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"Still no luck?" Kolya leaned against the edge of a console and watched Ralissa's team poking at the controls and connecting instruments to interface ports. The flight deck had been illuminated only by everyone's helmet lights until Lorkis pulled a high-powered lamp from Zadra's backpack and secured its magnetic clamp to the wall, which at the moment served as the ceiling.

A cloud of spores filled the air, turning the light murky. The team's movements had kicked up a lot of them, and they'd needed to brush even more off the control panels.

"Nope." Ralissa sighed. "Either the reactors are shut down or depleted, or power to these panels has been cut off. We'll take a few minutes to check the engineering section and see if we can power the systems on from there. If we can't, then we'll pull the computer's memory core, plug it into a power supply on the Jemison, and view the flight recorder files. At the same time, another team can bring the thrusters over and attach them to the hull to stop the Vancouver's spinning and boost it into a stable orbit. After that, Galactic Expeditions can send a crew to retrieve their ship whenever they want."

"Maybe when we're done here," Lorkis said, "we could take a look around the ruins on Gamma Orionis b."

"I don't see why not," Cora said over the comlink. "It'd be a shame to head back without doing a little exploring."

"Just what I was hoping to hear." Kolya grinned even though her face was as hidden as everyone else's by their helmet visors.

"Exploring an abandoned alien outpost," Corwin said. "Sounds like a nice romantic outing."

"That's what I'm thinkin'. And maybe we can get a head start." Kolya turned toward the scientists. "We'll cover more ground if we split up. Like, someone goes to Engineering, and the rest divide into pairs and explore the ship. Search for the crew and whatever clues we can find as to what happened here."

"Sounds good," Ralissa said. "Lorkis and I will check out Engineering. Everyone else, pick a partner, I guess."

"Dibs!" Kolya glomped onto Corwin and dislodged part of the spore coating on their spacesuits. He laughed and put his arms around her.

Zadra motioned at the lamp. "Each of you has a supply of these lights in your backpacks. Attach them to nearby surfaces as you progress into the ship, so you can find your way back easily. We'll leave them here when we head back to the Jemison to make it easier for the GalEx follow-up crew to find their way around."

"Cool." Kolya pulled three lamps from Corwin's pack, clamped them to her right thigh, and waited for Corwin to do the same. Then she hopped into the air, overcoming the low gravity easily, and grasped the edge of the doorway into the main corridor. She pulled herself up, braced her feet on the edge, and sprang. The wall slid past her face and the light from the lamp on the flight deck faded.

Another door entered the pool of light from her helmet spots and she grasped the edge. She attached a lamp to the wall and switched it on before pushing herself up to the other edge.

"Hmm. This door's closed. Can't open it until power is restored."

"The one across from it is open," Corwin said.

Kolya turned and hopped across to grab onto the other doorway. Clouds of spores dislodged by her hands and feet drifted through the illumination from the lamp.

Ugh. Even if these things don't produce some deadly alien hideosity, they'd cause respiratory problems at the very least. Nobody could survive long without a suit.

She stepped into the room and gave Corwin enough space to follow her. He stuck one of his lamps to the wall and switched it on, revealing a small chamber with a table and six chairs equipped with five-point harnesses to hold the crew in place in this normally zero-G part of the ship.

"Briefing room, probably," Kolya said. She caught a movement in the corner of her good eye and turned to the door as Ralissa and Lorkis passed by. The young mekharan waved his lower-right hand at her and Corwin while using his other three to launch himself from one handhold to another. She waved back just before he passed out of view.

He and Nishara would have a hard time getting around once gravity is restored. They can't slither while wearing those suits, and nobody should be in here without suits until this whole ship gets a damn good scrubbin'.

"Guess I'll check out the first centrifuge," Zadra said. "Nishara, want to join me?"

"Sure. Grish, Dylan, I'll see you later."

"See you, babe," Dylan replied, followed by Grishnag's "Be careful, you two."

Kolya glanced around the briefing room one more time, found nothing of interest, and nudged the wall with her foot to propel herself slowly back to the door. Zadra and Nishara drifted past.

"Dylan and I will have a look through the second centrifuge," Grishnag said.

"Lead the way, honey."

The two of them floated past the door.

"Guess Corwin and I will take the third, then." Kolya jumped from the doorway to grasp the next hatch and pull herself up. She passed a row of narrow doors on the way. "Hmm. Looks like some equipment lockers. Not much else in this section."

"I'm starting to hope we don't actually find anything," Corwin muttered. "This ship is starting to give me the creeps."

Kolya chuckled. "For all we know, the crew may be on the surface of the planet we're orbiting."

"I'm sad to report there have been no attempts at communication from the surface," Cora said. "However, it's possible their communications systems have been damaged."

"Hmm. The shuttle bay is between the second and third centrifuges, right?"

"Yes."

"Corwin and I can take a look and see if the shuttle is still here."

"Sounds like a plan." Corwin stuck another lamp to the wall and continued onward. Kolya hurried to catch up with him.

They reached the shuttle bay and found the door open.

"Huh. Leaving this door open wasn't a good idea, but we're lucky they did. Couldn't have gotten in if they didn't." Kolya stepped through and planted a lamp on the wall - the floor, rather. She craned her neck up and found the inner bay doors wide open. She glimpsed the top of the shuttle beyond - it appeared to have been lowered into launch position, waiting for the outer doors to open and drop it into space.

She turned and gave the walls a quick sweep. A long rack lining one wall held twenty-six spacesuits. She didn't find any missing suits.

"Say, uh, guys? How many people were on the Vancouver's crew?"

"Twenty-six," Cora answered.

"They're probably still here, then." Kolya hopped up to the bay doors, grabbed on to the edge, and hoisted herself up.

"Some of them definitely are." Corwin's voice quivered.

Kolya turned and found him pointing at something to her left, on the wall-turned-floor. She followed his gaze and found four bodies crumpled more or less straight in front of the shuttle.

_How'd I not notice that?_The bodies, exposed to vacuum, had been preserved pretty well, though they were covered with those spores. "Poor guys. Probably inhaled a bunch of these spores."

"Yeah," Corwin mumbled. "I'm not taking a closer look at 'em. Who knows what those things did to their bodies?"

"Right, I wouldn't, either." Kolya sighed, shivered, and sprang up to the shuttle's nose. She found a handhold, dusted the spores off the viewport, and aimed her helmet spots into the cabin.

Five more human bodies rested lightly against the console. Three of them had weird ridges running under their skin, as if something had grown beneath it and followed their blood vessels or nerves.

"Oh, shit," Kolya muttered.

"Found more of them?"

"Yeah. Looks like a couple of them tried to get away in the shuttle." She leaned closer and noticed a screwdriver in the chest of a non-ridged man. The hand of one of the ridged humans was still gripping the handle. Kolya backed away and shuddered again. "Jesus Christ!"

"What's wrong? They got some horrifying growths coming out of them, or something?"

"No." Kolya dropped back down to rejoin Corwin and crossed her arms over her chest. "It looks like they killed each other."