Francis and I looked at each other and bolted for the scrubber cabinets.

When we got there, Brill was already on the radio to Mr. Kelley. "Yes, sar," she said, "all four scrubbers are contaminated. I don't know by what, but the matrices are already showing deterioration."

"CO2 levels okay?" I heard him ask.

Brill looked at Francis who nodded but pointed upwards. "Yes, sar, for now, but they're climbing." She watched Francis to confirm what she was saying and he nodded.

"Do what you can, B," he said. "Lemme know if it gets worse."

"Aye, aye, sar. Environmental, out." She turned to Diane. "What have we got?"

"Dunno. Never seen anything like this. It's like they've been poisoned by something." Her face pressed close to the matrix. "Seems like the phycoerythrin is breaking down in the cells."

Phycoerythrin was the pigment tracer that identified the photosynthesis receptors in the bacteria. No phycoerythrin meant no photosynthesis and no carbon dioxide scrubbing. Normally the algae was a reddish-brown, but presently they were turning a kind of blue.

"Would particulates do that?" I asked.

"What kind of particulates?" Brill said.

"Smoke, burned circuits, melting plastic? I don't know. When I was on the bridge I checked levels, we were okay on O2 and CO2 but the particulates were high. I bipped it to you, remember?"

"Yeah I do, but that shouldn't cause this. That's what the field plates are for. They pull all that junk out of the air mixture before it hits the matrix."

"True. If they're running that is," I said while I crossed to the panels for the field plates on the number two scrubber. I opened the inspection door and looked inside. "Brill? Shouldn't there be a plate in here?" I asked knowing the answer myself, but not really believing what I was seeing.

"What are you talking about?" she asked coming around the scrubber and crouching down to look in beside me.

"The plate is gone," I said. "There's nothing but empty mounting brackets."

Francis and Diane came to look over our shoulders. "Pixies?" Francis asked.

"Too heavy for a pixie," Diane said. "Those things ma.s.s a good five kilos."

"Well if they were fast pixies maybe they stole the plate while the gravity was out."

"That's it!" I said.

They all looked at me. "Ish," Diane said, "we were kidding about the pixies."

I grinned. "I'm not." I got down and stuck my head in the door so I could look up to where the other half of the field mechanism ran across the top of the intake vent. "Yup. Pixies." My voice echoed weirdly inside the cabinet.

Brill nudged me so she could get a look. "d.a.m.n it!" she said.

When she pulled her head out, I could see she was already calculating. "How fast can we change out all four scrubbers?"

"With all of us working it would take four stans. But it'll take more than half a day before they begin working again." Diane confirmed what we already knew.

When I had first come aboard, this practice of stating and restating the obvious confused me. Now I recognized it as a kind of mutual reality check for the group to make sure everyone had an idea of what the other person was thinking.

"Francis," Brill said, "go run the numbers. How much time do we have? Diane, Ish, start on number three. Pull the frames and strip 'em out as fast as you can."

He bolted for the console and Brill called Mr. Kelley. "Environmental reporting, you'll need to see this, sar. It's serious and won't take long."

Diane and I had done this as a team for so long we had three of the matrix frames out before she finished speaking.

Mr. Kelley showed up in two ticks. "Whatcha got, Brill?" he asked.

She took him back to the scrubber and showed him where the field plate was supposed to be. "What the-?" he said as he dragged his head out of the cabinet. "How'd it get up there and what's holding it?"

"Magnetism," she said. "Francis, would you kill the power to number two scrubber please?"

"Securing power to number two now."

When he said "now" the missing scrubber plate dropped with a clank and bounced out of the inspection hatch at Mr. Kelley's feet.

"How are they normally connected to the base?" Mr. Kelley asked.

Brill answered, "They just sit in those sockets. While the power is flowing, they're locked down magnetically."

"So, when we lost power, we lost the lock, grav failed long enough for it to unseat, and when the power came back on, the field kicked in with the plate out of position."

"No field plate, dirty matrices, dead bacteria," Brill finished. "How much time, Francis? I need to know now."

"Ten hours until CO2 reaches critical," he called back.

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Mr. Kelley said.

Francis came in to help me and Diane while Brill conferred with Mr. Kelley. "Can you get me somebody to fix these plates while we clear the matrices? I don't wanna put good matrix back in a dirty stream."

He pulled out his comm and started making calls.

With Brill and Francis helping, we got number three stripped down and restarted within a stan. Mr. Kelley fixed number three's field plate himself and tested it for us to make sure it worked. While he was working, his back up team including Bert Benson, Janice Ivanov, and Arvid Xia came in. He set them to work on the other field collector plates and by the time we'd finished with number three's frames and had them reloaded, the other ones were ready for us.

