8. The Search Party

It turned out that searching the entirety of Hadley’s Hope was a larger undertaking than anyone had anticipated. It took the better part of two full days to search the core colony structures, staff quarters, and maintenance levels, which didn’t turn up much outside of a few new repair tickets and a rusted moonshine still. For all intents and purposes it was looking like this little incident might just solve itself. Maybe this whole thing was an overreaction, and the parasite just crawled off and died somewhere. Or maybe there wasn’t a parasite at all, and Russ Jorden was just the victim of some kind of bizarre work accident. This is the outer rim after all, sometimes unusual things happen. It wasn’t until Andrews suggested they expand the sweep to the outbuildings and east wing construction offices toward the landing grid that the gravity of the situation became woefully apparent. Lydecker was alone in operations when the search team came in.

 “What’s the update?” Lydecker asked.

 “I think we’ve got a serious problem here” Hal Lewis said. The team had been at it all night and Hal certainly looked it. “We found three more of those things, but they were all dead. We dropped them off with the science team for analysis.”

 “Go on.”

 “It also looks like something got into the livestock pens. One of the doors was torn clear off the hinges. We’ve had a hell of a time rounding the loose animals up. We must have missed some because the count is off by a substantial margin.” There was a pot of coffee sitting on the warmer and Lewis picked it up. “This still good? Can I use this mug?”

 Lydecker nodded and Lewis poured himself a cup. His hands were shaking.

 “We were all about ready to call it a night right then and there. If you would have seen those hinges…no person could have done that.” He took a deep swallow of the coffee. Its warmth seemed to do him some good. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Then I practically tripped over Lopez and Martin. They were laid out in the pen, unconscious.”

 Lydecker’s blood ran cold. “Did they have…”

 Lewis nodded. “Yeah, both of them. They’re laid out in medical right now. And honestly Brad, I suspect there are more that we haven’t found yet. We need to get a headcount going and fast. Where’s Simpson?”

 Lydecker hadn’t seen the Colony Operations Manager all evening. “Probably in the old admin wing. I’ll find him.”