MYSTERY ON GRANLAB STATION

BY GREG GUERIN

When the piercing wail of GranLab Station's emergency signal roared out of the speaker, Renna Kighton knew instinctively that something had gone wrong in the virology lab. She had heard the signal's mind numbing high pitched cry on previous occasions but it was almost as if this time it had a more demanding tone, its dual notes declaring the need for unprecedented urgency. Of course it was most likely to be either a drill or a false alarm. Somehow since the new Section Manager, Dennis Macaby, had been appointed these had become commonplace He had already become renowned for his pedantic attention to safety guidelines. Regardless of that, Renna leapt out of the chair she was sitting in and headed for the lift at the end of the corridor at a run. She was so close to reaching success in her work in the lab that it almost guaranteed a disaster to set the whole project back; the people that needed her solution couldn't wait.

It seemed as though the lift took an eternity to carry her the short distance to the level above and that the doors paused for an eternity before sliding open, ignoring the insistence of the alarm signal. Renna confronted her worst fears as she came out of the lift and across to the reinforced transparent wall through which she could see into the sealed lab. At that point her perception of time reversed so that she experienced everything in slow motion whilst external time sped up. Renna's devoted assistant Natalie May was sprawled in a violent position on the floor, convulsing and foaming at the mouth in the semi-darkness of the automatically shut down lab. Scattered shards of broken glass lay around her like a warning not to touch. Her once white lab coat and the floor beneath her were both smeared with blood from her ears, eyes and nose which were haemorrhaging severely. Despite her attempts to deny herself the knowledge, Renna recognized the symptoms immediately. She had studied them in detail as part of her research; against all the safeguards meticulously put in place, Natalie had contracted human virus CD-100, so named because it caused cranial destruction within 100 seconds of reaching active metabolic phase in its most virulent genetic form; Natalie and Renna had been trying to beat the virus in its most potent guise.

With in-built habit Renna dashed to the rack and slung on a full body protection cover and respirator, at once noticing that one of the three hooks was empty. It was only when she turned back to help her assistant that she noticed a man crouched just a short distance away, staring silently through the glass. For some reason his presence shocked her nearly as much as the sight of her assistant in trouble, perhaps because he was the last person she would have expected to be there. She regarded his dirty dark blue denim overalls that revealed dark arms and a shirtless torso matted with sweat moistened hair, a muscular and perhaps too short neck. The peculiar face featured a flattened nose and thick lips topped with a dense knot of fuzzy hair. The man's eyes conveyed a mixture of fear and shock; they scared her. He said nothing. She remembered seeing him around before. He was some sort of work man who she'd never had reason to interact with. His name, she remembered, started with a C... Calajh.

Getting herself into motion once again she sealed her suit and threw the spare across to the man, motioning that she expected help. Once through the air lock she squatted down to examine Natalie. She had to try, but at this stage her area of expertise had already dissolved. The medtechs would arrive soon; their alarm system was connected directly to the lab. But then what could anyone do with her now? If the virus was treatable, it wouldn't have been the insurmountable problem to the new space colonies that it was.

She took Natalie's hand, unsure of what else to do, whilst Calajh paused beside her. " Calajh, right?" she asked.

He simply nodded once as if the detail was unimportant then rested his chin on his knee.

" You shouldn't really be in here, only qualified personnel, but I need an extra pair of hands. I want you to help me turn her over to help her breathe better."

They had just finished doing this when Calajh suddenly stood and backed away as the lab's speaker came to life with a high pitched squeak. Samual James, the systems engineer, was an immense man and when he strode up to the glass and pressed his face and hands against it his bulk blocked out the light, casting the spilt blood into shadow and making it look darker as if tainted.

" Oh Jesus Christ, what's happened here?" he demanded through a small gap in his bushy beard, his voice picked up by the intercom.

" Just stay out there," Renna warned with a hand motion. " She may have the virus. The other suit's missing anyway."

" She what?" Samual croaked.

By that stage the Section Manager, Dennis Macaby, had also arrived to investigate the source of all the fuss in person. He looked like a half grown kid in comparison to Samual, fully two feet shorter, his spotted, clean shaven complexion making him seem even more adolescent. He was only in his twenties, but he looked fit to deal with any situation dressed as he was in formal business dress, a brown tie securely fitted around his neck, a silver pen gripped tightly in one hand.

His tone through the speaker came out as though the situation was only a problem to himself as he said, " What's the situation here folks?"

If the 'situation' hadn't been so dire Renna might have groaned inwardly at his manner as she often did when she encountered him. Young upstart was the best way to describe the arrogant little...

" CD-100," she snapped impatiently. " Somehow this protective glass casing has smashed and Natalie's become infected. Where are the God damn medtechs anyway?" Looking down again she noticed the convulsing had settled and Natalie's breathing had become silent, if intermittent. Was that a good sign or a bad sign? Her mind was in too much free-fall to recall.

Macaby stepped away from the bunch, mumbling something into his communicator, then disappeared in a flash of movement. Good. If nothing else, he had a knack for getting things moving. She found herself wishing he would tell them to switch off the emergency signal so she could think again. The rest of them studied the bench where Natalie must have been working. The glass cover that normally spanned the whole remotely operated work area had a large, irregular opening broken into it and the internal contents were skewed everywhere within.

A sixth person appeared behind the glass then with whom Renna didn't attempt to make eye contact. It was her least favourite person in the Section, a thin lady with long brown hair and glasses called Persun Delany. There was only one reason she would have taken enough interest to come in the lab- to see if anything had gone wrong with Renna's work so that she could sneer at her failure. Renna preferred her many failures to Persun's safe but inconsequential projects. Persun wafted towards the glass like a stale aroma and poked her pointy little nose past Samual to sniff out what was going on. Her expression barely changed when she saw poor Natalie prostrate on the floor, helplessly twitching, still bleeding profusely. She said nothing.

Ignoring her, Renna helplessly watched the pool of blood grow. She wanted medtechs to rush in and give Natalie a blood transfusion to save her but at the same time she knew that the disease caused instantaneous break down of the blood vessels in the brain. Pumping blood into her would only cause more to flow out.

After what might have been a second or an age, Dennis Macaby's intensely concentrating face reappeared. At the same time the pitch of the persistent alarm signal dwindled until it had changed into a drawn out yawn with a greater volume.

" What's going on?" Renna put to her boss.

His business like manner didn't allow him to hesitate. " High priority emergency has been logged station wide. This Section is being sealed off and the rest of the station will be evacuated."

" When are the medtechs getting here? Natalie's looking pretty bad here."

" They're not," he replied matter-of-factly without a hint of emotion. " Too dangerous, we can't afford to risk anyone else. As I said the area will be undergo a total seal until we get this sorted out."

" You agreed to this?"

" I requested it. Get to work you lot, I want everyone on this- check for contamination, well you know, standard procedure." He liked to dictate orders whenever possible but he wasn't one to spell out the obvious when it was unnecessary. " I've got to get back to my office and start communicating with some people on this."

As he spoke she could hear the distant but unmistakable sound of the Section doors slamming shut, the hiss of the air pumps creating a vacuum seal. Already they were locked in.

" Who is in the Section?" Renna asked, wondering who could be assigned to what task.

" As far as I know," Dennis replied, looking around at all the faces in the room as if

counting them, " this is it. Mercurie's up in the residential end, off sick, so he says.

" Lucky for him," Samual added.

" What about Natalie? We have to do something for her." Just then Renna looked down and noticed she had stopped twitched, stopped moving altogether. It was already too late.

