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"I'm afraid the patient has stopped."

Malik's words raised the brow of the Heskar on the other side of the room. She was growing accustomed to this type of scrutiny. Most of the members of the Confederacy seemed taken aback that the station's chief medical officer stood on four legs, rather than two. In this case, though, Jules' reaction was not to the sleek-pelted otter-wolf that stood beside his companion, but the hesitant delivery of her diagnosis.

"Is that, uh, your culture's way of saying 'dead'?" asked the bearded dragon, narrowing his eyes.

Malik sucked in a breath. She had to remain professional at all times, even if the Heskar's condition perturbed her even more than the sight of the deceased. All beings flowed through the universe throughout their life. Absolute stasis was an unthinkable fate.

"No," she said. "Stopped. All respiration, circulation, even neurological activity… with this kind of stasis we should see a similar drop in body temperature, but his condition is stable." The otter-wolf's ears folded back. "Impossibly stable. Nervous charges are at a stand-still. His cells haven't decayed since you brought him in."

Jules' eyes widened and he took a cautious step back from the table. "Is it contagious?"

"I don't know," said Malik. "I don't even know what it is, but I'm going to place him in quarantine until we know for sure."

Malik padded out of the examination room, waiting for Jules to catch up before tapping the lower panel with a claw. The doors slid close, and the pressure plates clicked as the atmospheric exchange shifted. Her assistant, Voyt, was still staring through the room's window at the bronze-scaled Heskar, who lay as still as a corpse.

We expected there to be some unusual health problems once we started living on the edge of the Ghost, she thought. There isn't a single case like this in the Confedercy records…

She had already begun gathering the pieces to the puzzle in her mind when Jules cleared his throat for her attention.

"If there's a possibility of the disease spreading, should security get involved?" he asked.

"Not yet." Malik frowned. "And we do not even know if it can be classified as a disease."

Jules shook his head, clearly frustrated. "Then what can I do?"

Malik tapped her claws on the floor. "Can you get me a record of his service logs before his arrival on the station? It's most likely that the Ghost is responsible, but I don't want to rule anything out."

The Heksar stiffened. "Our military records are classified. I'll have to contact command and convince them to release something."

"Very well." Malik looked back at her patient, certain that the man's condition spoke for itself. If the Heskar were going to redact every useful piece of data from their reports, she would have to find a way to work around it. "In the meantime, have security watch for anyone showing the same symptoms."

She paused and then fixed a tired look on Jules. "Discretely. That is if your culture is familiar with the word?"

Jules lifted a hand as if he were going to object. Then he remembered his faux pas, and shrugged to say 'Fair enough.' The bearded dragon, confident enough now that he had a mission that he could act on, appeared to relax. She could hear his heartbeat lower and his vision was more lucid when he looked back to his quarantined companion.

"Call me if there are any changes," he said.

"Of course," said Malik.

A single change would be significant right now, she thought. She barely processed the Heskar's heavy footfalls and the clinic doors opening and shutting. The hum of her instruments and the air conditioning returned to regular intervals, making it much easier to think.

The blood samples I took earlier returned to regular motion after a couple of minutes, but there was no sign of any foreign bodies. Some species can regulate their metabolism on a microscopic level, but not like this. We're in uncharted territory here.

* * *

Malik's instinct told her to look at the quantum level, which meant a trip to the upper ring and a visit to the AstroLab's peculiar officer. When she arrived, she heard the whirring of microscopic clockwork as Ceres' machine body approached her.

Ceres had chosen the form of a bipedal unicorn with thin white fur and long golden locks. The horn on top of her head doubled as an antenna that allowed the signals from her crystalline body to transmit to the android. Without it, Ceres was nothing more than an inert (albeit beautiful) matrix of black and golden minerals hidden safely in the station's Command Ring.

"Doctor Teak?" Ceres' voice, though emulated, sounded as natural as any of the other station members. Her lips moved and only the slight shine of her artificial eyes gave a slight uncanniness to her appearance. "What do I owe you for the pleasure?"

Malik tipped her head to the side, trying to comprehend the odd greeting. "Ah. It's 'to what do I owe the pleasure?'"

"Oh, yes." Ceres' ears gave an embarrassed wiggle. "I'm still getting a handle on some of the ways you biologicals communicate. Your words take the long way around to the meaning."

Malik chuckled and shook her head. "I'd love to get into a long-winded discussion with you about linguistics sometime, but I need to take care of my patient first. I don't suppose I could borrow your ultralight scope?"

"This body doesn't have a scope," said Ceres. Malik watched patiently as she parsed through the linguistic barriers. "Oh, you mean the lab's scope! We're currently running observations on Ghost, so it will not be available for a few hours. Is it urgent?"

