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exchanges between artists and writers on the different worlds, or the scientists and Researchers in facilities separated by thirty-four light-years of uninhabited space, can never be overestimated.
    The ‘warp’ was the bridge between two slowly diverging cultures . . .
    Medical Research Facility
    Edison (Southwest)
    Deucalion
    21/14/202 Standard
    CHARLIE’S STORY
    â€˜CRIOS?’ Galen was almost shouting – which he was prone to do on those rare occasions when he didn’t understand something. And he sure as hell didn’t understand this.
    â€˜What the hell is CRIOS? This report reads like an epidemiologist’s nightmare. Something totally new, that spreads like wildfire, turns your organs and circulatory system to stone, and kills you in a couple of days. But they didn’t even bother to mention it? Shit, Charlie. What were they thinking?’
    I looked up at him and turned my seat around on its swivel. Sometimes in quiet moments he would apologise to me for having to put up with his moods – but usually not until some time afterwards.
    When he was revved up he wasn’t usually aware of it. I guess he had a kind of tunnel vision. It comes with the territory in most branches of Research, but especially in medical. I guess the stakes are higher.
    And you could say he was revved up at that moment.
    Revved up nothing. He was spitting mad.
    â€˜How could they fail to inform us? I mean, of all the dumb, stupid . . . Don’t they have procedures for this kind of thing on Earth? Look at the date on this memo. For God’s sake, Charlie. This report is forty years old. Something as serious as this, and they never even bothered letting us know.’
    I just shook my head. I knew how he was feeling. I’d gone through pretty much the same thing about half an hour earlier. I stood behind his wheelchair and began massaging his shoulders. They were almost rigid.
    â€˜I get the feeling we wouldn’t know even now if they had their way,’ I began. ‘The memo was slipped in, hidden on an embedded file, among the ROM transcriptions that Professor Hansen sent me from Earth on the last warp-shuttle. You remember, the ones of the keynote speeches from the World Epidemiology Conference? It wasn’t mentioned in the file-manifest, and Benjamin didn’t make any note of it when he downloaded them. It only appeared when I logged on, so it was obviously meant for me, and you can bet it wasn’t an accident. You know Hansen – he’s a whole lot like you. Something like this would definitely set him off.’
    Galen laughed, but his shoulders had begun to relax a little. He was always like that. High-octane explosion, quick recovery.
    I went on. ‘My guess is, Hansen had just come across this by accident. Poor old fart probably had a major coronary on the spot. This would be his way of telling us without getting himself canned.’
    I took my hands from his shoulders and moved around in front of him. ‘Look, Galen, I wouldn’t worry too much. Whatever this CRIOS is . . . was , it couldn’t have amounted to all that much. I mean, forty years. If they hadn’t controlled it, we’d have heard some thing.’
    He looked up at me. ‘You’ve seen the report, Charlie. It didn’t sound like they had too much control to me. Besides, what makes you think we would have heard? Look . . .’
    Punching up the cover-page, he pointed to the source information.

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    GLOBAL HEALTH ORGANISATION
    Confidential Memorandum
    (punishment code # 23/511 applies for any breach)
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    PROJECT:
    CRIOS
    STATUS:
    ALPHA (LEVEL FIVE CLEARANCE – NTK)
    SITE OF DATA-SOURCE:
    GHO CENTRE FOR COMMUNICABLE DISEASE CONTROL, NEW YORK, ATLANTIC/NORTHWEST SECTOR
    FILE ORIGINATION DATE:
    23/6/2332
    TOPIC:
    A DESCRIPTION OF THE POSSIBLE ORIGINS AND SYMPTOMS ASSOCIATED WITH COSTA RICAN ISOMORPHOUS OSSIFICATION SYNDROME (CRIOS), ALSO KNOWN AS ‘CRYSTAL