****

Calajh and Renna collected Natalie's lifeless body and placed it in a sealed cold storage unit through a door within the lab and then mopped up the blood and doused the area with enough viral steriliser to make Renna feel game enough to remain in the room to examine the scene. Despite her fear and grief, Dennis expected a full report straight away. She stood dumbly looking at the workbench that had released the cloud of death. She noticed that a vial that had contained a strain of the CD-100 virus had been smashed. As if that wasn't bad enough, the damage had also disturbed a number of other containers on the bench, some of which had live cultures inside. How had Natalie managed to break the glass anyway? It was meant to be ultra-strong, super-safe from cracking. It would have taken much more force to smash it than Natalie could have created even if she had fainted and fallen onto it. And she had always been an extremely cautious type of person, in fact tediously so when it came to mass-killing super-viruses.

That made Renna think about the very nature of the project. It was meant to prevent this type of death from occurring. This was the first time Renna had actually been confronted with the awful potency of the virus in person. Before hand, so she now realized, she had been totally removed from the reality of what this thing was actually capable of. She imagined the horror of the people in the expanding space colonies that had become infected with the disease. Its insidious nature allowed it to sit dormant in some victims long enough for them to enter a new station, and then before anyone had time to stop it, it would speedily rip through the population like so many flies with its millions of airborne cysts. If there were any survivors, no other station was mad enough to accept them, especially those belonging to rival nations. For better or worse, this virus had appeared in the Australian space community and had been contained to it. So far it had managed to reverse fifty years of development expansion and population growth- the once booming technological economy of the colonies had grinded to a halt. Every time an expansion was planned, it was thwarted by the virus. This went in hand with the rapid growth of other nations, especially African, that no-one had made any attempt to slow and meant Australia's place in the scheme of things and its scope to effect control was diminishing equally rapidly.

Still no one understood the true nature of virus CD-100. Sure Renna had mapped its DNA, isolated the genes responsible for its ability to create mayhem, but its origin was a mystery. Since it was confined to new space colonies, many dissidents of the establishment had swore blind that it was a result of the lack of funds spent on researching the evolution of microbes in space in conjunction with an expanding human presence. They argued that the unique conditions of space had caused rapid mutations to microbial genomes, that the screening of all Earthly diseases out of the population had left huge reserves of competitor free hosts for new diseases, ones which the species had not yet co-evolved with, adapted to with immune defences. Renna had heard this kind of talk even from some of the workers in her Section, particularly Persun, who had used it in the argument that Renna's work was inadequate.

There were more immediate issues at hand, however. Renna examined the work bench from behind the safety of the full air-isolation suit. It wasn't long before she noticed something that gave the whole incident a different spin altogether. She knew her work bench and the habits of her assistant well and she could see that two containers were missing from the area entirely and they had been stored close to an opened hatch in the glass. They were specially marked and made of an indestructible material, so they couldn't have been a part of the smashed glass that had hit the floor. One had contained a particularly virulent culture of the live CD-100 virus, the other an experimental antidote to the virus's effects, one that had been shown to chemically inhibit the action of the virus under laboratory conditions but that had not as yet been tested on humans. This led Renna immediately to a conclusion she didn't like; Natalie had been murdered so that the two containers could be removed from the area. What horrible purpose the thief had in mind for their prize, she shuddered to imagine.

Without wasting a further moment, Renna went to take news of her discovery to Dennis Macaby. He would be sure to take immediate action. With exorbitant haste she went through the series of decontaminating showers and treatments, each in a sequential air lock, before reaching the final booth where she had to feed her protective suit into a chute to be destroyed to be finally let out. Her footsteps clanged around her as she paced down the corridor.

****

Renna invited herself through into the cramped space of Dennis Macaby's office and planted herself on a chair opposite his desk with a squeak.

" I need to speak to you," she said with as much calm as she could manage. Natalie had been murdered.

" You've finished cleaning up and checked the virus was contained then, I assume, since you're here and not there," Dennis replied tersely from amongst a pile of documents, as if he felt they were more important than anything she might have to say. The rest of his desk was a clear, organized space taken up only by his systems console. The space behind him was an undecorated row of cabinets and communications equipment arranged neatly against the rear wall. This was in stark contrast to the way Renna kept her own work space.

" I believe what killed Natalie was indeed the virus," she told him, building up to her ground shaking news slowly, " but the virus never escaped the confines of the lab. None of the detectors have matched its genetic code outside. Not surprising, the autoseal mechanism is infallible."

" No chance of contamination then. Excellent. I'll be able to sort this ordeal out sooner than I expected and get the Section seal removed, if I can ever find the paper I'm looking for... oh here it is." He pulled out a sheet of yellow paper triumphantly. " Yellow for fatal accident report."

" I'm afraid it's not that simple."

" Don't worry, leave that to me. I'll have the technicalities sorted ASAP and then we can all get back to our regular work." He seemed to realize his insensitivity. " After we organized the funeral service that is. Must have been a terrible shock." His rigid facial expression conveyed nearly as little true sympathy as his tone of voice. He continued, " We all..."

" Dennis, Natalie was murdered," Renna blurted out suddenly.

Dennis fell silent and studied her like he couldn't focus on her any more. Slowly his handful of documents came to a rest on the desk. Finally, she had his proper attention.

" What in God's name do you mean?" he asked her as if she was mad.

" Natalie, she was murdered. Someone deliberately smashed the glass, released the virus. I know they were there because they stole two vials containing the virus and an experimental antidote. Not to mention one of the safety protective suits was missing and they are only used in emergency procedures. The rest of the time we operate totally remotely. Someone must have taken the suit to protect themselves from infection during the assault." There, she had said it and therefore made it real. She had to fight to regain control over her composure and hold back tears.

Her boss looked perplexed. " Is that all? That means nothing my friend. You are jumping to conclusions. It was clearly an accident, a terrible accident." The silver pen had magically reappeared in his hand and he waved it in her general direction, stared her down with his small eyes. " She accidentally breached the glass and was infected. As for the missing containers, how do you know? There was glassware everywhere. They could have been mixed up or broken. Probably you just moved them and forgot. As for the suit, that could have been mislaid or borrowed at any time. I suggest that you take some time to relax somewhere quiet and recover from the shock. When the seal is reversed I'll have a medtech look you over."

Renna's ire, already switched on by the taking of her associate's life, now switched to Dennis Macaby. Was he suggesting that she was temporarily insane? Her anger showed more than she really intended when she retorted loudly, " I know darn well where each and every container is at any moment and I'm telling you now that there are two missing. They were kept metres away from where the glass was broken in specially marked holders. Do you really think a slight woman like Natalie could have accidentally broken that glass?

" I think you should put away the accident report form and begin a proper investigation. We know how Natalie died, all we need to know is who did it and why."

Uncharacteristically, Dennis looked down at the desk for a moment and rubbed his eyes as if he needed to time to prepare an answer. Then shaking his head he rejoined her gaze and said softly, almost pleading with her to regain her sanity, " Renna, think about what you are saying. The Section is sealed and the nearest Section door had not been activated within ten minutes of the alarm going off. I checked the records in case anyone had left the area that might be contaminated. If someone committed murder, they are still with us. It would have to be either you, myself, Samual, Persun or that technician fellow, Calajh."

He meant it as an argument against her theory, but to her it only heightened her sense of fear. She hadn't thought of it earlier but it was true. It had to have been one of the five people inside the Section, someone other than herself. She was trapped in there with a killer.

" You're right," she agreed. " That means we'll have to be careful how we arrange the investigation. You'll have to get outside help."

" Please don't try to tell me how to do my job. I am in charge here and I have no intention of telling anyone about this crazy idea you've gotten into your head. They'd think I was the mad one."

" Then I'll find out who it was myself," she stated before she had time to think about how that might actually be possible.

Macaby's vehement response was final, there could be no mistaking that despite the youthful timbre of his voice and his lack of physical presence. He hadn't risen through the ranks of the accelerated learning system in such a short time without strength as a leader. He said, almost yelled, " There will be no investigation into this non-existent crime, official or otherwise, got it? I want you down in the basement waiting patiently in the rest room until I tell you otherwise. If you hadn't noticed, I like things to run smoothly and this has been as much of a hiccup as I need right now. Consider yourself relieved."

