A Ronda-class station was the kind of place where not a single day passed quietly. Of this, Junior Investigator Vitaly Samsonov was absolutely certain. He frequently looked back on the day of his assignment, wondering how exactly he had offended the universe to end up here. On the other hand, many of his classmates envied him—a job he loved, minimal paperwork, and a whole flock of interesting characters. Or uninteresting ones, like Mr. Nikolay Semenovich Semenov, who had demanded the presence of someone from station security. Right now, Vitaly would gladly have traded places with anyone located as far from Ronda as possible. His head throbbed, and the victim’s shouting pierced his temples like hammer blows, making it impossible to focus on the task at hand. "The cargo was standing right here!" the spaceman raged, gesturing wildly and pointing his finger. "And now what?" "An animal transport container. Empty," Samsonov noted phlegmatically. "In an empty cargo hold." "Exactly, empty!" The spaceman realized that no reaction other than the filling out of an incident report was forthcoming, so he dialed back his temper. "So, are you going to find my tardigrade?" "We’ll find it, absolutely." Vitaly closed his tablet, where he had just managed to type 'what is a tardigrade?' and was now wondering why such a small creature required such a massive container. "A space tardigrade! A descendant of THE legendary ones!" the victim tried to sound impressive. "Do you have the cargo manifest?" Vitaly asked indifferently, having no idea whose descendant had vanished with such a loud commotion. Nikolay silently handed over a few sheets of paper, waved his hand, and set off to solve the problem himself. It was already clear to him that no one was going to find anything, and in all likelihood, no one would even bother looking. He mentally calculated how he would search for the valuable cargo on his own. And whom he ought to ask: had anyone seen someone carrying a large sack... or perhaps the tardigrade itself, walking around completely unpackaged. The main flaw in this strategy was the lack of living witnesses. The hangar contained only two repair droids, and they wouldn't even turn their camera lenses toward an outsider. Their sole business was life-support maintenance and troubleshooting. After loitering near the indifferent machinery for a bit, Nikolay headed to the bar, hoping to overhear something useful and question potential witnesses. Unlike the spaceman, Vitaly had no trouble getting cooperation from the droids—he flashed his badge in front of their lenses and ordered a download of the past twenty-four hours of footage. Few people knew that repair droids recorded everything happening around them. The quality wasn't great, but they triggered at the slightest anomaly: a sound, a movement, even an irregular draft of air. And now, the investigator watched with indignation as the owner of the missing cargo first tumbled out of the airlock, visibly heavily intoxicated, and stumbled away, leaving his ship wide open. An hour later, something multi-legged and terrifying, reaching up to an adult man's knee, crawled out onto the ramp... and vanished into the alley between the shipping containers. The investigator compared the photo and the dimensions. The photo matched, but the size was significantly larger, which was rather disheartening. Fortunately, the beast was flagged not as a predator, but as a highly peaceful creature. It fed on vegetation—live or otherwise—and various worm-like small fry. Feeding the tardigrade table scraps was strictly forbidden, which hinted not only at how common these creatures were, but also at their omnivorous nature. To Samsonov's immense regret, the creature’s projected path did not end in a dead end, but in a thoroughfare leading to the adjacent dock, a parking bay for small transport vessels. This meant the tardigrade could be aboard any one of them, or it could have already perished a hundred times over, incinerated or crushed by a landing ship. To ease his conscience, he requested the feed from the local cameras, found out they were down, and swore. Searching for tracks yielded nothing either—the cleaning had been done so thoroughly that the investigator barely restrained himself from kicking the janitor droid. After some thought, Vitaly requested the departure and landing schedule for the transports in that specific dock. There weren't that many ships; most were still staying for the trade fair. Only three had taken off during the creature's escape window. In theory, it could have boarded any of them. Just then, the intoxicated owner of the tardigrade showed up, forcing Vitaly to cut his musings short to deal with the victim. Nikolay was incredibly drunk, but he managed to convey the core message—his own investigation had also tanked. The incredibly rare animal—blast it to space—had been seen by absolutely no one. "I don't have any good news for you," Samsonov reported, trying not to breathe in the alcohol fumes. "I managed to pin down the escape