At first the lab was almost reassuringly familiar, a research area, a clinical space designed for the usual flights of emotionally detached observation and interpretation. It was a great gleaming dome, white-walled and blazing with overhead fluorescent lights, the walls honeycombed into dozens of empty, glass-enclosed cells.
Each cell was equipped with its own research and observation workstation-not that any of them seemed to be actually working. The entire chamber smelled powerfully like antiseptic and chemicals, with an undertone of hot copper wiring. Giant ventilation fans stood in the walls, but they were all motionless, which probably explained the stillness of the stagnant air.
Walking forward, Zahara noticed the dead computer terminals, broken doors, and abandoned keyboards, the individual keys scattered across the high-impact durasteel floor like loose teeth. She saw a protocol droid standing in the corner, a 3PO unit, apparently broken, one golden eye flickering spastically, fingers twitching. As she got closer, she heard a low, almost inaudible whine escaping from its vocabulator.
Next to it, an overturned chair lay on top of a demolished rack of syringes and vials, and she noticed a human-sized bloodstain on the wall, arms upraised, like a spirit painted in red. The workstation in front of it appeared to be operational, however, the screen half filled with lines of text and a blinking cursor awaiting reply. It was the first functional indication she'd seen of possible communications.
Tentatively, she bent forward and tapped a key.
More data washed up instantly over the monitor, skimming past too fast for her to read. Then it stopped again, cursor ticking, and the wall in front of her clicked and peeled open to reveal a thick pane of glass beneath it.
On the other side of die glass was another hive-cell.
But this one wasn't empty.
Inside it, two yellow human corpses dangled in front of her at face level, webbed to the ceiling by thick networks of wires, feeding tubes, and monitoring equipment, a pair of hideous puppets. They were both badly decayed, facial features rotted beyond any recognition, eye sockets empty, and Zahara wondered if she was looking at volunteers who had been abandoned here after whatever happened aboard the Destroyer. What would it have been like, she thought, being trapped in there while everyone on this side of the glass ran away?
Something clicked in front of her and began to whir steadily-one of the big ventilation fans in the wall above the glass. Zahara braced herself for the blast of foul air from inside, then realized that she could feel her clothes and hair actually being sucked away from her skin.
The fan was pumping air into the cell. and that made more sense. They'd have to deliver oxygen to the research subjects while they were still alive. Those chambers were probably airtight, and without the fans running, they'd suffocate in there, which was probably exactly what happened, she guessed, once the research staff had decided to abandon the lab.
One of the corpses lifted its head.
Zahara felt the room stretching around her, all sense of perspective seeming to elongate on gluey strings. On the other side of the glass the thing gaped up at her with its sagging, grinning face, moving the rotten stumps of its legs, swaying back and forth.
The air that went in, she thought, it carried my smell in to them and woke them up-
The other corpse had already awakened next to it. Its face twitched up and down as if sniffing her through whatever remained of its nose. Zahara started backing away as it lifted one tattered arm to grapple with the lines and wires that held it suspended from the ceiling. Sensing her standing there, both of the bodies started to do a jittering, swaying dance. One bumped into the other, and they both swung forward, arms outstretched. Back and forth, higher and higher. Some of the monitoring wires had already pulled off, but there was one particular tube leading straight from their chests that was still connected. The gray liquid oozing inside the tube reminded her of the substance that she'd tried to dig out of Kale Longo's abdomen. She followed the tube with her eyes and saw that it connected to a set of black tanks.
They were collecting it, Zahara thought. That's what this is all about, their bodies actually produce that stuff and-
Behind her, a footstep scraped inside the lab.
She spun around and stared across the white space, the path between dead research workstations, and saw nothing. Her gaze fell to the broken rack of vials and syringes on the floor, only six or seven meters away, close enough that she could probably reach it before-
Before whatever came in here has a chance to get its hands on you? Do you really think so, Zahara? At the rate those things move when they're hungry?
A shape emerged between two of the workstations, a foot crunching something beneath it. Zahara glimpsed it, and then it was gone again. She looked back at the syringes-her only weapon. The muscles in her calves and thighs felt so tight she thought they'd snap, the tension rising upward to grip the bones of her spine.
Wham!
With a cry of fright, she whirled around and looked back. One of the research-subject corpses had managed to slam itself into the glass, leaving a red smear, a streaky imprint of its face and hands. She watched as it arced backward in its harness of monitoring equipment while the other corpse swung forward, smacking the glass hard with its face and hands, then shoving off again.
Get to the syringes and get out of here — now.
She bolted, crossing the distance in what felt like three big leaps. Grabbed a needle in both hands. Started to stand up.
And felt something move in behind her.
A rich smell of decay blew in over her shoulder, like wind from a grave.
She spun around and it grabbed her.
Zahara looked into its face.
The sickness hadn't rotted the researcher away as badly as the corpses in the containment chamber. She could still see some of the features the way they'd looked pre-infection-the silvery gray hair, the aquiline nose, the deep, distinguished creases of the face. A man of science. It wore a blood-grimed lab coat, one sleeve torn away at the wrist. There was a soft click as it opened its mouth and lunged for her.
She rammed the syringe into its eye, and jammed another into the side of its head, depressing both plungers at once.
The thing went rigid, mouth wide open, and screamed. Its legs went out from under it, its entire body collapsing.
As it fell writhing to the floor, Zahara moved for the exit. She was almost there when the screaming dwindled and she heard its voice behind her, a rasping gurgle.
"Frrrng unn ufff.»
It was trying to talk.
Hating herself for it, she looked back. The thing in the lab coat was crawling blindly toward her now, both needles still protruding from its head. Somehow the injections had restored some fragile measure of its former humanity, enough for it to try to make contact.
Its mouth moved up and down, making more garbled sounds she couldn't translate-pathetic attempts at speech. It raised one hand beseechingly. It was doing something, trying to tell her-
"What happened here?" she asked. "What did you do?"
The thing in the lab coat produced the same mucilaginous noises, more urgently. Its face worked strenuously, and it swung its arm toward the console behind her.
"Thrggh uff usss.»
"What?" she asked.
It made the noises again, swung its hands with evangelical fervor, and fell over. It growled and beat its fists on the floor. Its fingers crawled and prodded, and she realized it was miming the act of writing.
Gradually, with great effort, it reached up and pulled one of the syringes from its eye socket, jammed the spike against the durasteel, and started dragging it back and forth, etching out some crude type of ideograph. It made a high, desperate squealing sound as it did so, grinding the needle's dp harder into the reinforced plating.