Renna didn't wait to be told again. She'd learnt from the beginning that Dennis' nature didn't allow him to reverse any decision, however bad, in case his petty but absolute authority was undermined. In fact she hurried from the office, feeling suddenly claustrophobic and suffocated. She decided to use the lift at the opposite end of the Section to avoid going back past the virology lab on her way downstairs. It was only the service elevator, cold and noisy, but she was too distressed to be bothered by that. The corridor bent around as it hit the side of the station and opened out onto the exterior walkway that headed towards the service lift. Here, for purely aesthetic purposes as far as she could tell, the wall and roof panels were made of a transparent material so that the blackness of space intruded into the station's interior. A quick, habitual glance told her that neither the Moon nor Earth were in view, but in full sunlight above her stretched the lengthy expanse of the station. The view shielded vision of the research complex where she was but she could see much of the central axis climbing up high above her and the distant knob of the residential complex at the far end. The station's spin around the middle of its axis could not be detected by sight with no reference point, only by the carefully balanced pseudo-gravity its spin produced at the two ends where the crew spent most of their time.

The large lift doors opened with a clang and she entered to a faint metallic smell and a dull yellow light. As she waited to go down she remembered that this very lift had probably been used just a short time ago to evacuate the large numbers of people on duty in other Sections of the research complex before being added to part of the sealed area for the quarantined workers convenience. Had there been panic? For a moment she imagined that the odour in the lift was the smell of sweat and fear. Then she realized nobody would have been too upset; there were often such drills happening on the station as a matter of routine. All of the fear belonged to her. Now the confined space of the complex, and the rat-tunnel of her Section had lost its sense of home. It had become a place she wished to escape from and never return. There was a murderer loose and there was nothing she could do about it.

Exiting the lift at the lower level she forced herself to walk calmly towards the rest room rather than running at top speed to the nearest cupboard she could lock herself inside of as she wanted to do. Her only ally in getting through this would be her brain. Surely the murderer would become obvious, if not by pure thought then by their actions in the coming minutes, or hours, until Dennis organized to release them from the quarantined Section? But what if Dennis was himself the culprit? Being in charge he could make sure Renna never worked again, charge her with criminal negligence. There had to be some logical reason why he had been so against an investigation. Maybe he had assumed no one would even suspect foul play. He had seemed rather shaken by her announcement that there had been a murder. Idiot! She should have thought this through before blurting out what she was thinking in front of Dennis, letting him know she was looking for a culprit, giving him a chance to stop her, perhaps for good.

Why would he do such a thing? There were numerous potential reasons. He could have organized it as a stunt to show that he was capable of handling mishaps with ease, use the experience to force his way up the ladder. People said he was ruthlessly ambitious and had little true regard for his subordinates. More likely there were political reasons behind the move. Perhaps he had infiltrated the organisation in order to be well placed for such a disruptive action. There were several powerful groups about known to protest the expansion of space colonies for various reasons. But surely Dennis wasn't capable of...

A sudden movement nearly made her jump out of her skin. If she had been able to draw any breath into her lungs she might have screamed.

" Relax, it's just me," Samual pointed out, holding her firmly by her arms as if physical stability would remove her fear. He had appeared out of the doorway of his work room as she passed it. " You're jumpy."

Renna had to breathe deeply to slow down her heart rate. " You scared me," she said.

" Come in for a second," he suggested amicably, " nothing much else for us to do. Got some news."

She allowed him to guide her into the medium sized room filled with Samual's communications and systems consoles. They sat by a desk, Samual wiping cream from his lips with the back of his hand and pushing a half eaten cake on a plate away. Renna had worked alongside the man for years now and despite his habit for being short with anyone who needed something from him and his occasionally unpleasant manner, she had no real conviction that he ever had anything going on in his head other than his immediate work or that he was untrustworthy. Besides, it looked like Dennis was the only one there in a position to be able to pull off a murder without invoking an investigation. She decided to sound him out.

" What would you say if I told you I thought Natalie had been murdered?" she asked.

He looked at her as though he had already expected her to say it. " Is that what you are saying?" She nodded once. " There's no way it could have been an accident."

" You sound sure."

" And you don't sound surprised. Doesn't that bother you?"

" Of course. It's just that I half suspected as much." He motioned the screen on the desk with a flick of his hand. " Here's my bit of news. I've just been having a look at what's going on around the station. The evacuation is complete. More importantly though, security has reported a theft in the evacuated quarters."

" Theft? Dennis never mentioned this. I was just with him."

Samual shook his head. " Dennis doesn't have the contacts in security I do. It hasn't been formally announced yet you see. Anyway it looks like someone has gone through nearly every employee's private quarters and taken off with anything of value. It's hard to tell with everyone off but they report likely theft of cash, jewellery, communicators. Quite a haul for half an hour's work. Bit much of a coincidence. We've had drills before and no one ever took it upon themselves to steal."

That gave new breath to her suspicions. What if Macaby made his real money by pulling scams like this? He hadn't been in the Section long enough for her to know him properly. There had to be a connection.

Engaging Samual's attention, she said, " I think I ought to tell you there's a chance Dennis Macaby had something to do with all this. He's refused to investigate the suspicious circumstances you know."

Now Samual looked truly surprised, appalled maybe. He said, " Macaby? Ridiculous. What would a man on his salary want with a few watches and a bit of cash? Besides, he's been shut up in here the whole time."

" So have the rest of us. You're the one who suggested a link. Surely Macaby of all people has the authority to slip out of a quarantine area?"

Again Samual shook his head dourly. " Yes I suggested a link, but not with Dennis. He has some powers but not to control security like that. I'd be more inclined to look in Calajh's direction if I were you. Those technicians have got mechanical tricks to get past any system security and I've seen him at work. You know there's a system of interconnecting ducts throughout the entire station that only the technicians know how to work in? Even I have never dealt with them. I bet he'd know how to get around that quarantine restriction. He's clever with his hands that boy."

Renna thought back to how she had rushed to the lab to see what was happening. " He was right by the lab when I arrived," she said, thinking out loud. " Wasn't doing anything to help her. Actually I don't think he said a thing the whole time. What was he doing there?"

" Exactly. And who out of the whole Section would be the most in need of financial gain? You know what his sort are like. The African space settlements are so economically weak they have to send their unemployed over to places like this to do base level jobs. Their families are so poor they'd do anything to grab a buck."

Samual was more than certainly overstating his point, but there was no denying the merit of his argument regarding the situation on GranLab. There was a huge pay differential between the Macaby's and the Calajh's. It would only be worth the risks involved in the scam for someone on a lower pay packet. Renna had been getting ahead of herself in attributing motives to her boss. She should have had more faith in the company leaders who had screened him for the job. But Calajh could easily have slipped into the organisation as a lesser technician and the crimes had clearly been committed by someone who needed a fast source of money. From now on she would keep an open mind and see where the bare facts took her.

Dennis had sent her to the rest room, perhaps because he really did believe she was in shock. Heck, maybe she had been. But the situation was real. Samual's backing had assured her of that. So there was no way she could sit and wait, hoping it would go away. Someone had to act. She found her determination to stop a criminal welling up enough to crush the fear for her own personal safety.

She thanked Samual for the information and stalked away down the corridor. The Section was only a small area and she felt sure she could find Calajh easily enough just by exploring on foot, assuming he hadn't made a run for it and managed to leave the Section or the station altogether. She considered getting someone else to come along with her but as far as she knew only Samual suspected murder and she didn't want his lack of subtlety to interfere. Besides, whether Calajh had killed in cold blood or not, she was pretty sure that in an unplanned hand to hand struggle she would be able to match it with the lean fellow, at least long enough to attract some attention.

