The drops are turbid, not a good sign. Greyish, but that could come from the moss. Maybe the blood of something Frances killed? She puts her helmet on. She checks the timer she set up and there’s just over a day left for survival.

We are not going to make it.

The thought bounces around in her skull and echoes, heavy with truth, plausibility and dread.

Whatever. They aren’t going to die of an infection if Shell can help it. Suffocation, maybe. She moves into the next node, and the air is considerably wetter, too much to be from any experimental organism that Earth scientists came up with. The suit will protect her, and hopefully the disgust factor won’t make her vomit into her helmet.

She passes the junction to the torus and the experimental wing, and there is more. Close to the seal, she spots the source. There’s a hole drilled or blasted in the wall that breaches all the way to the bioreactor. This fluid is algae rich. From the indicator, the source of the high bacteria count is within that hole.

They aren’t specifically pathogenic bacteria. It’s mainly coliforms, gut bacteria, which can cause disease when they’re not confined to the gut. Shell checks the integrity of the seal to the late and lamented Node 7, and it seems to be holding.

She dips and pushes into the hole, avoiding the edges. It’s all dark except occasional flashing warning lights. The temperature sensor warns her that it’s hot and humid outside her space suit. The place is in a ferment, which is boosting the bacteria numbers. The fucking hole she is in looks like some giant’s colon. In the beam from her helmet light, it leaks fluid, which just breaks off and floats in the air. There’s a hissing from somewhere, like a gas leak. She hopes to hell it isn’t atmosphere leaking. So many ways to die on the Ragtime, so little time.

Bacteria count going insane, indicators warning it’s above the safety margin. Shell sees a lump of something and moves towards it. It looks like meat. She touches it, brings it close to her visor. It is meat – with jagged, irregular edges. No blood, not fresh. She wishes she could take off her helmet to smell it. She turns all around her and deeper in the hole. It’s a service shaft for the bioreactor, it seems. And there’s more meat. She follows the shaft, not understanding the directions or combinations of characters on the walls, or the arrows. This part of the Ragtime would ordinarily be sealed off.