are bacteria, but there’s also many species of archaea (I understand these to be not bacteria, but like bacteria), fungi, and something called protists, which, as far as I can tell, are organisms that are not animals, plants, or fungi, but are a whole different group that include algae, amoebae and slime moulds. I wish I’d paid more attention during my minor in biology at Uni. All these microbes are essential to our health, and they even help regulate brain chemistry, and hence may have an impact on behaviour. The exact make-up of a person’s flora will vary with factors such as age, diet, general health, pregnancy, medication and much more. Apparently human gut flora is almost as diverse as humanity itself. That saying about how “each of us contains multitudes” is literally true.
Dr Jayashankar also told us the phrase “gut flora” is outdated. The current term is microbiota, which is more accurate because amidst the bacteria, archaea, protists and fungi, there aren’t actually any plant species, that is, flora.
Until now.
In the microbiota of the crew of the Clarke, Dr Jayashankar had found microorganisms whose genome identified them as plants.
At first those of us unfamiliar with gastroenterology and related disciplines couldn’t see the implications. Yes, actual species of flora had been discovered in the human gut, and that was an incredible breakthrough, but why was it a problem?
Because, Dr Jayashankar, explained, it meant the biology of the crew had been changed. Changed by something.
But what? That was the crucial question.
Jinny Ramirez told Control, and they pondered, and said do more tests, and we did more tests. We didn’t know what we were looking for, so we did many more tests. It was Jean-Paul, our astrotechnician, who made the breakthrough. After the mission had been completed, the Clarke’s return journey had necessitated a long curve out beyond Saturn before returning to the inner Solar System. Analysing the mission log, Jean-Paul found a break in the recording lasting two-point-six seconds. His conclusion: far beyond Saturn’s orbit the ship had passed through a belt of unknown radiation. Radiation of a nature that could temporarily knock out some of the ship’s systems.
He didn’t need to explain further. Even I know radiation causes mutations.
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Geoff Holder is the author of more than 30 non-fiction books on the strange and the supernatural, including Zombies From History, Poltergeist Over Scotland and Scottish Bodysnatchers. His fantasy, sci-fi, horror and mystery fiction has appeared in over a dozen anthologies and magazines. He is also a produced genre screenwriter, a judge for the British Fantasy Awards, and a frequent public speaker on, perhaps not surprisingly, the strange and the supernatural.
Copyright © 2026 Geoff Dupuy-Holder
This one is enlightening and fascinating and I can't wait to keep reading.