Eventually Renna came across Calajh hunched in a corner in the dim expanse of the foyer adjacent to the main Section door. When he heard her arrive he swung around to face her, a screw driver held firmly in his hand. He seemed to soften when he recognized her, however and nodded in greeting. Had he been covering his tracks after getting back in through the Section doors? Perhaps, but she wasn't about to startle him with such an allegation. Instead she took a gentle step towards him, forcing a tight smile onto her lips.

" Hello there Calajh. I was wondering what you were up to." Innocuous enough?

He gave her a weak return smile and slotted the tool into a pocket in his overalls. "Hello Miss," he whispered in a coarse but understandable accent. He waited for her to speak.

" What are you doing? Didn't Macaby order everybody to 'wait patiently'?"

" I usually get instructions from Sam. Jus' keeping busy, do a few jobs while we wait. Hate standing still Miss. Loose panel here, need fixing." He stood aside and showed her what he meant. " Macaby never notice me anyways."

" Calajh, is there any way out of the Section?"

" No Miss, none. Full quarantine." He pointed at the doors with a long-nailed finger. " All shut."

" Yes, I know the Section doors are sealed, I was just wondering if there was any other way in and out. I understand there is a system of ducts?"

" Sure. Use the ducts to get 'round for fixing. But not out of Section during seal. Quarantine status makes all seals shut up. All ducts closed. Check computer if you like. Miss, why you want to get out?"

She should have expected this sort of response. For a start, if he was the criminal, he would hardly be likely to reveal to her the means by which he committed the crime after one simple question. But the young man had such a simple and honest demeanor. He met her eyes fully and watched her with a look of genuine innocence. That much could be faked, she supposed, but had he spoken the truth? Suppose he had? It would make more sense than if the station's advanced quarantine system, necessary for the control of dangerous biological entities, had gaps in it, if there was a simple way for not only microbes but for humans to escape a quarantined area. There was no conceivable way the designers of the station could have allowed it. The area had to be totally sealed and therefore the theft had to be nothing more than an opportunistic strike. Besides, why had the two vials, virus and antidote, also been taken?

Renna rested her back against the rim of an air-conditioning outflow and folded her arms. " This has all come as a shock," she began nonchalantly, " Natalie dying and everything. I was just sitting there minding my own business when BAM, the emergency signal went off. I can't believe it."

" Yes, bad thing."

" How did you get to the lab so fast after it happened? I mean, you looked like you'd been there a while even when I was just arriving."

Calajh didn't hesitate, replying perhaps unnaturally quickly as if he had a pre-prepared response. " Working on that lift Miss, by the lab there. Doing repairs on the electrics, oiling the runners. Good thing that. Was me that set off the alarm from by the lab there."

" You set it off?"

" Of course. Very worried. Other Miss lying on floor. Very bad. Didn't know what else to do, until you came."

Renna didn't know what to make of his responses. It seemed all too convenient for him to have been working on the adjacent lift well at the exact time Natalie's attacker had been in action. But then, why did he raise the alarm? Was it to deflect suspicion from himself so that he could be seen in the area?

" How did you know something was wrong?"

He appeared taken aback by that question, his brows creasing together. He scratched the ball of hair tied on top of his head. " Glass Miss. Loud smashing sound. I hear it from the lift easy. Opened the lift door, looked through into the lab, saw Miss..."

" There was no one else there?"

" No... why you ask?"

" It's just for the report, that's all. Never mind, it's not important. See you later Calajh."

She turned and walked away as he retrieved the screwdriver and set immediately back to work. A minute later she found herself rapping vehemently at Samual's door, calling out his name. When he opened the door, pale with surprise, she forced her way past him into the room then spun to confront him.

" What's your game then?" she demanded angrily. " What a load of old bull you fed me about the thefts."

Samual held both palms up in front of him defensively. " What are you on about?"

Renna deliberately dug the nail of her finger into his chest. " You know. This story that Calajh is so tricky, he'd know how to get past the quarantine seal by using the ducts."

" What about it?"

" It's bull, that's what. Calajh could no more get past the seal than I could. As if the system would allow breaches so easily. We are dealing with deadly microbes in here you know."

" Of course I know. Look it seemed reasonable enough. I don't know everything about the security system, only its components accessible through the computers. Calajh is far more knowledgeable with the hardware."

" Your whole theory is wrong. There's no way Calajh could have pulled off the murder and the theft. So where does that leave you?"

As Samual's voice rose to match Renna's his face seemed to grow paler. " It leaves me the same place you are, nowhere. What about your theory on Dennis being a murderer? Do you think the others'd be impressed if I told them about that one? Besides, what's to say Calajh didn't kill Natalie to create a divergence for someone else to go through and rob the residential area, huh?"

" You tell me? Check your computer. Surely they've done a check to see if anyone is still present up there. Well?"

Samual flopped into a seat as though his legs would have given way soon anyway. He sighed with agitation and ran the check. " OK," he resigned, " you're right, there doesn't appear to be anyone running around unaccounted for up there."

Renna found she couldn't let him off. His two-faced bitter personality goaded her. " Come on Samual, you knew exactly what you were doing you calculating bastard. You deliberately tried to lay the blame on Calajh, just because you don't like him, didn't you?"

" Look, I admit I don't always like the personnel I'm forced to work with, but you're getting worked up over nothing."

" Garbage. Besides, making Calajh look bad isn't reason alone, is it? You had to be the big man didn't you? Someone less rational than myself might suggest you were trying to dodge suspicion yourself."

The sudden contrast between Samual's red-tinged cheeks and the white of the rest of his features made him look like a different person. " Are you accusing me?" he blasted from his chair. " What sort of psychotic maniac are you? What possible sludging reason could I have to do a thing like that? Well?"

" No, I'm not accusing you. I don't claim to know who's responsible. I'm just..."

" You're just bleeding mad, that's what you are. I've heard enough of this."

Renna held firm against his harsh anger. " Can you explain why you bad mouthed Calajh then? It sounds awfully bigoted," she said.

" Explain what? A thought off the top of my head? I'm under stress. Someone I knew well has just died and you come in and tell me it's murder. Don't you think I'm under a bit of mental strain here? I'm as upset as you are and not feeling a hundred percent. This business is enough to turn my stomach I tell you."

" Well stop giving me thoughts off the top of your head and start thinking about it," Renna screamed back, her mind a maze of adrenalin and confusion, not allowing her to back down.

" I'm not discussing it with you any more OK? Probably we both got it wrong, probably it was just a stupid accident. Probably we'll never know anyhow. Now leave me alone. I'll be waiting in here until Macaby signals an end to this blasted quarantine. This place makes my skin crawl enough when I'm not stuck in here."

Despite his strong outburst, he sat hunched over the desk as though his anger had drained him of all his energy.

Renna stood watching him, feeling shaky. Eventually Samual screamed, " GET OUT."

****

Renna wouldn't have been surprised to discover she had lost her mind. What had she been thinking needling Samual like that? Had a few words really been enough to cast a shadow over his character? Stress like this would affect anyone, Samual and herself included. Now that she'd had time to think about it, lying (without much success at relaxation) on a couch in the rest room, she decided he had been right in any case. Right that the idea of suspecting anyone of involvement was probably madness. Her stress levels must have risen to such a degree that she had become horribly paranoid, perhaps an unconscious inability to accept the fact of Natalie's death. A good run in the zero gravity gymnasium, in the axis of the station, with her regular companions, preferably Barry, would probably do her nerves some wonders once she was allowed out. Calajh was as harmless and unsophisticated as a church mouse and Samual had no reason to kill anybody, least of all a close colleague of his. Dennis was too much of a strict academic to have plans outside of his paperwork.

