Lab One.

When asked what went on at Lab One, people usually said, “Ship only knows.” Or they began some childish ghost story of hunchbacked scientists peering into the heart of life itself.

Legata knew that Oakes and Lewis even encouraged the mystery, often started their own rumors. The result was a fearsome aura about the place, and recently there had been mutterings about the disproportionate supply of food allotted to Lab One. To be assigned here, in the minds of Shipmen and Colonists alike, was to disappear forever. All workers moved into quarters at the complex and, with few exceptions, did not return shipside or to Colony proper.

These thoughts left her with a feeling of unsettled doubts, and she had to remind herself: I’m not being assigned here. No, that wouldn’t happen, not as long as Oakes wanted to get her naked on his couch . . . to penetrate her.

Legata took a deep breath of warm air. As in all Colony buildings, temperature and humidity were identical with Ship’s. Here in the lab, though, her flesh shuddered off a special kind of chill, a gooseflesh that made her stomach ache and jabbed needles of pain into the knots that her nipples made against her singlesuit. She spoke quickly to mask her disquiet.

“Your staff people, they look so old.”

“Many of them have been with us from the start.”

There was evasion in his voice and it did not go unnoticed, but Legata chose to watch, not push.

“But they . . . look even older than that. What . . .”

Murdoch interrupted her. “We have a higher fatality rate than Colony, did you know that?”

She shook her head. It was a lie; had to be a lie.

“It’s being out here on the perimeter,” Murdoch said. “We don’t get the protection everyone else does. Nerve Runners are particularly heavy this close to the hills.”

An uncontrollable shudder swept over her arms. Nerve Runners! Those darting little worms were the most feared of all Pandoran creatures. They had an affinity for nerve cells and would eat their way slowly, agonizingly along human nerve channels until they gorged on the brain, encysted and reproduced.

“Bad,” Murdoch said, seeing her reaction. “And the workload we carry here, of course . . . but that’s agreed on from the start. These are the most dedicated people groundside.”

She looked across a bank of plaz vats at a group of these dedicated workers—-blank, tight-lipped faces. Most of those she had seen here were wrinkled and drawn, pale. No one joked; not even a nervous giggle broke the monotony. All was the clink and click of instruments, the hum of tools, the aching distance between lives.

Murdoch flashed her a sudden smile. “But you wanted to see The Garden.” He turned, waved a hand for her to follow. “This way.”

He led her through another system of locks, only doubles this time, into what appeared to be a training area for young E-clones. There were several of them around the entrance, but they drew back at Murdoch’s approach.