Hayes did not open the hatch.
The scrape had gone quiet on the far side and he was not going to invite it back. He put his back to the door, kept the shotgun in the brace, and let his eyes work the room.
Captain's quarters. Bunk in the wall. Desk bolted down. Viewport drowned. A cup. A band. A still of people who were not here.
The desk had a drawer that did not want to open. Hayes set the left palm on the lip and let the magnet pull. The lock complained and gave.
Inside: a slate with a cracked face and a stack of paper that should not have been on a mining ship. Paper meant someone did not trust the system.
He woke the slate. Power left in it like a last bad habit. Logs. Dated. Captainsigned.
He read.
Entry 01 — outbound
Cover is mining. Complement is not. I have twelve names on the civilian ore list and twenty-six that are not on any list the dock will show. They call themselves a survey team. They brought glass I have never seen on a hauler. Medical has a room that is not medical. I asked Fleet what we are holding. They told me to run the ship and not the science.
Hayes scrolled.
Entry 08 — first recovery
They found it on the prior wreck. Not ore. An organism. Small in the report. Contained. The lead kept saying the same sentence: it is never to leave the box. I watched them walk it through my halls in a sealed case like it was a bomb that breathed. Maybe it is.
Entry 14 — behavior
The thing is thirsty. That is the word they use when they think I am not in the room. Constant state of thirst. It wants moisture. Air humidity. Condensation. Us. They dropped the cabin damp by half and the glass fogged from the inside of containment anyway. One tech said it was "listening for water." I told him to stop talking like that on my boat.
Entry 19 — order
Do not culture. Do not feed. Do not open. Moisture discipline at all times. If the seal so much as weeps, we abort and burn. That was the brief they finally put on paper. It still does not say what happens if the brief fails.
Entry 22 — last clean night
Science team is tired. Miners are asking why we are not mining. I am asking why the growth started on the outside of the glass when nothing has left the glass. Lead says it is residue. Lead is lying or hoping. Those are the same thing out here.
The next entries were shorter.
Entry 26
Containment alarm. I am going down.
Entry 27
It is out. It was never supposed to get out.
Entry 28
Mouths. The dry ones. If you find this, do not bleed in the halls. Do not sweat if you can help it. It can hear that. I think it can hear that.
The slate died on a cursor.
Hayes stood in a room that still had a cup on the desk. A cup meant water. A cup meant a man who had believed he would drink again.
He looked at his own mask. The thin suit. The sweat already running down his spine from the run.
Constant thirst.
The raisins in the corridor made a different kind of sense. Not eaten. Drained. Left with the mouth open because that was where the water had been.
Something touched the hatch from the other side. Not a knock. A drag. Slow. Like a tongue testing a seam.
Hayes did not fire.
He turned the last paper toward the red light. A map. Medical circled until the pen went through. Containment marked. A note in the margin, not the captain's clean hand — hurried, worse:
IT DOES NOT STOP BEING THIRSTY
The drag on the hatch stopped.
From the bridge beyond the quarters, far off and wrong in the vents, he heard boots. More than one pair. A voice that might have been Smith if static had not eaten the middle of it.
Hayes looked at the cup.
He left it where it was.