Francis, Diane, and I started on number one scrubber while Brill consulted with Mr. Kelley. "We're going to be desperately close, Fred," she said. I didn't like that she was calling him Fred. It meant things were really as bad as I had thought.

"I know, B. We can add more oxygen, but we have to get rid of the CO2. How much calcium hydroxide do we have?"

"About eight tons but how do we get enough air over it?"

Calcium hydroxide was a natural CO2 absorbent. We kept a supply on board but I hadn't been sure what we used it for. Now it all made sense. The problem was surface area.

I kept slopping frames as fast as I could. Diane was pulling them out and handing them to Francis and I. We were pulling dying matrix out as fast as we could split the frames and we were darn fast.

Brill was asking, "Can we rig up some kind of canister filter with it in it? Like they use on the little ships?"

Mr. Kelley had his tablet out now and was running figures. "Too much air, the canisters would calcify into limestone too quickly. We need some way to expose as much surface as we can."

I finished stripping out the latest matrix and bent to stretch my back. "Spine!" I shouted.

Diane handed me the next frame and I kept working as I talked. "The spine. It's like a big straw." I finished stripping matrix and tossed the empty frame into the wash me pile. Diane handed me the next one. "It's only about two meters wide, but it's five hundred meters long. Spread the calcium hydroxide on the floor, CO2 is heavier than oxygen and it'll pool between the hatch combings. If the powder calcifies, we can sc.r.a.pe it up, put down more powder, and drop the limestone out the lock." Diane handed me another frame.

Mr. Kelley was running numbers.

We finished stripping down number one and broke out the hoses to wash it all down before breaking out fresh matrix. We started laying down cleaned frames, Francis and I made them up, Diane sprayed them with new bacteria, and Brill hung them before he stopped running numbers.

"It's gonna get stuffy in here, but it might work. We need to increase flow or the CO2 will pool in the lower parts of the fore and aft sections."

Brill said, "Run a long exhaust duct from the life boat deck to the after section. Pull everybody you can out of there. Blow the air from the boat deck into the after section and let the pressure differentials bring the fresh air back. You can set up a little bit of circulation and keep the highest levels of CO2 running across the surface."

He added that to his calculations as we finished with number one. The problem was not in getting them rebuilt, it was the time it would take for the algae to bloom and begin scrubbing. We were shaving off a few valuable minutes by working quickly, but we were short by too many to make much difference if we couldn't manage to control the overall CO2 levels.

"Better," he announced. "Might be enough." He pulled out his comm, headed for the hatch, and was lining up people and equipment before he left the section.

We just kept building frames. Diane latched the lid back down on number one and I looked at the chrono, 22:00. If I were still alive at 09:00, we'd probably make it.

We started on number four and n.o.body talked. We just worked.

By 23:30 we had all the scrubbers rebuilt, and settled down to check the numbers. CO2 was still climbing, but the engineering crew was still rigging the duct work. Some of the deck gang had been put to work spreading the calcium hydroxide on the deck along the spine. They were shooting for two, five-centimeter-deep strips along either side of the spine with about a half meter open area in the middle to walk on. It would take almost all the powder we had to cover that much s.p.a.ce but it gave us a large surface area to stream the CO2 laden air across.

By 02:00 the CO2 was almost at alarm critical levels and the crew had started up the blowers to push the heavy air all the way down the spine as the pressure differential between the bow and stern sections built up, the air they were pumping aft began working forward through the spine and across the absorbent powder.

By 04:00 the CO2 levels had stopped rising but even just moving around was difficult. Everybody was yawning. Of course, that might have had something to do with everybody being exhausted too. The air felt even heavier than normal in environmental.

By 05:00 the CO2 levels were rising again. The engineering crew investigated and found that the powder had formed a crust preventing additional absorption where the calcium hydroxide had reached its capacity. We all went out with brooms and broke the crust to expose the powder underneath to the air. It was hard to move and the brooms became heavy.

By 08:00 the CO2 levels were falling again. The scrubbers were coming online a bit faster than we had expected. It was still hard to breathe and I was getting a headache, but I began to see smiles.

By 09:00 we knew we had it beaten. Two of the four scrubbers were stripping out CO2 at maximum capacity, the third was running at about fifty percent and the last was kicking in about twenty percent.

At 09:30 the overheads piped and the captain's voice came over the speakers. "This is the captain speaking. Full power should be restored within the hour. The CO2 and O2 levels are getting back to normal range. The sail generators should be back online this afternoon. We'll be a couple of days late, but we'll arrive thanks to your hard work, dedication, and ingenuity. You make me proud. That is all."

After a few moments, the announcer came back on with, "All hands secure from General Quarters. Secure from General Quarters. Set normal underway operations. First section has the watch."