Malik shook her head. "Not enough to interrupt your scans. Can you put in a reservation for me?" Her tail thumped on the floor. "And let me know if you notice any unusual changes in the star's behavior."

"Of course," said Ceres. The unicorn tilted her head, studying Malik's body language. "You're experiencing stress. Is there something that I can do to help?"

Before Malik could give the suggestion some thought, a voice chimed from the device pinned to her paw.

"Doctor Teak, you'd better get back to the med bay." The grainy voice belonged to Jules, who was trying his best to keep calm. "I've had two more crewmates freeze up."

Malik suppressed a growl of alarm. "I'll be right there," she said. The Covax took two steps towards the door before looking back enough to find the concerned frown on Ceres' face.

"Send me those observations as soon as they're in," she said. "And get me that scope."

"Of course, Doctor," said Ceres, bowing her head.

* * *

A full day of testing later, Malik found herself no closer to an answer. She had only stepped into the shower at the urging of the crew, and because she desperately needed to stop staring at her motionless patients. One Heskar, one Veyah, and one of her people lay arranged in different beds. Her clinic was starting to look more like a twisted sculpture museum than a place of healing. Their images stuck in her head as she watched the water run down her snout.

The only silver lining is that they didn't seem to contract it from one another. It's not spreading like a contagion. Any cells removed from the body return to normal after about an hour, and any medications become inert when injected. I can't remove these people from themselves, but maybe I can jump-start their bodies into normal time again.

She raised a paw and pressed in a panel on the wall. The pipes inside clunked and the high-pressure water faded to a trickle. All of the moisture collected in little channels on the floor, bound for the station's filtration system.

I may as well be looking for a miracle cure.

The Covax shook vigorously, sending the rest of the water clinging to her pelt onto the walls of the stall. With her pelt fluffed, she returned to her quarters and jumped up onto her cot.

A ping of ruby light from the bottom of her display indicated three new messages. The first was a report from the Heskar military, forwarded by Jules. To her delight, only a few of the sector and ship names had been blanked out of the record. On the other hand, there didn't seem to be anything of use in the records. Routine drops from the quantum river, collecting readings from listening stations, and surveys of uninhabited planets en route.

Neither of the other two passengers had encountered anything remarkable on the journey, either.

Not too surprising. Ghost is still our main culprit.

The results from the ultrascope did little more than confirm what she already suspected. Even on a subatomic level, the patients' bodies simply had stopped interacting with the universe at large. The curve of radio waves around their body was almost identical to the event horizon of the frozen space outside the station.

Everyone on board has been exposed to the same patterns from the star. There must be something these three have in common, no matter how small.

Malik swiped her pad over the screen and arranged the logs that Jules had sent over.

A security officer and an engineer… they'll have been all over the station. But the Covax spends most of his time on the commercial ring, managing his shop. So if we start with him, and try to find a common element…

Jules had already done the work of mapping coordinates to specific locations. She searched a dozen different spots before finding the one they shared.

Her tail lashed and thumped to the other side of the cot.

The End of the Universe.

* * *

The station lights had dimmed to reflect the later standard hours. Most of the shops on the ring had been closed up for the night. Some were covered with heavy metal grates and others were fully sealed off with heavy rolling metals imported from the vault-crafters of the owners' home worlds. Malik would rather have been resting, but she did appreciate how easy it was to navigate the ring when most of the denizens of Ghost Station Alpha were tucked away in their quarters.

A couple of Pterans lingered in the shadows of an overpass, hanging from the railing and lifting out of sight whenever one of the Heskar security guards passed by. They then laughed and let themselves swing back down into hanging, and one nearly grazed Malik with his ears before she hurried out of the way.

"If you bang your skull up there, I'm not patching you back together!" she growled over her shoulder.

It was an oblique lie, and the batfolk probably knew that. Or they didn't care, and they were right back to their conspiring before she had even passed out of earshot.

A cool blue glow near the end of the mall welcomed the last trickle of customers into the End of the Universe. Compared to every other venue on the station, it was not quite dead—Malik would have referred to it as 'on life support.' Most whose paths came through Ghost Station Alpha still could not bring themselves to walk into the sight of a Many.

Malik buried her apprehensions into a quiver and twitch of her tail as she padded into the bar.

Jules apparently haunted the first booth on most evenings. His form of relaxation took the odd form of watching the station's passers-by while off-duty. He mused that it soothed his species' instinct to guard their territory. She thought he may have just been incapable of relaxing, but figuring that particular mystery out wasn't any of her business unless it drove him to the medical bay.

