"I can see approximately a dozen a day with my present schedule, if they are willing to get in and out with minimal conversation. Larger numbers help - as do more diverse samples, though samples from related individuals permits tracery of what's in common. I would want a chart of who is related to who."

"That's should be easy to provide, but I am not sure we have that many relatives?" Adam turns to his dad.

"We have several people that are related. There is you, me and your mother. Someone came along with their uncle and grandfather. Those dark-blue Brontos are a pair of siblings plus a cousin. There are others, but all in pairs. I will bring you the chart."

Adam nods and blinks. "Do you think that samples taken from different forms count?"

"That's a very interesting point, and one I would indeed like to pursue. I can determine if there's differences between the forms you all have?"

"I am not expert in your area, but it sounds possible. At least it would help us understand the situation, and we wouldn't mind giving out the extra samples."

He'll set up for that, then, and take the samples from anyone inclined to show off their alternate shapes.

Most of the crew shows up, including everyone with a relative on board and then some. Pool-shifters don't have a cultural taboo about nudity, but do find shifting in front of people a bit embarrassing (it is quite disgusting to look at). But they can solve the logistical problem easily enough.

The discarded skins only last a few hours, but Cohuatomahua can look at those as well.

That is something he's interested in doing, yes - diverse tissue samples can solve a lot of questions.

What similarities are present or not between all people, between relatives, between shapes of the same person, and between the same shape across multiple people?

Pool-shifters have the expected degrees of similarities/differences between the genes of various relatives. Though, one of them (Clotilda) has XY chromosomes despite having a body no externally different from any other woman in the crew (and her file mentions two pregnancies).

He soon finds out that all of them have an abundance of unusual microorganisms he encountered in Adam and Stephanos. And that they are literally everywhere in their samples. Furthermore, said organisms have variants themselves that neatly align with the shapes they're extracted from, and people who have sacrificed shapes to another shape have trace amounts of the organism sub-type associated with the sacrificed shape.

Adam and Stephanos (the two shift-dancers) appear to have yet another sub-type of microorganism, apparently not associated with any shape but present in all of them.

The woman likely has an intersex condition, or their magic enables easy and thorough transition. He'll make inquiries to rule out any oddities (discreet, on the off chance either state is taboo in their society).

The microorganisms seem his current best bet. Magic powered by such is rare, but not unheard of. (He's sorely tempted to see what happens if he injects the microorganisms into a test animal, but local regulations require he get approval for experiments like that, and this isn't fascinating enough to risk getting a mark on his record.)

He'll update the captain with his current results and theories, and ask permission to use samples in further testing, while also filing his planned experiment with the local oversight committee. 

Clotilda will clarify that the topic isn't taboo. Each times someone shifts their body changes according to a semi-idealized bodymap, which includes your gender. Apparently, genderfluid people can even have bodies of different sexes and some agender might even lose whatever equipment they have if they are more comfortable like that.

The captain is glad to know about the results. And after a few questions, approves of further testing. Though he comments that he doesn't think animal testing is going anywhere. Pools have no effect on animals.

Pity. But animal tests are easier to get approved, and it's easier to get tests on sapients approved if he's tried animals already. Their most likely path will involve careful testing on a volunteer - he'd first like to try and increase populations of the trace microorganisms associated with a sacrificed shape, see if that restores a shape without removing the power, unless Adam has a different experiment to suggest?

Adam has an additional experiments ideas: see if they can transfer microorganisms between shapes; see if they can transfer microorganism populations between different people. Though he guesses that Cohuato already considered those experiments for a later date.

Yes. Those seem riskier, so he's waiting on more experimental confirmation.

Once he gets that he will have volunteers for the process. Sofia will be there, not as a volunteer for the procedure, but as a walking painkiller.

The results are mixed.

Samson was among the volunteers and instead of getting back his Petram shape back, his power got a lot stronger. He can "hold" an object's inertia for a time and now he can do it for longer and affect a greater mass.

Another volunteer, named Primula, doesn't appear to have any obvious changes at first. Then she shifts into Umbra and gets the power to mildly heat up the surrounding air to protect against cold weather. It's a weak Ventari-Aestes power in an Umbra shape.

The other two volunteers just have their powers rebound into new ones. No obvious change in how strong these powers are.

"The thing with Primula doesn't immediately solve the shape restoration problem. And maybe we should see if we can make her power stronger like Samson's power. But it's promising, and I am pretty sure you will get most of ours mages to volunteer just for the benefit of extra powers."

"Interesting... Now that it's apparent increasing the numbers isn't dangerous, I might want to try direct genetic manipulation of the microorganisms - initially a reversible change to make them increase dramatically in number, combined with making conditions more ideal for them. That has the very slight risk I won't be able to turn the change back off in all of them, which could lead to an over-population, or could lead to rapid turnover, or could lead to random negative changes propagating quickly, but given that I can put a trace in to allow me to identify every descendant of the ones I modify it's very unlikely."

"Maybe a rapid turnover results in a power that changes constantly? I think if we something goes wrong we can just kill the affected shape, but it's good to be cautious."

More volunteers volunteer.

He attempts directly genetic modification - and when that doesn't go horribly, transferring the directly relevant microorganisms from one person with a shape to another who has sacrificed that same shape. Then a closer analysis of the microorganisms in a person with a shape, versus those in someone who has been modified to have similar levels, but lacks the shape, versus those in a control who has not been modified - primarily looking for any genes whose expression has been altered, but also for any other differences.

Sofia is providing anesthesia so his subjects don't experience pain.

That said, they still convulse and fall to the ground as their muscles are reshaped into new configurations, when they stop part of their bodies looks like melted over by acid.

Which is actually viewed as promising, because the end result looks like what you get when people are partially submerged by pool water. The result is a bit more twisted - one volunteer lost the use of that shape's leg - but in that general direction.

Microorganisms from an active shape have some behavioral changes. Mainly, organisms from an alive shape appear to interact more with the shifter's own cells, where the trace amounts from sacrificed shapes appear to interact more with the alive's shape microorganisms. After more research he can figure out associated genes with either behavior, though the process appear to be quite complex.

He'll spend a while analyzing the behavioral changes, and seeing if anything goes horribly wrong with modifying them in a petri dish, before trying to modify someone's microorganisms directly. (He'll also try to tweak the microorganisms in the 'partially submerged' results from the last experiment, see if he can't push them the rest of the way.)

(He also starts trying to replicate the pools, though that's obviously hard without an example to work from. But sometimes he can get a sense of epigenetic history, and see what state an organism used to be in, after he's worked with it long enough.)

Sofia has a volume limit on how many people she can affect, but she isn't the only source of anesthesia around. The volunteers that already went through are willing to go again.

Progress is slow, not only because of bureaucracy, but the experimenting is going slow. But the shapes appear to be changing, inch by inch and taking longer than one might expect if it was by a pool, but they are progressing.

Analyzing, epigenetic history points to a marked difference between people that are born with a shape and people that have acquired a shape by pool later in life. It's even tweakable, but doing so often results in the organisms dying off much faster.

The pool-shifters will be very interested in any reports he has to give.

"Have I talked to you about infusion?"

"Not that I recall. What is infusion, in this context?"