But who would that leave if there had been a suspicious involvement, hypothetically speaking? Only Persun Delany, her arch rival in terms of workplace competition. Was she capable of such an act? There were motives outside of creating distractions to rob the station and Persun had a good one. She could have wished to create a disastrous set back to Renna's project out of mere spite, or even to improve her own chances of being given the lead role in the prestigious if morbid project. But she couldn't imagine Persun violently attacking someone, even if all she had to have done was break the glass and make sure the right person copped a lung-full of the virus. She could perhaps have set it up as a booby trap, making it a bit easier to stomach. If Dennis had agreed to an investigation, they could have got someone in to search for evidence of it. But apparently his idea of being meticulous didn't involve being open to the obvious.

Suddenly Renna found herself back on two feet, pacing to and fro across the short distance between the walls of the rest room. Then she found herself heading out of the exit. She would go mad waiting alone for the quarantine to be over. She never had been able to sit still for long but the tension the uncertainty placed on her made her even more fidgety. Her adrenals were constantly pumping as if artificially wired. She had to confront Persun, if only to burn off some nervous energy with someone she knew already had no respect for her and hopefully assure herself she wasn't involved at the same time. Persun was a mean and sneaky woman but her weakness was her inability to hold back what she was really thinking in an argument. If she had anything to hide, Renna would shake it out of her. Where else was there to look for facts anyway?

At that point another thought struck her. What if, for whatever perverse reason, someone had indeed set a booby trap in the virology lab. It would have most certainly have been intended for her rather than Natalie. Killing an assistant technician was hardly likely to slow the project down or create publicity compared to Renna herself. And if they had been game enough to try something that crazy once, they might be willing to have a second crack. Renna was probably in mortal danger, perhaps not from a direct assault, but from somewhere she would least expect it. She reminded herself gravely that someone in the Section had in their possession a vial of virus CD-100 and, equally importantly, a protective body suit and antidote.

She found Persun in her own work area fiddling around with glassware. She sped across the floor and approached her, hoping to catch her unawares. Unfortunately, as far as she could see the only thing the unexpected visit had interrupted was a bit of routine washing up. Persun was one of those wholly irritating types that had to keep everything spotless and in neat rows at all times. People like that always looked organized but in Renna's experience it was no way to perform real work.

Looking up from the sink over the top of her glasses, Persun said, " Renna. What are you doing here?"

Renna hadn't visited the lab now for months but its disinfectant smell was apparently undying. She came to a stop uncomfortably close to the where the woman was standing.

" Came to find out what you know about the accident."

" The accident? What should I know about it? Your lab. Not surprising, the mess you keep the place in. Always something to trip on." She gave Renna a forced sarcastic smirk that only took effect in her cheek muscles.

" Yes, you seem to poke your nose in there rather often wouldn't you say?"

" So?"

Persun placed the last of the glassware on the sink and flicked water off her hands as she walked to the end of the bench to wipe them. Renna followed her closely.

" So you tend to take more than a healthy interest in my lab don't you?"

Persun paused to look at her. " And? Is there something wrong with keeping up to date?"

" Come off it Persun. You know as well as I do there's no love lost between us. You'd do anything you could to make me look bad, to get your hands on my project and get your name into the spotlight."

" Don't be ridiculous."

Persun turned away again and made to continue with some work on the opposite bench but she just fumbled through a container of equipment randomly. Renna could tell she was rattled already, struggling to keep her cool.

" It's not ridiculous. I'll bet it was you that got Macaby on our backs the other week about safety regulations, wasn't it? Anything to slow us down. Don't you care about the people that are relying on us to make a break through? The economy's at breaking point for Chrissakes."

" Why would I bother wasting my time worrying about what goes on in your lab? I've got better things to do. You're just aggro because it's your fault Natalie's dead."

" What?"

" You heard. If you had kept to the regulations, this wouldn't be happening. Everyone knows how slack you are about that stuff. Oh sure you have your bugs kept under lock and key but what about the rest?"

" There's nothing wrong with my work methods. Why don't we just bring up what this is really all about eh? Face it Delany, you can't handle my success because it makes your failure of mediocrity seem all that much worse seeing as how we started our apprenticeships in the same year at GranLab Central. You've been jealous of the projects I've been assigned to since we started. You can't stand it."

Persun's eyes glared back at her viciously and she raised her voice. " The only thing about you I can't stand is your arrogance and your assumption that the whole world revolves around you. What makes you think you're so important that I'd waste my time being envious?"

It had worked. Persun's thin shell of calm was cracking. She had to apply more pressure. " Well you applied to do the CD-100 project yourself, it's on record and when you didn't get it you took a week off sick, sulking probably. You've been planning to get back at me ever since."

" Planning what exactly, your paranoid delusions?"

" You know what. Natalie May was murdered and you're the only one with a personal vendetta against the CD-100 project. Tell me why you won't be considered a suspect when the investigation begins."

" You mad cow. Since when did you become a detective? It was an accident, anyone could see that."

" Then how do you explain how that glass broke, how two vials went missing? It had to be someone. Can you see Macaby, Samual or Calajh having reason to so something like that?" Privately, she could simultaneously imagine all of them and none of them committing this horrendous crime; there were vague motives, but the reality of the deed was something different.

" No, of course not, but that doesn't mean anything. Look I'll prove it to you if I have to."

She walked across the room and fiddled with the controls of a screen that soon flicked to life. There was a blur of images as Persun manipulated the controls then she stood away and Renna could see it was video footage of Persun's lab. She moved closer to get a better look, noticing it showed Persun from above at work behind a bench, mixing fluids in a flask over heat. Renna looked up and noticed the protruding arm of the security camera coming out of the roof. It was typical of Persun's paranoia and fear that she had put the camera in. No other area in the Section had them.

" Exciting," she commented. " So what?"

" So look at the time." She pointed at a series of numbers at the foot of the screen. They indicated that the footage was taken at the exact time of the accident. To Renna's surprise and chagrin, the footage continued to even show Persun suddenly look up and run from the room at a time corresponding to her appearance in the virology lab.

That ruled out Persun as a direct candidate unless the lab had been booby trapped earlier. But lab security was high and Persun surely could only have entered the lab if either her or Natalie had let her in and given the professional rivalry between them, neither of them were likely to have left her alone for long enough to set something like that up. She really couldn't continue to go around accusing everyone like this, just to appease her own tension and find out a few inconsequential facts. Well, she had already accused everyone now anyway. Yet the fact remained the accident was suspicious.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Samual's bulk appeared in the doorway.

He stood leaning against the frame, panting and sweating profusely from his brow. He looked distressed.

" Oh, there you are. You don't stay in one place for long do you?" He paused to take a few breaths. " I've got something to show you. Come with me, both of you."

Letting the heat fade, Renna and Persun looked at each other in joint curiosity. Without further word they followed Samual as he led them down the corridor, his thick blue woolen jumper bobbing up and down in front of Renna's face. She could smell his sweat and hear his wheezing breath. He might not have been overly fit but obviously he had seen something that had got his heart beating.

They followed the big man until he took them through a series of lesser used corridors, one of which ended in a secondary Section door. The extra reinforced frames and warning symbols plastered around it identified it from any normal doorway. As Renna approached the doors she picked up a faint hint of ozone in the air. Samual flipped a light switch then stood aside, pointing.

To Renna's amazement, she saw that there was a gaping hole in the center of the Section door, straight through the foot thick metal to the other side, leaving apparently live wires protruding. She moved forward and examined the breach carefully. It was irregular in shape but with smooth curves as if someone had deliberately cut it out. There was no sign of any debris on either side. She felt the texture of the smooth looking cut, amazed at how clean it was. The hole meant two things, so far as Renna could tell. One, the quarantine seal was broken and two, someone had burnt this hole through the Section door and had been into the rest of the station. The angles of the cut told her it had been made from the inside.

She looked back at Samual who appeared to still be catching his breath. He was bent over slightly and had a hand pressed to his abdomen as if he had the stitch.

" What do you make of this?" she asked.

" Obvious isn't it?" he replied with agitation.