Having an ally nearby did make her feel better. Little star lines on the floor directed her paws in a lane that had been shaped to accommodate pretty much every species that could walk on the station. The tops of the booths, however, made it difficult to discern who was sitting in any of them from a glance.

Even the bar was difficult to read, and at the end of the curve, she spied the eight-eyed chimera enjoying a quiet conversation with one of the Pteran merchants.

The alien turned their head, fixing half of their sight on Malik. The Covax tried not to shudder as she clambered onto a particularly broad stool head, waiting for the proprietor to approach.

"Can we help you?" asked Nil. Their voices threaded into a chorus of suspicion.

You don't want me here, and I don't want to be here, thought Malik. Let's just get this over with.

Malik rested her claws on the edge of the bar. "I've got several patients with a mysterious illness."

"That sounds rough," said Nil, a claw-tip of sharpness still in their voices. "Come to put your mind at ease?"

"In a manner of speaking." Malik needed to cross this threshold before it became any more awkward. "Have you noticed anything unusual in here this last week or so?"

The fur on Nil's back rippled in an exaggerated shrug. "No more than usual. Look, if you're not going to order anything, we've got other customers to serve."

Malik glanced down at the sleepy bar and back at Nil. "And I've got lives to save. If you have any idea what's going on, you need to tell me."

Silence crept through the air as their conversation went on. Malik could hear the Many's claws scrapping the floor on the other side of the bar. The Pteran looked up briefly and then ducked back to his drink as soon as he noticed the tension flaring between them.

"My patients only have one thing in common," Malik pressed. "And that's this bar, Nil."

This did not motivate the Many to be more forthcoming with information. They drew back a step and their eyes narrowed to slits. "We're not sure we like what you're implying."

"I'm not implying anything."

Nil leaned forward and their voices came as a whispered growl. "You're not asking for our help. You think we're making people sick."

"I…" Malik shook her head. "I have to consider all possibilities."

"You do that." Nil returned to normal volume, swiping an empty glass before stepping away. "We are a bartender, not a doctor. So why don't you just let us do our job, and you worry about yours?"

Malik flattened her ears and growled. This wasn't turning out to be the lead she thought it was, and Nil wouldn't cooperate easily.

"Unless you can't figure it out yourself?" Nil needled.

The Covax's jaw clenched up tight. She fought back a growl, and it took all her will not to jump up on the countertop. Her muscles ached as she dropped hard to the floor and turned away from all the staring eyes shining like stars in the bar. "Goodnight, Nil. Sorry to have bothered you."

The Many watched just long enough to ensure Malik had gone, then returned to their customers.

* * *

Malik did not sleep easy that night, tossing and turning so that even the light cushioning of her cot was thrown into disarray. As she began to surrender to unconsciousness, she felt the frustrated prick of a revelation only for it to slip away from her mind as she grasped for waking once more.

She dreamed of swimming in an endless river, only to find its warm waters chilling around her. Around her were the faces of her friends and family, contorted and frozen. Their silent figures seemed to cry out for help.

Malik tried to reach for them, only to find that her paws couldn't move.

She tried to thrash, but could not. The water grew still and dark, and she could not even scream.

A chime from her bedroom's console jolted her from the nightmare. She sat up, panting, and lifted a shaking paw to answer the call. The voice on the other line belonged to Voyt.

"Doctor, we need you."

The Covax rubbed at her eyes, and the drowsiest part of her brain wanted to go back to sleep. She wanted so badly to forget about this problem, to let someone else handle it, and to move on with her life pretending that she'd never failed to help her crewmates.

There is no one else, Malik, her reason chimed in. You have to help.

You have to do something.

"I'll be right there," she murmured.

Minutes later, fur disheveled and just straightening her coat, the Covax stumbled into her clinic.

Three on-call clinicians rushed from room to room, clearing space to set up cots in the general waiting areas. Even though a significant section of the ring had been reserved for medical services, the number of patients was already beginning to overwhelm their capacity.

"How many?" she asked as she shouldered her way through to the front desk.

"Up to fifteen as of the hour," said Voyt. "At this rate, though…"

One of the incoming lines buzzed at the desk, and another clinician rushed to attend the intercom to take in the next report.

Malik clamped her muzzle. "Has there been any updates on their condition?"

"No," said Voyt. "All we know is that they started to feel sluggish, and within a few minutes all of them entered stasis."

Malik nodded. She stepped up to the main console and swept her paws over it, beginning to scan over patient names and diagnostic reports. Even at a glance, she could tell that several of the patients had never visited Nil's bar, which threw her only running theory out of the window.

