Seignur Veeoni’s Private Laboratory
Containment Room
M Traven moved the four crates through the hatch into the double-containment room while Seignur Veeoni made her preparations. Given the age of the items, and the fact that they had been stored on-station since before the Great Enemy subverted it into Tinsori Light, the extra security was prudent. In fact, Seignur Veeoni had a moment’s nostalgia for the quadruple containment room of her former laboratory, since destroyed by the Lyre Institute.
Carefully, she removed the two sets of memory beads that she wore next to her skin, placing each in its particular protective box.
She then donned a hazard suit—the ceramic one—though it would perhaps have been more prudent to have used the remotes to make her examination.
If the boxes contained what she thought they contained, it was not impossible that she would need to interact with them personally.
Her preparations made, she gave the beads in their protective boxes to M Traven, with instructions to place them in the safe.
Instead of simply doing as she was told, M Traven asked a question.
“Do we expect a disaster?”
“We do not. After you have put those items into the safe, you will seal the laboratory and all work spaces, and take position at the bay entrance. No one is to come any further than the bay entrance until I have signaled that I am finished.”
M Traven sighed.
“To a soldier’s ear,” she said, “that sounds like disaster prep.”
“It is,” Seignur Veeoni told her, “prudence.”
“What are we being prudent about?”
“I am not minded to allow the Great Enemy or any of their works into existing station systems. Is that imprudent?”
“Only the part where what’s in those crates might be dangerous.”
“Everything is dangerous, in the correct amounts. In the present situation, I do not believe that the crates or their contents present a danger to us or to this station. However, there exists a possibility—small, but present—that I am wrong. I am therefore taking precautions. Are you satisfied?”
M Traven looked down at the boxes she was holding—a treasure trove of memory—and sighed.
“Not satisfied, no. What orders, if you are wrong?”
That was an excellent question. Seignur Veeoni inclined her head in approval.
“If I am wrong, contact my brother Yuri and tell him that I opened the crates that were in Storeroom Core Six. Follow his orders from there.”
For a moment M Traven simply did not move.
Then, she saluted, turned and left the room.
When the door had fully closed and locked, Seignur Veeoni pulled up the hood of the protective ceramic suit, fastened it, lowered the visor, made sure of the field, and let herself into the containment room.