He asked Marel whether the walls were supposed to make that noise.
She said the cooling fans sometimes rattled when the outside temperature fluctuated.
Imani touched the panel with a diagnostic instrument.
The reading showed no mechanical vibration consistent with a fan.
The noise came again, three irregular strokes followed by a pause.
Sepha thought of skithra claws against a cargo door.
Marel asked them to continue.
Imani deliberately dropped her instrument and bent to retrieve it.
As she rose, she took a photograph of the service plate beneath the wall.
The plate was red.
Above it were four pressure gauges arranged in the same pattern Vela had described.
Imani glanced toward Sepha without speaking.
The doctor understood.
Nerin’s hidden compartment lay somewhere behind that wall.
They continued to the inspection desk, where Marel placed a stack of maintenance logs before them.
The logs showed normal readings for every approved unit.
Imani compared them against the temperature history from the ship’s external sensors.
A suspicious gap appeared at the same time each day, just as the depot’s maintenance workers changed shifts.
It lasted seventeen minutes.
During those minutes, the official refrigeration readings stayed perfectly stable even though the external power supply dropped sharply.
Imani showed the contradiction to Marel.
The supervisor said the equipment had a backup power system.
Imani asked for its output logs.
Marel said the backup system was proprietary and not included in the inspection.
Imani pointed to the safety regulations that required proof of continued power to any unit carrying dangerous biological material.
Marel’s mouth tightened.
She left to consult the depot manager.
Hamish leaned over the desk and whispered that the manager was about to discover how badly engineers could spoil a comfortable lie.
Sepha told him that they still had no proof of criminal conduct.
He agreed but observed that people generally did not hide harmless refrigerators behind three layers of security.
Imani used the moment to retrieve the photograph of the red plate.
She magnified a small scratch beside the lowest gauge.
The scratch formed the first half of a number.
Sepha recognized it as a laboratory identification code.
It was the code used by Nerin Tal’s workplace.
Marel returned with two armed security guards and informed the visitors that their inspection had been suspended.
Imani demanded an explanation.
The supervisor said the facility had entered an emergency maintenance condition.
At that exact moment, a warning light flashed above the corridor door.