"It has to be the Ghost," she said. "Prolonged exposure, maybe. Nothing in Ceres' scans indicates any unusual flare-ups in radiation."

Voyt dragged her paws under her chest. "The station council has asked for a formal order. What do you think we should do, doctor?"

Maybe if we move them away from the star, they'll recover on their own.

At the rate these reports are spiking, it won't be long before the whole station is impacted.

"Doctor?" Voyt asked again, her voice nearly pitching into a whine.

Malik would have reprimanded her if she didn't feel as desperate. If the ailment threatened to freeze the whole crew, then the only reasonable course of action would be to evacuate the station. Even if it was a logistical nightmare, the station had been constructed with contingencies in place in case Ghost started acting up.

It was the safest option, but it would mean giving up Ghost Station Alpha before it even had a chance to reach its potential.

The Covax took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Contact Command," she said. "We'll have to begin evacuation pro--"

Before she could finish her directive, heavy paws thumping through the clinic doorway interrupted her. She looked up to find Nil entering with a Pteran braced between their upper arms.

"Don't tell me you're giving up already," they said.

Malik suppressed a growl, then gave herself a mental slap on the wrist. She could hardly blame the Many for their hostility after their last meeting.

"I don't know what else to do," she admitted. "If this condition is caused by Ghost, it's related to an area of physics that's only theoretical."

"Theoretical to your people, maybe," Nil mused.

The clinicians looked up in surprise as Nil lay the batfolk on one of the nearby gurneys. As one wheeled him past, Malik thought he had frozen with a peculiar expression. He wore a nervous smile like he was taking comfort in whoever he was within the moments before he froze.

"Are you saying you can help?" demanded Malik. "Because if you know how to fix this--"

Nil put up their palms. "You're on the right track. Retrace your steps and look at the problem more closely."

More closely… thought Malik. How much closer can you get than the sub-atomic level?

Malik wanted to believe that she could save the crew of Ghost Station Alpha on her own, but if she drew another blank, the entire population would suffer from her failure.

"Will you come with me to the Astro Lab?" she asked. "I think I need your help."

Nil folded their arms, tapped their claws on the floor, and looked down on Malik, relishing a single moment of superiority.

"If that's what it takes to get you to treat Toya, then I guess I have no choice."

* * *

Unlike the rest of the crew, Ceres did not seem particularly bothered or exhausted to be called upon in the middle of the night. If anything, there was an extra twitch in her ears that indicated excitement and curiosity at the occasion.

"I don't think I've had so many new people in here at once," she said. "Give me a moment to bring the scope online."

Despite having never seen the station's instruments, Nil did not seem interested in digging through their capabilities. If anything, they swept their eyes over each console before returning their attention to Malik.

"So, what are we looking for?" asked Malik. "My physics is up to snuff by Confederation standards, but I don't know what I'm missing. So if you can help me, please."

Nil sighed, a sound like wind rushing through several reeds. "We can't give you the answers, but we can show you the way. We're willing to bet you've been looking for unusual behavior in the quarks. Or looking at outliers in Ghost's emission streams. Correct?"

Malik blinked, and Ceres spoke from where she was adjusting the probe.

"That lines up with the readings we were taking," she said. "No one has seen any unusual changes in the star's behavior."

"But if it's not unusual," Malik continued, "then it's something that we're used to seeing. Something we keep overlooking."

The Covax started toward the console before glancing back at Nil. "If you know what's going on, why don't you just tell me?"

Nil smiled, showing row after row of sharp tiny teeth. "Plausible deniability," they said. "Despite our reputation, the Many still respect the laws of the universe. We can't share our technology, but if you're on the brink of discovery… then we can give you a little nudge. It's as simple as that."

Simple as quantum physics, Malik fumed.

The three of them approached the scope together. Ceres pointed the device towards the star and began to take readings. Invisible radiation tingled over the array, translating into numbers and finally into a visual model projected above the console. A sea of bright blue lights representing wave after wave of trillions of tiny particles flowed toward them.

Malik leaned forward and adjusted the model to show the particles farther away from the star. The further they got from the event horizon, the more chaotic their movements became, until at a great enough distance they began to behave like normal energy again.

As if they had never been frozen to begin with.

"Anything flowing away from the Ghost returns to a normal state," said Ceres. "It may be possible that the nearby radiation is affecting living organisms."

"But we still don't know why." Malik grimaced. "If we have to move everyone off the station to treat them, we're right back at a full evacuation."

Nil shook their head. "You're focusing so much on treating one individual at a time. You're missing the bigger picture."

Malik's neck fur frizzed. It felt like the Many was asking her to casually move mountains with a brush of a whisker. What she was asking was ridiculous, and the stasis continued to spread through the station even as they spoke. "I can't just alter the bloody star, can I?"

