Ride The Rising Tide (The Maxwell Saga) by Peter Grant Page B

along with something that seems so minor… it happens, that’s all.”
    “Yeah, but it shouldn’t have happened. Thanks for not telling ’em I screwed up. I owe you. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just say the word.”
    “ I will. Thanks, PO.”
    ~ ~ ~
    Lieutenant–Commander Wollaston came out to address the assembled pilots and other small craft crew members during the morning briefing two days later. They broke formation and gathered round to listen.
    “ The Sector Engineering Staff are… well, they’re not exactly pleased with us, because we just tossed into their laps one of the hottest potatoes they’ve ever had to handle!” Laughter. “That doesn’t mean they’re not grateful to us for detecting the problem so quickly. They’ve got twelve more of those refurbished lifeboats in orbital storage, waiting to be installed on the other three ships of Transport Division Nineteen. After Commander Komenos’ emergency message, they sent in robotic samplers to check them. They’re all contaminated with the same mold spores we found. It looks as if the problem must have originated at the facility where they were refurbished. That’s the only place it could have infiltrated all their ventilation systems before they were sealed.”
    Garza shook his head in dismay. “That’s going to be a headache for the Fleet, Sir.”
    “That’s putting it mildly! Every Sector has a division of four Goddess class transports, and there are more rotating through shallow or deep maintenance, or in reserve. We were the first division to receive the refurbished lifeboats, and Hebe was the first ship, so hopefully no others have been affected yet. Something’s going to have to be done in a hurry to keep the time–expired lifeboats in service until uncontaminated replacements can be provided.
    “ To make matters even more interesting, the Fleet Hospital thinks they’ve identified the mold. It appears to be a particularly nasty mycotoxin first encountered on Tartarus, a planet in the Cassius sector five hundred light years from Lancaster. Yes, Spacer Maxwell?”
    Steve had raised his hand. “But, Sir, how did it get from there to the lifeboat refurbishment facility in the Lancaster system without infecting anything or anyone else? How could it survive and thrive in such a different environment?”
    The Lieutenant–Commander frowned. “Rest assured, those questions are being asked right now! The Sector Admiral’s dispatched a communications frigate to Fleet HQ on Lancaster with a flash emergency message about the problem. The Board of Admiralty is sure to ask some very pointed questions about why the refurbishment facility, and the Fleet inspectors assigned to it, didn’t detect the problem themselves. It’s going to be a huge kerfuffle!”
    He looked around his audience. “A single contamination incident like this can spread like wildfire if it isn’t contained. Just imagine the consequences if we’d transferred supplies to other ships before the mold was detected! Every vessel that received anything from us would be affected. If it subsequently had physical contact with other ships, all of them would also be affected. Even if they didn’t show any signs of the mold, they’d have to be considered suspect. We wouldn’t dare assume they were clean. The risks involved would be astronomical!
    “Worse still, what if we’d sent contaminated cargo to the Cargo Terminal? Heaven knows how many vessels might have picked up the mold from there, and how many more places they’d have visited — and contaminated — by the time they discovered it. And what about planets? If this mold had spread down an Elevator, or gone down aboard a cutter or cargo shuttle, to a planetary ecosystem that had no resistance against it… it just doesn’t bear thinking about!”
    He glanced at Steve. “By the way, Spacer Maxwell, you’re in very good standing with the powers that be. Your attention to detail in getting that stuff