" How could this happen? Aren't these doors impenetrable?"

" Nothing's impenetrable. Looks like someone used an atom separator to burn through."

" What's that?" Persun asked, also now inspecting the damage closely.

" An atom separator? It's a hand held device that basically destroys any chemical bonds in its action range. The atoms all become single and burn off into the air. It can go through anything."

" Who'd have one of them?" Renna asked.

Samual grinned bleakly. " Well technicians mainly. See, there was a way he could have gotten out."

" He must have used the same instrument to break the glass in the lab, making sure Natalie would cop something fatal. Then he waited for word that the evacuation was under way and cut his way through here to get to the residential end, snuck back in before any of us had missed him."

Renna said, " Why wasn't the alarm set off by the breach? There's still no reaction now."

Samual shrugged. " Calajh must have bypassed the system. That kid's a whiz with wiring.

Persun raised a hand. " Hang on a minute. What are we actually talking about here?"

" Didn't you know?" Samual panted. " Someone robbed the residential area not long after Natalie died. We suspected Calajh had something to do with it but couldn't figure out how he'd done it. He probably killed Natalie to make a distraction then did this. Pretty crude really."

Persun looked fuming mad. " Why didn't anyone tell me? You mean I have been locked up in here with a murderer?"

Renna looked down the corridor as if her instincts told her Calajh could be heading towards them. " Looks that way," she said quietly as she realized knowing who had been responsible wouldn't make her feel any more at ease. " I better go see Macaby again. Even if he still won't start an investigation he'll have to deal with the quarantine breach."

As if on cue she heard light footsteps coming down the corridor and soon saw the diminished shape of the Section Manager, Dennis Macaby, heading their way. As he came closer she saw that his features were uncharacteristically lined with fatigue or stress.

" I was wondering where you were all hiding," he said sternly, looking past them at the gaping hole in the Section door. " Great, another headache to deal with I see. Just who took it upon themselves to be relieved from Section quarantine?" For some reason he faced Renna as if he expected her to be responsible for everything.

" I can't pretend to know what's really going on here, but it's beginning to look like Calajh did this," she replied with regret. " and if he did this, maybe he was responsible for the rest..."

" Never mind," Macaby cut in over the top of her. He clearly hadn't been listening closely. " After today I'm willing to forget about it, put it under general maintenance expenditure. I'm sure all of us had fears about contracting CD-100, Calajh most of all given he knew nothing about it. He's only human, trying to get out of here."

Persun blurted out, " But Dennis, you can't let him get away with..."

Again he cut in, " Look, I've decided. We can't be seen to be persecuting employees from other nations over minor incidents like this." He indicated the damage with a nod. " There are politics involved in these things you know. We are trying to build some trust. Besides, it doesn't matter. The quarantine procedure will be over in just one hour. I've cleared it. The lab itself has been sealed right from the start and its sterile now so we should be OK. Just sit tight until then and we can get back to normal."

With that he turned and strode back away down the corridor leaving Renna defeated and shaking her head in disbelief.

" Don't worry," Samual rasped, drips of sweat pouring of his brow, " when we get out of here we'll make sure someone above Macaby hears about this. Calajh won't get away with it."

Renna looked at him with concern. His cheeks were so pale he looked as though he might fade out of existence altogether. He was sweating as if he'd just popped out of a sauna and he had dark rings under his eyes. " Never mind about him for the minute," she said softly. " What about you? You look as sick as a dog."

" Ah it's nothing," Samual dodged, flicking her concern away with a weak hand movement. "... just puffed." He began to move away.

" Garbage. Look at you. You look like you just ran a marathon. Let me look at you."

She tried to approach him but his big hands held her away. His face was a mix of irritation and pain. " It's nothing, leave me alone."

" Nothing? Are you crazy? You could have contracted CD-100. We better get you tested straight away. Even if it's too late, we'll need to extend the quarantine."

" Stop pestering me. If I had the virus I'd be dead by now wouldn't I?"

" We don't know everything about the virus, sometimes it has a dormancy period...," she called out after him in vain as he trod away down the corridor, swinging an arm at her in denial of her argument.

She shook her head at his stubbornness and followed slowly after him, ignoring Persun completely.

****

Renna stood in full concentration over a systems display screen in a small room where she thought nobody would accidentally bump into her. Despite everything, Macaby had refused to do anything but extend the temporary quarantine to the next Section, insisting that the hold up would be over in a short time. Unfortunately that short time felt like an age to Renna, knowing there was a killer on the loose that was going to walk free. She had to try to make as good an argument as possible if she was going to give convincing Macaby another crack. Especially since she herself still had no real idea who the killer was or who was involved. Even if Calajh was the only person that could have got through those doors, he could have done it for any reason, not necessarily related to the murder.

It had paid to be friendly with Barry, the security officer who regularly worked out in the zero gravity gymnasium with her. He had been more than happy to supply her with codes that enabled her to access the security databases. Not to mention the equally enthralling reward of a fit, masculine body loaned to her for casual encounters. Until now she had memorized the codes only as a form of abstract insurance. She had never expected to actually need them or dare use them.

Carefully punching in the required codes with a momentary pang of guilt, she opened the files kept on individual employees to look closely at Calajh's history. There would probably be nothing there of significance but she thought she might at least be able to better understand the quiet man's background. Surprising then that there was a vast wealth of information on him on the database. Not only the typical detailed previous employment history which showed he had handled many laboring and maintenance jobs since he was a teenager, but extra pages on his outside-of-work activities. Renna read with amazement as she scanned the carefully collected reports that he had been highly active in amateur politics for many years, held high positions in organizations promoting African nations' space expansion whilst campaigning, often violently, against the Australians and Americans. These groups, the information told her, were opposed to the domination of space and its resources by a few western states. They were the kind of groups that had been suspected by some of engineering virus CD-100 for release into new space developments to stop the growth of competing nations.

It seemed remarkable that Calajh had been given any form of employment on GranLab Station given that his past as a political activist, openly opposing such operations, had been right here for security to see. But perhaps it was true that the senior administrators never bothered with clearance checks on minor staff. It made her fume to think that people's lives could have been placed at stake by such negligence. But then, how did all this dirt on him end up on the system? Someone out there had to be keeping tabs on him. Going by the information, Calajh could theoretically be attributed with the motive of wanting to set back the work they were doing to stop CD-100's reign over development. How the theft fitted in with that she wasn't sure. An added monetary bonus to his courageous work? A ploy to deflect suspicion of political motive? This new angle made Renna want to vomit in fear. What if Calajh had intended to kill the chief scientist but got confused? What if she was herself still on the hit list? Again she felt herself to be in the center of danger.

Quickly she backtracked and searched for records of the work Calajh had officially been assigned by Samual James. That might tell her if the supposed attack had been premeditated and planned or was an opportunistic thing. The record plainly told her that Calajh had been given an urgent message to see to the lift adjacent to the virology lab that very morning. That had given him a legitimate excuse to be in the area, she supposed, but why on Earth hadn't Samual mentioned this before? He had in fact dodged giving her that piece of information when she had asked him what Calajh might have been doing. This situation was getting fishier all the time. But then, Samual was obviously feeling a bit under the weather. Could it have simply slipped his mind that he had instructed Calajh to work on the lift? No, Calajh may have been responsible for the act, but Samual definitely knew more than he was letting on and was now taking steps to avoid blame. She went to the employment records and was partly surprised to read that Samual had recommended Calajh to be chosen as his technician. He seemed to hate the man yet there was obviously something happening between them. And what of the Section breach and theft? Had they been working together, combining their knowledge of the systems and hardware of the station to sidestep the security systems? When she tried to check this, she was prompted several times for different passwords that she had to strain to remember. Finally the records came up. Of course there was no record of the Section breach, otherwise the alarm would have been raised. But there was a record of an unspecified authorized programming operation on the alarm system, just one hour ago. It had to be Samual, but had he tried to shut off the alarm or had he been legitimately trying to see why the alarm didn't go off once he had discovered the damage?

