Toxic

The ship's PA system activated seventeen seconds after they boarded.

Attention all personnel. Hazardous microbial life has been detected aboard this vessel. All personnel should evacuate immediately. Thank you for your cooperation.

Nova looked at Muira. Muira looked back with the expression she reserved for things that were going to happen regardless of her opinion of them.

He walked deeper into the ship. She followed.

The samples were in the cargo hold — orbs of something biological, translucent, drifting near the ceiling in a loose cluster. Nova began collecting them with the methodical attention of someone who had decided this was useful.

Muira watched this for a moment.

"Those are the hazardous microbial life," she said.

"Probably," Nova agreed, and pocketed another one.

The crew were in the quarters. Desiccated, arranged by circumstance in positions that suggested they had not seen it coming. Muira found the desiccation less alarming than the ongoing mold collection happening behind her, which she felt said something about her current life choices.

The logs were sparse. Several entries of mounting unease with very little supporting detail — ship feels unclean, though air filters nominal — and then, in the final entry, the observation that food had been going missing from the galley.

"They died," Muira said, reading over his shoulder, "because something ate their food."

"There may have been other factors."

"The last thing they wrote was that someone ate their food."

Nova closed the terminal. "I have the samples."

"You have the hazardous microbial life."

"That's what I said."

The PA activated again as they reached the airlock.

Attention all personnel. Hazardous microbial life has been detected aboard this vessel. All personnel should evacuate immediately. Thank you for your cooperation.

"We're leaving," Muira told it.

VASCO was waiting back in the Razorleaf. He looked at the orbs in Nova's hands, and then at Muira, in the way of a robot that had learned to accurately assess situations without necessarily knowing what to do with that assessment.

Nobody said anything. They left.