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LAB SETUP WHEN SHE SAW one.
    Bertha Newell brought the aging utility sled to a halt near the vaulted entrance of the underground chamber. She was an old ruin rat who had been excavating the alien catacombs most of her life. She figured she had spent more time underground than all of the members of the faculty of para-archaeology up at the university combined. This wasn’t the first time she had come across evidence of illegal activity in the ancient tunnels.
    Ever since the founding of the colonies, the maze of glowing green quartz tunnels had offered a refuge, albeit a dangerous one, to an endless assortment of thieves, murderers, escaped prisoners, drug dealers, cult leaders, and others who did not want their activities exposed to the light of day.
    Down here in the endless network of mostly uncharted passageways there was always someplace to hide, providedyou were willing to take the risks. One bad mistake in the catacombs could easily result in a death sentence or worse.
    She hesitated, trying to decide how to handle the situation. Ruin rats, by and large, were a live-and-let-live bunch. They tended to be obsessive about their privacy and secretive by nature. Most were ephemeral-energy para-resonators, otherwise known as tanglers, who, for various reasons, had never been accepted into the elite Society of Para-Archaeologists.
    Tanglers were the only para-resonators who could de-rez the dangerous illusion traps that guarded many of the chambers inside the catacombs. They were as necessary to exploration and excavation teams as ghost hunters. But unlike the hunters, who had organized in tough, secretive guilds, tanglers had early on developed a strong academic tradition.
    Today, a tangler who hoped to work on a reputable, licensed research team was expected to have several degrees and be a member in good standing with the Society of Para-Archaeologists.
    Tanglers like Bertha who had never had the opportunity to attend college, let alone get into the Society, often took up a career on the shady side of the ruin trade. They made their livings by slipping in and out of the tunnels through hidden holes-in-the-walls and staking out their territories in uncharted areas of the catacombs. They cleared the illusion traps on their own and did their best to avoid the occasional ghosts, all in hopes of finding a few relics and artifacts that could be sold to private collectors.
    Ruin rats as a rule preferred to avoid contact with others in the catacombs. Bertha was no exception. She was willing to overlook the occasional stash of loot that had been hidden by a burglar. When she had come across a bag of stolen credit cards last month she had quietly disposed ofthem without going to the trouble of reporting the incident to the authorities. The last thing she wanted was a bunch of cops running around the sector of the catacombs that she considered her private preserve.
    But she had a particular dislike of those who dealt in illegal pharmaceuticals. Years ago she had nearly lost her daughter to an overdose. Sandra had eventually recovered, gone into therapy, and was now leading a normal life. But the memory of that terrible time still haunted Bertha’s dreams.
    She got out of the sled, checking the dimly glowing corridor in both directions to be sure there was no sign of the lab’s owner. She also listened hard for the soft whine of a sled motor or voices, although she knew better than to depend on her hearing down here in the catacombs. The green quartz that the aliens had used to construct the vast network of tunnels and rooms underground possessed a number of odd properties, one of which was that it distorted sound waves.
    Satisfied that there was no one around, she went to stand at the entrance of the green chamber. The interior was lit, like every other room and corridor underground, by the pale, eerie glow of the luminous quartz that the aliens had used to construct their surviving structures and artifacts.
    The lab was