Nil just smiled, waiting for the pieces to fall into place.

No, thought Malik, but we already have a whole network of systems organized around Ghost. Solar power, magnetic shielding… it can't be that simple, can it?

Malik's paws tensed. She had let the Ghost defeat her from the get-go, declaring it to be a problem too large, its nature a mystery for other, greater scholars to solve.

And perhaps they would.

She could change the environment, though – not of the hostile vacuum beyond her walls but in the station itself. By changing its magnetic shielding, they just might be able to accelerate the particles to normal speed before they pass through the station.

All she needed to do was get the right information to the engineers.

"Ceres, would it be possible to adjust the station's shielding to normalize the Ghost's radiation before it impacts the rings?" Malik paused. "If we work in some of the engine's technology, we can create a sort of quantum irrigation around Ghost Station Alpha."

The cyborg blinked twice, and then her fingers flurried over the keyboard. She studied the read-out for a long moment before clapping her hands together.

"Yes!" Her ears trembled with excitement. "We'll need the engineering team to modify the array, but it can be done."

"Let's hope Chief Ajax won't mind losing a little beauty sleep," said Malik.

Nil nodded and appeared to be satisfied with their conclusion. "Looks like you've got this under control. We're going back to the clinic."

What once felt like Malik's downfall began to crystallize into one of her greatest achievements. She knew she could not have done it without Nil's intervention, and she couldn't even credit the Many without drawing unwanted attention to their involvement. They must have known her crew had the equipment and enough foresight to find the answer, as long as they were looking in the right place.

I'll find a way to return the favor, somehow, thought Malik, once I've seen this through.

* * *

Twenty standard hours later, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

The clamor of the commercial ring had returned in full force. Jules, Toya, and Nil were gathered at the End of the Universe around their usual table to share the latest news.

"So," said Jules, leaning over to Toya, "what was it like being frozen in time?"

"A lot like being asleep," admitted the Pteran, stirring at a glass of berry juice with the tip of his wing. "The last thing I remember was Nil saying everything would be all right. Then last night I woke up in the clinic."

The Heskar chugged the rest of his glass. "You must have had the weirdest dreams."

"Timelocked brains don't dream," said Nil, leaning in just in time to swap the empty glass for a full one. "Maybe yours is still running a little slow, scales?"

"Heh. I'm only letting you get away with that one because you're the one that brings the booze."

Nil laughed a deep and windy sound in three voices. "Sure. That's why."

Malik found herself standing at the edge of the bar. She wanted to come and apologize, but even now she felt like she was intruding on a private scene.

"Are you going to keep standing there?" Nil asked suddenly, turning to face the Covax. "Or are you going to join us?"

Malik blinked and leaned away instinctively. "Am I welcome here?"

"Hmm…" Nil looked over at their friends. Neither of them could muster the same poker face to drag out her stress, but it dragged out all the same. "We suppose we can tolerate you so long as you're looking after these two."

Jules shoved himself further into the booth and made room for Malik to rest near the end of the table. "What's with the long face? You're the hero of the hour. I think that's worth at least one free drink."

Malik rested her hands on her paws. She had managed to get some sleep, but the ordeal had left her completely drained. She still hadn't forgiven herself for giving up before Nil's intervention, and that was a wound that was going to take some time to heal.

But these people need a good doctor, and I can't keep licking my wounds while I should be doing my job.

Malik raised her head. "All right," she said. "Just a little celebration. I can't be out of commission for too long."

Nil shook their head. "What would this station do without you?"

The Many brought another round of drinks. While they couldn't stay for more than a few moments at a time, they always wandered back to catch up on conversation. Malik may never have become good friends with Nil, but she could at least accept them as a member of the crew and a worthy colleague in the study of the universe.

Nil looked over as Jules' boisterous voice filled the bar again, and their eyes met. Malik understood their expression. The Confederacy would no doubt claim discovery of a new form of radiation, giving it a name that would sound forever wrong to the Many. Nil deserved all the credit for their help, but could never publicly give it, or else their crime, benevolent though it was, could be revealed to their people.

A price they were willing to pay if it meant keeping the End of the Universe.

Malik understood they were both determined to protect the station and the people that lived in it. That alone meant that they could co-exist, and even respect one another.

Maybe, just maybe, we'll grow to like each other.

The ott-wolf lifted a glass of sweet-smelling amber liquid and drank. She swore she could feel the Flow, impossible and invisible though it was, carrying her and all things forward in time. It would bring her to friendships, hardships, and someday to her journey's end.

As it always was, and as it should be.