THE FALL OF ROSENROT STATION

GOLD

ML MET 6023 two casualties at hands of GML dubbed demon - returned to floor 17 - remaining survivor is leading us to data mine and specimens.

He had been in the tunnels and warrens of this station long enough that it was taking him time to adjust to open space. He was no claustrophobe. It was a matter of danger. The tunnels were a one dimensional environment. Danger came from in front or behind. Here, in the open space of the pavilion, danger came from too many places to adequately check and paranoia was a universal constant.

They crossed the pavilion at Nicos direction. Nico and Sarah walked in front and Even followed, needlegun cradled in his arms, eye searching out every shadow and every dark place. The creatures were bold. He had no doubt that they would walk in the plain light if they desired. But it was the dark places where the brain, honed by two hundred thousand years of evolution on the African savannah, filled in the blankness and produced teeth and claws.

This side there were multiple passages, alcoves, corridors that arced off each other with perfect symmetry it was as if they had been involved in some Newtonian collision and their incidence angle equalled their reflection angle.

A light flickered on and off in one of the offices. It had a headache inducing regularity about it and Even tried not to see it. But when they were closer he glanced through the open door.

It was a conference room. There was a table of faux wood that grew up out of the prefab floor section as if an organic extrusion. It was ringed with chairs. Behind it was a projection board and a projector, marred by a spattering of black dried blood. Various slides were scattered about across the table. There was a wall screen on the left. A data terminal on the right.

These things he took in at a glance but what held his interest for a moment longer were the pods. Those fleshy pale extrusions hung on ropes of flesh from the wall in one corner. They were not yet big enough to be on the floor but they dripped biofilm creating their future nest. There had been several generations already in this room. The biofilm had practically covered all of the floor space and there were the withered heaps of previous pods. And he almost missed the half eaten corpse now left to rot, its colours of putrescence blending in with that biofilm

Not in there. Said Nico when he noticed Even had stopped.

Even nodded and tore himself away.

They followed down a short corridor and came to a door. Nico used a card on the scanner and immediately it opened.

Inside was a box shaped room with shutters down one side. There was a single terminal in the middle of the room. The room was otherwise blank and nondescript aside from the four vats down the far end. He could feel a static field in operating plucking at his skin as he moved down to see the tanks. These were large things, a meter at least in diameter and reaching from floor to ceiling. They were filled with a preservation fluid.

In the first was an eyeless morph. It was partially vivisected and its flesh flayed back exposing organs both familiar and alien. It's brain was exposed through an excision in its skull. It had a four chambered heart.

The next was the pale mutated hulk, covered in tumours of muscle and flesh. Again vivisected.

The third was that lifeform he had seen only once. Strong and muscular. Recessed and tiny eyes like a face made of a skull. It had a resemblance to the demon.

The last tank was empty.

Where is this specimen. He said.

There is a fourth form of the precursor that we know of but we were never able to kill or capture one.

Are there any other forms.

The genetic recombinant nature of the xenophage does not limit them, but we have never seen more than four. But anyhow that is not what you came here for. What you seek is over here.

Nico was at the terminal. He did something and the shutters rolled up.

Its a tissue bank. Stated Even.

Yes. Said Nico. These are all raw biological samples or cultures.

I want a tissue sample of what you found on Rubrum. The original before you started to modify it.

We don't have the original. Only a clone. The original was taken by a BSL4 lab higher up the food chain once they realised what Moreno had found.

Your lab.

No. However my lab did receive some cloned samples and when we evacuated here we brought the clones.

They're identical. The clones that is.

Even nodded his head. OK then he said.

Nico pressed a button and a robotic arm moved across then in. It stopped for a fraction of a second, moving faster and more precisely than any human arm could. It dipped straight down, gripped a slat vial and pulled it up out of the hydrogen aquifer.

The arm returned with the sample, placed it onto a conveyor belt, which extruded it through a slot in the glass. Even put out his hand and grabbed it.

What about the data.

It's here. Nico said. Just finishing downloading it. There is way too much data to fit on your palmcoder so I've copied it to a data slab.

How much longer.

Nico checked the terminal screen.

Five minutes. He said.

Afterwards you are to burn everything. The files. The tissue bank. All of it.

I can't do that without Morenos permission.

Even sighed. So be it. I'd advise you to terminate this research project. Those lifeforms you created do not seem at all useful.

They would have been. They just didn't work out as planned.

You used the morphs, the precursors, as templates.

Nico nodded.

Sarah.

She was down the end of the room looking at the creatures in the tank. When Even called she looked a moment longer then turned and came back.

Even held out the specimen to her and she took it wordlessly and placed it in the bag.

This was a project. She said. I heard Doctor Chyan talking of it. Project HK. It was meant to somehow save the station.

I cannot imagine how. Said Even.

Its done. Said Nico. All the research and development data we have. There were other labs involved but this lab did the initial extraction of DNA from the fossil finds.

We should leave now. Nico said.

There is one more place yet. Even said. It's on the way.