I clambered up off the deck where I'd been sprawled and relieved Francis who was the last person to a.s.sume the watch before General Quarters. We all chuckled when he said, "Mr. w.a.n.g, ops are finally normal. We probably had some scheduled maintenance but we didn't do it. You may relieve the watch."

"I relieve you, Mr. Gartner," I said. "I have the watch."

Chapter Eight.

Betrus System

2352-June-05

The captain was as good as her word and power came up within a few ticks of her announcement. Brill sat with me to keep me company, and awake, for the remaining half of my watch. We even managed to replace the three toasted environmental sensors I had found up on the port bow. The Lois had taken a hit but she was still with us.

Diane came back after a couple of hours of sleep, a shower, and some food. Cookie set up a serving line with Pip and Sarah. They made omelets for those who wanted them and sandwiches for those who did not. It had been a long night for everybody and without full power, Cookie had to scramble to feed us. He did well with what he had.

Diane relieved me and tried to shoo away Brill but she protested. I didn't stay around for the thrilling conclusion of their discussion and trundled off to my bunk. It seemed as though I had just hit the pillow when the watch stander woke me to relieve the watch again. I grabbed a quick shower, fresh clothes, coffee, and headed back to environmental.

I found Diane wide awake with a funny smile on her face and I wondered what that was all about until I saw Brill sacked out on the deck. We had a quiet discussion and decided we should wake her and send her off to bed. This time when Diane suggested she might be more comfortable in her bunk, she went. Besides, I told her, it sets a terrible example for the help. She laughed at that and patted me on the shoulder before staggering out of the section. I relieved Diane and settled down to see what maintenance had backed up on us. There wasn't much, but it kept me awake. The VSI was an interesting experience, walking through the crusted calcium hydroxide was an eerie reminder and I wondered how we were going to get rid of it.

When Francis came to relieve me for the mid-watch, the section was almost back to normal. I gave him the full list of maintenance I had done along with the shorter list of things that needed doing that I had not had time for. He relieved me and I managed to get all the way up into my bunk before falling asleep. I didn't manage to get out of my clothes or anything like that, but I wasn't complaining.

I thought I was tired enough to sleep the twenty-four hours until I had to go back on watch, but I didn't even make it to lunch time. I might have except for a treacherous bladder that insisted on being drained or it would do something juvenile and unpleasant. As a result, I got up around 10:30 and took care of business. Surprising how alive you can feel with a shower, a fresh shipsuit, and enough air to breathe.

It was too early for lunch and too late for breakfast, but I went to the galley anyway. I could at least get a cup of coffee and figured I could probably cadge something food-like from the watch cooler even if I couldn't get Cookie to feed me. The thought made me grin. I couldn't imagine Cookie not feeding anybody who showed up hungry.

When I got to the mess deck, I found a tired looking Mr. von Ickles waiting. He smiled when he saw me walk in but waited until I got coffee and snagged a pastry before calling me over. "Are you recovering?" he asked with a smile.

"Yes, sar. Thanks for asking. Been a busy couple of days, but I'm feeling almost as human as normal."

"We need to do an incident report for the insurance company to validate that we did everything possible to mitigate damages. Do you have a few ticks to answer some questions while it's fresh in your mind?"

"I don't know how fresh it is. After all the CO2, I'm not sure I remember my name, but I'll give it a go."

He beckoned me out of the mess deck and led the way to the ship's office. Mr. Maxwell and the captain were both there as well.

The captain smiled and said, "Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Mr. w.a.n.g. It's a pain, but we have to do this or the insurance company quibbles over every million they have to pay out."

I thought that was a joke so I chuckled politely in case it was, and briefly in case it wasn't. "No problem, Captain. I'm off till midnight." That was a joke, but n.o.body laughed. I sipped my coffee and waited for instructions.

The captain nodded to Mr. Maxwell who started a recorder and listed off the people in the room, the date, and the time. Then we all had to go around the room and state our own names. After that, it got a little more interesting.

The captain asked most of the questions, and I noticed that Mr. Maxwell and Mr. von Ickles did something like keeping score, but I couldn't tell what was making points.

"Mr. w.a.n.g, please tell us what happened starting at just after 19:00 on June 4, 2352 . What did you observe? What did you do? Only state those things you have direct knowledge of and not anything you heard from others please."

She stopped me when I got to the part about turning on my tablet even though I knew the network was out. "Why did you do that, Mr. w.a.n.g?"

"So I could see what was going on, Captain. The screen was blank but it gave off enough light that I could see around me a bit."

"What did you see, Mr. w.a.n.g?" she asked.

"n.o.body else was in the pa.s.sageway at the time, Captain. When the power was restored, I fell to the deck."