time, but the animal either perished under the thrusters or managed to slip onto one of the docked ships." "We can search them!" Nikolay brightened up. "Only if the owners give permission. We don't have the authority to subject every vessel to a search." The slamming of the door cut his passionate speech short. Nikolay had decided that the law was of no use to him. Vitaly hesitated for a bit longer, but finally decided—to hell with protocol, if someone stumbled upon this beast in the dark, they might just drop dead of a heart attack. So he broadcasted the alert and the inquiry... The ship captains turned out to be a responsive bunch. Replies started flooding in within mere minutes: "Airlock remained closed during the specified time frame," read the first. "Sorry, but we were boozing," the second one delighted him. "So we don't look much better ourselves right now... but no new faces have been added!" "My crew didn't bring anything aboard," the third assured. "If I find it, I’ll kill everyone!" reacted a mother of many, who doubled as a ship captain and flew with her six children instead of a crew. "What do you mean by 'tardigrade'?" the owner of a very ancient ship didn't understand. "I just replaced my engine, if you must know!" "Haven't seen a tardigrade, but I can offer you my mother-in-law..." And a couple of minutes later, from the same number: "Take this idiot back, what a relative he turned out to be! I'll find my daughter a proper husband!" "I think I’ve opened a portal to hell," the investigator admitted defeat, preparing to open the next message. Just then, a signal was forwarded to him from flight control. The vessel The Black Ecologist had requested take-off clearance. But according to the scanners, something was shifting around in their cargo hold... so they decided to check it out just in case. "Sorry to trouble you," Vitaly began, but the ship's owner—a young guy with the tanned face of a space wolf and the gaze of a fanatic—cut him off: "I am ready to present the ship for inspection. I only ask you to sign a waiver stating that in the event of damage to personal property or bodily harm, no claims will be made against me." "And what exactly are you carrying?" the investigator clarified, trying to translate the phrase into plain speech: 'Twelve tons of green mass for protein feed and thirty-five to forty tons of live fodder mass.' "Predatory plants and the worms to feed them." The ecologist stood at attention like a soldier on parade. "Ready to show you." He waved his hand—the screen flashed a glimpse of a grey sofa with a lone dark ottoman, and a poster of a bearded man hugging a monkey... "No need, I'm only interested in the tardigrade!" the investigator tried to decline this sudden "blessing," but it was too late. The shipowner was already sprinting through the corridors, bulkheads blurring past. Before the cargo door, he grabbed a baseball bat and only then slid the door open. Vitaly recoiled as jaws the size of a human head snapped right into the camera lens. Massive bushes, each in its own tub, clacked their teeth (or whatever it was they had). "As you can see, a tardigrade couldn't possibly be here; it simply wouldn't survive." The ecologist fended off the most aggressive jaws with the bat and hastily slammed the door shut. "They haven't eaten today yet, I was just about to feed them..." He walked into another hold filled with kegs. He opened one, and a dark sludge swarming with worms poured out onto the floor. "I feed them this... As you can see, the barrels are packed tightly, and a space tardigrade is a large animal—it couldn't hide here. The rest of the quarters are locked and haven't been opened." "Understood. Thank you!" "Am I clear for take-off? Or would you still care to pay a visit in person? I’d be happy to show you around the ship!" "Of course, you are clear!" the investigator permitted. His imagination helpfully supplied a mental image of his own dismembered corpse being fed to the "flowers" by the ecologist. The Black Ecologist had long since vanished from the radars, but the search continued. Yet the tardigrade seemed to have vanished into thin air right through the station. Three hours later, aboard The Black Ecologist. The captain sank onto the sofa, exhausted. The hyperjump, followed by feeding the plants, had taken a lot of time and energy. And there was still a guest to worry about. "Well now, little one, did you have a good nap?" He reached out and touched the ottoman. Purring softly, the ottoman unrolled itself. The tardigrade nudged the man's thigh with her snout—gently and carefully, so as not to startle him. The ecologist stroked her back. "Aren't you a beauty! We’ll feed you some delicious worms and some wilted greens in just a bit, just don't go scaring my poor hunters anymore! They nearly dropped their leaves when they saw you. To them, you're a terrifying predator, not a sweet little baby... And then, we'll get you some papers, and we'll fly together! We need to think of a name for you... We have so much to do, little one!"