THE FALL OF ROSENROT STATION

ALGEBRAIC

Even stopped and looked back the tens of meters to the corner by which they had just come. The passage was narrow, taller than it was wide, uniformly lit, and empty of all but themselves, some dim shadows between the furthest reach of the arc lights, and the scattered refuse of a place hurriedly abandoned.

Whats wrong.

I do not know. He said. Not yet.

They went on following the confines of the corridor straight for about ten minutes, ignoring all side passages and openings.

Here. Said the synthetic. We can go through here.

They had come to an intersection. A passage, twice as broad as the corridor, branched off towards the right, terminating after a few meters against a horizontally split door that filled the passage. The door was secured by a secScan unit in the bulkhead beside it.

Even glanced back the way they had come. The corridor was visible for perhaps fifty meters obscured only by the shapes of a firebox or a spasm of looped ductwork about halfway or that single ceiling hatch that hung open. There was nothing to see.

Is it the only way. He said looking again at the door.

It was designated with a name and a number the only oddity in that it counted this as the 17th floor rather than its actual spatial position which put it on the 16th.

BCU7 17.468

He put a hand inside his collar and pulled up his chain which now, in addition to his credchip, carried the employee identity card Moreno had issued him.

He hesitated. With every use of his false identity came a chance of the station mainframe detecting and countering his deceit.

No. Said Sarah. It's not the only way. However this is shorter by a hundred meters.

He thought for a minute then stepped over to the scanner. With a tug the magnetic clasp detatched and he held the card in his hands.

Once he had swiped the card a ring of light around the unit blinked green. The door split apart, unevenly, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and each half withdrew up and down into their respective subfloors.

They were admitted then, both of them, into an interlock and then the door sealed behind them.

The light within the interlock  shifted to red. It was a dull red, of wine, of blood.

Close your eyes. Even said, closing his own eye.

Now came a millisecond pulse of hot white brightness. It was immediately replaced with a blue signifier illumination as the sterilising protocol switched to black light. Finally the room was lit green, and Even opened his eye.

His clothes steamed. They were hot to touch and he brushed his hands down the fabric over his arms and chest, causing the heat to dissipate faster.

The inner door opened and he was ushered forth into a crystalline white space. He stood in the middle of the room, blinking away an after glare.

To his right was a magnetron scanner. The bedslab was fully extruded from the torus and bloodstains were visible dried to blackness especially around the wrist cuffs where deep gouges scored the steel.

To his left were two alcoves, sealed with floor to ceiling plastic and, by which to enter them, plastic tunnels with valve seals. These units maintained a negative pressure and there was the constant drone of the air pumps for that purpose. The plastic was thick but partially transparent. It was pulled inward, by air pressure, against its steel framing. Inside were microscopes and biological probes and in one of them a culture bed, these glimpsed as if through clouded glass.

Lastly there was the second interlock. Their shortcut. But first he had realised some interest in the containment chamber. He moved over to its tunnelled entrance. There was an access pad that stood up on a post in front of the tunnel. He tapped in the command to open and immediately the front of the tunnel opened inward with a puff of air pressure.

What are you doing.

He looked at her. There's something inside that I want. He handed her his needler and she took it. Stand guard until Im done.

She nodded. Immediately she took up position with her back to the containment chamber and holding the needler with one hand supporting the other.

Even went inside the interlock and pressed a contact pad inside. The lid sealed behind him. He felt a slight pressure drop. For a second time he endured a blast of gamma radiation that left an imprint behind his eyelid. There was only blackness as always where his left eye should have been.

The inner door opened then, and admitted him to a spotless environment. The static field plucked at his skin the same way it plucked dust from the air. He went directly to the culture bed. Here were sealed biosafety cabinets with glass splash guards and sealed with more plastic. Interaction was through the pairs of glove like inserts. Inside was a mechanical dropper unit and trays of test tubes. Beneath those swirled a pale mist from the liquid hydrogen cooling unit. These were not experiments. They were finished cultures, preserved for later use.

He put down his bag and retrieved his last stasis jar. Then he took out his arcblade and activated it. With careful cuts he removed a square of plastic from the unit. Then he reached inside and removed one of the cylinders that held a bundle of nine test tubes. Each was sealed and labelled. The cylinder itself was labelled.

Xenophage culture V4.90

His hands were steady as he placed the test tubes into the stasis jar. He could feel the cold through the glass. Then he sealed the jar and activated the stasis.

After he had packed up he activated the emergency purge sequence on the cabinet he had breached. The samples that remained dropped down all at once into the liquid hydrogen aquifer and there was a searing blast of gamma radiation that sterilised the inside of the cabinet before shutters came down over the exterior of it.

Stepping over to the other cabinet he activated its emergency purge sequence also. He did not wait to watch the destruction.

He looked around the room making sure there was no storage units or freezer of samples. When he was sure the only remaining samples were in his bag he made his way back to the tunnel. Again he endured the blast of radiation. A few minutes later he stepped out into the unit.

Were there any problems. He said. He had his palmcoder and was adding an entry into the mission log.

ML MET 5450 recovered raw samples of the xenophage purged remaining samples where possible.

He got no response. Lowering his palmcoder he looked around and then looked everywhere again just to be sure.

Sarah. He said.

Sarah where are you. He called loud as he dared.

Shit. He said aloud after a bit.