Whilst she ruminated over that, Renna decided to clear the screen and bring up the records for Dennis Macaby and Persun Delany. Macaby's file was as neat and clean as an advertising brochure with sterling reports of excellence from previous employers, even a cheesy photo of him sitting behind his desk with a half smile forced onto his face. It was squeaky clean, almost excessively so. Nobody could have gone through life without picking up at least one or two negatives on their file. GranLab made a policy of placing all recorded information on the security database. But this looked as though Macaby had hired his own personal PR executive to manufacture the information for him. Somehow Renna had the impression that it was the resume of a man that was imaginary, as if a spy had been slipped into the station in the guise of a high achieving specialist manager, manufactured by the government of some jealous nation or powerful sect.

Switching to Persun Delany's file, she scanned rapidly through the previous work history which she already knew thoroughly after having worked with or near her for many years. She went to a file she had set up herself that listed all queries on the station directed to the CD-100 project, detected by a trace she had installed in secret; Samual was not the only one with a few computing tricks up their sleeve! There were repeated records of Persun having attempted to access files on the CD-100 project, some quite recent. All were denied. Next she found herself speeding through vast databases and searching out records during the time Natalie had been killed. With adrenalin heightened vehemence, she entered codes she wasn't meant to know and called up records from the security camera fitted in Persun's lab on the station security database. Quickly she entered the time of the video she had seen and called up the stored images.

The record lit up the screen and Renna squinted at the poor quality distorted image of the lab looking down from the roof. She checked closely before concluding that Persun had not even been present in the lab at the time of the incident. When she had checked and double checked the times and dates, her head started to spin. Persun must have deliberately fabricated the video with the intention of using it to prove her innocence. It had worked at first but it was a ploy that was destined to fail since the official log could not so easily be edited. Of course, her security officer friend had once whispered in her ear that Persun had not been informed that the camera had been installed to feed direct to security and not just to her own computer as she thought. She had been so confident in her own safety that she hadn't even bothered to switch the camera off at the crucial moment. Moreover, it was surprising to find that Persun had her fingers in the guilty pie too, perhaps even more so than any of the others. For them, there was no actual hard evidence that proved without a doubt they had done it, only vague possible motives and opportunities. The video scam implied that Persun had a premeditated plan to destroy the CD-100 project.

Persun Delany was dangerous, the real killer who had somehow managed to play the others off against themselves to avoid blame. This led to a horrible thought. What if Persun had taken their earlier debate seriously? She would think that Renna was on to her. There were only so many places she would have to look in order to find Renna in the small Section. She would be left with only one feasible option, one she had already proved herself capable of...

With a loud cracking noise the door of the small room slapped open behind Renna. Gasping she tried to swivel around to see who had opened it, but a pair of hands had already grabbed her and were wrestling with her. The intruder managed to pull one hand behind her back and hold her in a head lock. She summoned all the energy in her muscles and tried to break free. A second later she felt a sharp sting in her right upper arm, and turning she managed to catch sight of the hypodermic needle jutting out of her flesh, its fluid already pumped into her veins.

****

Renna's attacker pulled her away from the bench and dragged her out of the room, holding a hand to her face to stop her screaming. They took her into a side room, slamming the heavy iron door shut after them. She was tossed across the bare storeroom with great force and cluttered to the hard floor by the far wall. She looked up as the light was turned on and saw the hairy, sweat moistened form of Samual James towering over her. The cold bastard looked no different from usual, apart from the panting and sweating. He didn't even look angry.

" You don't look so smug now," he commented before leaning his back against the wall and holding a hand to his abdomen once again.

Renna wasn't about to let him intimidate her. She said, " What are you doing you psychopath?"

He looked at her, perhaps with genuine surprise. " You were getting too close for comfort. I put all that stuff about Calajh on the system in case anyone needed more reason to suspect him. But I didn't think you'd check the work orders. Been feeling that bad, forgot to edit the record. Couldn't risk you saying anything. I also noticed you were checking up on the Section breach."

" How were you involved?"

" Involved? Work it out yourself. I'd hardly need to take this action if I was innocent would I?"

" You're a moron Samual. What are you going to do now, kill me too? Are you tough enough to use more force on someone half your size?"

" That would hardly be necessary either," he said, now stooping to a crouch. " That injection I just gave you contained the contents of the vial I took from your lab labeled CD-100 virus, strain 123, or something like that. All I have to do is wait and make sure it starts before I get the hell out of the way when you get contagious."

" That's ridiculous, everyone will know what you've done to me," Renna argued, deliberately trying to hold her mind to criminal logic rather than absorb what she had just been told, although recalling that strain 123 generally took about ten minutes to become metabolically active.

Samual managed a weak smile. " No they won't. They'll just find your body in here, your brains splattered all over the walls, and think you contracted the virus from the lab accident. Why would they think it had anything to do with me? If you try anything, I'll let you have it with this." He showed her a small hand held device before slipping it back into his pocket. " This is an atom separator."

Renna's head felt clouded and swollen, her heart beat with fury. Perhaps these were the first symptoms of imminent CD-100 death. She pulled her body into a huddle. " Why have you done this?" she asked, genuinely curious, as she waited for the worst to come. " How could you kill innocent people?"

Samual was also sitting on the floor now. " It's all for a good cause," he said sternly. " I did it so that suspicion would be cast on Calajh. If you had left it at that, you would not be about to die."

" I don't understand. Why?"

" I believe strongly in the development of our nation in space. Currently the Space Nation Union is discussing whether to take the African nations' proposal seriously that the western nations development be halted so that they can catch up. Everybody knows they released CD-100 into the settlements in the first place."

" So what has that got to do with this?"

" Politics is about appearances. If an African with a history of political activism is found to have deliberately sabotaged the CD-100 project, it will look bad. The Union won't like the terrorist tactics and will deny the proposal. You don't want to see the Africans taking control of space do you?"

" I doubt that is what they really want. So Calajh was just a convenient scapegoat for your scheme? That's why you wanted him hired."

" Yes, perfect don't you think?"

" No, not really. And what about Natalie? Was she a convenient sacrifice?"

Samual looked suddenly deadly serious. " No, she wasn't a part of the plan, not to begin with. I suppose it will turn out to give the incident more publicity, but it was accidental. I'd sent through the order for Calajh to be working in the lift-well so I knew he'd be there- he's totally reliable you see. I thought the lab would be empty because it was between shifts and when I got there, I couldn't see anybody inside. I put on a full body suit to protect myself and went in through the lock. I'd smuggled the atom separator on board the station with the help of a friend of mine in security."

Renna groaned inwardly.

" I went to the encased workbench and saw where all the viral cultures were kept, then stood back and gave the glass a zap with the separator- enough to open up the case but not enough to atomize everything inside. The force of the blow made the glass shatter with released tension. I reached in and grabbed vials of the virus then pulled strain 123 and the antidote out through a hatch that had lost its seal. Just as I opened the vials, the door to the cool room opened up and Natalie came hustling out. She must have heard the noise. I yelled at her to get away but she only ran towards me, yelling incoherently, right into the vapor cloud. Stupid woman. Her training went straight out the window as soon as she panicked.

" Of course I had made sure the alarm system was switched off beforehand to give me time to get away. Natalie still didn't realize what I was up to. She just went over to inspect the damage, totally unprotected, and that gave me a chance to get through the quarantine locks. By the time I was out, she was already down on the floor, not looking too good. She was as good as dead by then, nothing to be done.

