Chapter 60: Sowing the Future
Panic, sharp and immediate, lanced through the sterile, ancient air of the cargo hold. Sabina ripped the smoking glove from her hand and threw it to the floor, where it continued to smolder and dissolve into a foul-smelling black sludge. Her skin beneath was red and blistered but unbroken, saved by the thickness of the leather.
"Get back!" Maximus roared, shoving Sabina behind him and drawing his gladius, his soldier's instinct to meet any threat with steel.
"Don't touch it!" Alex yelled, his mind racing. "Lyra, how do I close the pod?"
The same sequence, in reverse, Lyra's voice commanded, calm amidst the chaos.
Alex lunged forward, his heart hammering against his ribs, and quickly tapped the pressure-sensitive symbols on the pod's surface in the reverse order. The bio-corrosive fungus, which had begun to visibly grow and spread across its container, seemed to recoil. With a final, reluctant hiss, the pod's cover slid shut, the turquoise light within fading back to a soft, dormant green. The immediate threat was contained.
They stood there for a long moment, their breath coming in ragged gasps, the adrenaline coursing through their veins. The beautiful, glowing chamber no longer felt like a place of wonder. It now felt like a minefield. They had been fools, children playing with the tools of the gods, utterly ignorant of the dangers.
"We're done here," Alex said, his voice firm, his decision absolute. "The risk of contamination, of unleashing something we can't control, is too great."
Maximus nodded in grim agreement. They worked with a new, frantic urgency, grabbing the few dozen amphorae they had already filled with Lyra's prioritized "safe" seeds. They made a hasty retreat, scrambling back through the cargo hold, their lanterns casting wild, dancing shadows that now seemed to hold a lurking menace. They squeezed back through the hatch, sealed it from the outside, and ascended in their bronze bell, leaving the silent, sleeping horrors and wonders of the starship to its millennia of darkness.
The moment they reached the surface, Alex gave the order. "Flood the caisson," he commanded the waiting engineer. "And then collapse it. Bury the hatch. Seal it off, permanently." He would not risk another expedition. He had his seeds, his one chance. It would have to be enough.
The precious amphorae were transported back to the palace under the heaviest guard, treated with a reverence usually reserved for the imperial treasury. Alex's small, experimental garden on the palace roof was no longer sufficient for the task at hand. He needed a dedicated, secure, and expandable facility.