Book Five, Chapter 39: Red Herring No More
I went back to the Helio's sleeping quarters and found the six remaining bags, as well as Cassie, who was working with the clone machine. It had turned itself into a large egg shape and was currently gestating a new clone for us.
"Everything running smooth?" I asked.
Cassie was biting her lip and didn’t seem to hear my question. I could understand her problem, but I didn’t have time to argue about it. As long as she went and did her job, it was okay.
She had convinced herself that Andrew’s surrogate bore his soul. Now, getting NPCs killed felt like a harder decision for her.
I grabbed two of the large canvas bags.
They were heavier than I had expected, almost as if they were filled with water balloons, and in a way, they were.
I hauled my bags out into the IBECS. Antoine and Kimberly were busy in Bobby’s lab, so I moved ahead.
I was out in the hallways of the IBECS, completely Off-Screen, with my heavy bags filled, looking for a place to empty them. There were only two sections of the ship where we could safely put the bags: Bobby’s lab and the front of the ship, past the artificial gravity device.
In all versions of the story, the anti-gravity device divided the front of the ship from the back. It was impassable by anything other than a tiny bed bug hitching a ride on cleaning equipment that ran throughout the modules.