" As soon as the evacuation had begun, I got that friend of mine in security to report a mock theft. I was hoping someone would suspect Calajh then look up the dirt I'd got on him on the security system. But when I realized you were the only one even vaguely suspecting foul play and that you didn't believe Calajh could have slipped through the Section quarantine, I burnt that little hole in the Section doors to get you on track. But you couldn't leave it alone. What is it with you anyway? You would have done alright if you'd played along, but I traced system uses and saw that you were checking up on the security systems, checking up on the timing of the Section breach. Amazing what security barriers you can get through with help from a friend, isn't it? Oh, by the way, Barry says hi."

Renna pretended not to register that last statement. She should have guessed someone bent enough to give her security codes could be involved in far more dangerous games on the station. But at least most of the puzzle now made sense. Macaby's insistence that nothing untoward had occurred and his clean record were merely artifacts of his dedication to bureaucratic excellence. As for Persun's conjuring of false video evidence, who knew?

Samual let out a sudden wince and grabbed at his mid-riff with both hands.

" What is wrong with you anyway?" Renna asked. Not that it mattered. If Samual was sick enough to allow her escape there was nothing she could do to stop the virus.

Samual glared back at her with undisguised irritation. " Some hot-shot scientist you turned out to be."

" What do you mean?"

" Your bloody antidote to CD-100. I took some after I sabotaged the lab in case I'd caught a whiff of the virus. I'm beginning to wish I got the darn bug."

Renna looked at the beads of sweat on Samual's forehead and noticed that his hands were shaking. His lips looked parched. " Serves you right," she announced, showing him a false, humorless smile. " That's only experimental. All the rats we fed it to died within 24 hours." Renna took small pleasure in the look of despair that was overcoming Samual's face. " Oh, it kills the virus alright. But it also causes kidney and liver failure, interrupts the body's hormonal system. I've only just worked out a way to alter the structure of the chemical to lessen the side effects." But she hadn't actually put the idea down on paper, so to speak, and she had less than ten minutes to live- not nearly long enough to get to a computer and record the idea. How long would it take someone else to come up with the same solution?

" Speaking of rats...," Samual muttered, gazing up at the ceiling.

Doing the same, Renna heard the noise too. A light scratching and rustling sound in the maintenance tunnel above. Then, with a spine-splitting crack and a puff of dust, a square opening in the roof broke open and fell to the floor, landing directly between Samual and Renna. A second later, a large mass fell through and landed with a dull thud. Calajh regained his balance almost immediately and sprung energetically on top of Samual, striking him squarely on the side of his face and grappling with his large body. Samual let out a deafening groan and struggled against the smaller man but, weakened by the side effects of the antidote and taken by surprise, he was clearly losing the battle. He managed to grab the atom separator out of his pocket and aim it at Calajh. At the moment he pressed a button, Calajh managed to brush his arm aside. In the confusion that followed as a large hole appeared in the wall in the direction the device had been aimed, Calajh managed to wrestle the atom separator off him, push him down onto his front and straddle his back, holding both arms painfully behind him. Samual's deflated lungs rasped, " You little African nit. Get off me."

Calajh ignored this and, apparently confident that he had Samual under control, turned his attention to Renna. " Sorry took so long Miss."

" How did you know we were here?"

He shrugged, smiling. " I know the tunnels inside out. Know Samual too. He always come here for privacy."

" You knew what he had done?"

" Thas right Miss. Just waited until he made a move. Knew he'd give himself away."

Renna smiled back at him. She hadn't realized Calajh was even aware of her suspicions of murder.

" I shut Samual in somewhere secure," he suggested, looking at the hole in the wall, " then we go tell Macaby, yes?"

Renna leapt to her feet, suddenly remembering the virus. She had to get out of there before she became contagious and infected everyone else. She dashed past Calajh and Samual for the door.

" Sorry," she called out after her, meaning both for her behavior and for having even considered that he was the murderer. " Samual injected me with the virus, strain 123. He stole it from the lab."

She ran through the Section, holding a handkerchief over her mouth in a frail attempt to contain the virus. As she rounded a corner she saw Persun Delany standing near the entrance to her lab. She slowed for a second, but sped up doubly when she heard a cry from behind her from Calajh, who had apparently chased after her. " Miss, wait, wait..."

She bumped shoulders with the stunned Persun who let out a yelp and, nearly stumbling herself, headed for the end of the corridor. After what seemed like a marathon sprint, she slapped against the doors of the external cargo lift, leaving a smear of hot sweat where her head had touched them. As the doors opened on her command she could hear the hurried footsteps of Persun and Calajh drawing nearer. The doors opened and she dived in and sealed them, hitting the button to go up a level to get away from them.

The short journey gave her a moment of peace to catch her breath, a last moment of inaction. Her head reeled with panic. Not only did she fear her own certain death but she despaired at the knowledge that a possible useable cure for CD-100 was about to be lost because she had not had a chance to fully document her idea. It would take someone else years of work to get to know the intricacies of the virus the way she had. Continued space expansion and growth of the population would be impossible and if the virus ever reached an existing population center, thousands would die.

The lift clanged to a stop and she paused for a second to contain her emotions. She could do nothing about the rapid beating of her heart. She held her hand over the lever that would release the outer doors of the cargo lift. When she pulled it down she would be blown out into the vacuum to die. It wouldn't be an easy death but it would beat death from CD-100. Moreover, the virus would not release its contagions into the atmosphere of the station. No one else on board would be affected. It was the best solution she could think of to a nasty situation, a form of damage limitation.

At that moment, the intercom of the lift fired up and Renna heard, distant in her mind, the cries of Persun Delany through the speaker. She was yelling, " Renna, can you hear me? Renna? Say something. Are you there?"

Renna ignored the sound and focused on pulling the lever which had to be depressed at the same time a button was pushed to open the doors. Her shaking hands gripped the controls. A stream of tears stung her eyes so that the lift went into a blur.

" Renna, listen to me," Persun pleaded.

But Renna was wholly focused on her task. She knew what she had to do to protect the others. There was no other feasible option.

" Listen," Persun repeated, her voice almost a scream now, " Renna, I have to tell you something."

Ignoring Persun, Renna had a sudden flash of courage and yanked the lever down whilst pressing the button. A light signaled that the opening sequence had been initiated and a clock in a small display began counting down from ten.

" Renna, Natalie let me into your lab the other day and I stole a vial of CD-100 out of the case so that I could study it, strain 123. I thought I could work on it and beat you to the cure, stupid I know..."

Renna looked at the clock. It was down to 8.

" I put a dummy fluid back into the vial and replaced it so you wouldn't notice."

This statement brought Renna right back to reality. That meant...

" The stuff Samual injected you with is harmless, relatively speaking. It won't kill you, or us. You can come out."

The clock had moved to 6.

" I'm sorry. I lied to you. That video I showed you was fake. I just felt so guilty about what I'd done I assumed others would think I was guilty of something too..."

With the clock on 4, Renna came back to life. She did not have CD-100, she was not going to die. She would be able to develop her cure. With mad fury she fought to shut down the opening sequence, punching buttons at random and wrestling to try and return the lever to its original position. Every touch seemed to only create more flashing lights. Still the clock ticked. It was down to just 2.

" Persun, the doors are opening," she managed to scream into the intercom. By now she could hear the internal workings of the lift coming to life. There was a subtle shudder as the clock moved to 1.

" How do I stop the sequence?" Renna screamed at the top of her lungs.

As the clock hit zero a warning alarm buzzed and the great metal doors clamored open. The force of air rushing to the outside flung Renna across the lift. Her shoulder struck the edge of one of the opening doors painfully as she passed through them, trying uselessly to grip her hands on the smooth surface. In a split second she was on the outside of GranLab Station, screaming involuntarily in silence.

It was oh so cold...

THE END

© 2000 by Greg Guerin. Greg Guerin is a 26 year old paleobotany student from Adelaide, South Australia. Aside from his keen interest in science fiction he likes music and the outdoors. His story 'Evolution to Endeavor' appeared in the July 2001 issue of Aphelion.