After Tai and Yuki's bodies were brought aboard, they were immediately placed into medical capsules. Among the rescued people was a doctor. Despite her exhausted state, she offered her help. May launched the tug into orbit and, together with Tan and Kir Lak, assisted the rescued. Having made sure that all those rescued had been helped, Tan first of all told Kir what happened at the station. Then they began to find out together what the scientists were doing at the station. Of the four civilians rescued, two were scientists, a doctor and a laboratory assistant. The doctor was busy with the wounded members of the rescue team, the laboratory assistant and another scientist were extremely exhausted, they did not have the strength to explain anything. The woman scientist had to tell about what happened at the station.

“What is your name?” Asked Kir.

“Anna Mua, professor microbiologist and entomologist.” She answered.

“You worked for Count Ataudu, what kind of research did you do?”

“We worked under the guidance of Professor Valdarga, he was a brilliant scientist, his passion for science knew no bounds. Under his leadership, we created a new organism based on humans and orgatox, this allowed us to transfer human consciousness into a new shell. A new body without DNA anomalies, with the ability to regenerate tissue. A body capable of living forever and with amazing abilities to change the properties of matter.

“Are you a follower of transformation theory?” Asked Kir.

“Unfortunately yes. It's just a beautiful gift wrapping with a monster sitting under it. We opened the lid and he got out.”

“What happened?”

“Under the leadership of Professor Valdarga, for several years we have been trying to restore the symbiotic relationship between humans and orgatox, which was disrupted as a result of a DNA anomaly. We managed to find a solution by creating an intermediate link. An operation was performed on one of the staff volunteers. His brain was completely consumed by orgatox without losing his personality. We thought it was a breakthrough. My brother Knight, a junior assistant professor, was skeptical about our success. I didn't believe my brother. We were blinded by success.

Anna paused, drank some water and continued: “Somewhere three months ago, a courier brought some new data from fifty years of research by a team unknown to us. Valdarg was unhappy that someone besides him was conducting research in this direction, but he found something interesting in this data. Only those close to the professor knew what was contained in these studies. As a result, they created a shell for the symbiont, which they connected to the robot via neuroconnectors. Our patient received a body and could do the work he did before the operation. We saw a man in a new shell, a confirmation of Reman's theory of transformation. But this is a deception, an illusion. We created a monster, we gave him a body! What have we done!”

“Calm down, Anna. This story has a happy ending for you,” Kir reassured.

“No!” She shouted. And she spoke quickly: “My brother knew that employee well, his name was Kaaz, and after the operation they agreed to check his consciousness to see if it was really him. You know the music box game. This is where one hums a melody, and the other must play it on the music box so that it opens. Before the operation, my brother sang a melody to Kaaz, and he answered him with a poem from one of the old poets called “The Dead Don't Play Music”. This was a signal to his brother that this was indeed his friend Kaaz. The brother asked Valdarga to conduct such an experiment, and he agreed. The brother brought a music box into the laboratory and hummed a melody. Kaaz went to the box and played the notes on the music box. When the box was opened there was a piece of paper with the text " The Dead Don't Play Music ". The brother did not have time to say a word, Kaaz killed him. I realized that this was not Kaaz, but an orgatox posing as a person whom he very plausibly copied. A synthetic organism cannot be a person, cannot replace him, cannot take over his essence. This monster no longer began to hide behind Kaaz's mask, he dragged his brother into the bioengineering module to create a monster similar to himself. I tried to stop him, but the professor called security and isolated us. After that, a nightmare began at the station. You destroyed the station, but did not destroy Orgatox. There is part of it elsewhere, and people there are in danger. On Atauda's ship there is an ancient artifact from which orgatox was extracted. The artifact is alive. If it is not destroyed, it will destroy us!

The woman cried for a long time, part of her life turned into deep disappointment. When the woman calmed down a little, Kir asked the question again: “You said that you are a microbiologist and entomologist, correct. What was your role in these experiments?”

“Seven years ago I was invited by Professor Valdarg to work on a rare specimen of a gravedigger beetle brought from some planet. This is an amazing insect of unnatural origin. A little later it became known that a vaccine was created based on the natural gravedigger that slows down the DNA anomaly. Unfortunately, the population of beetles in our laboratory did not survive, since they could not exist outside the habitat. It is impossible to synthesize the venom of this insect, since the formation process is influenced by the environment. But thanks to the fact that we had a lot of beetle biomaterial left, we were able to achieve the regeneration of dead tissue and ultimately create an intact organic structure of orgatox.

Kir asked her no more questions. Since it was more or less clear with the scientists and laboratory assistants, they worked for Count Ataudu, but what the special forces of the Galactic Council were doing here was very interesting to Kir. He decided to find out this from the son of General Paul Utley.

“We are here because of your father.” Kir began the conversation carefully. “If he hadn’t asked me for help, no one would have remembered you.”

“I understand.” Paul lowered his eyes, looked at his shaking hands and began to speak.

He told how his team tracked down the courier, how they got to the planet and entered into battle with the drones guarding the station. He told how one of the drones managed to penetrate the ship and blow it up. How, after the ship crashed, they entered the station through the gap formed, and fell into the trap of monsters, losing seven people. When Paul finished his story, Kir heard a similar story from his men sent to search for Paul Utley.

A few hours later, the doctor entered the dining room, where Kir, Paul, Anna, Tan and May were, and tiredly collapsed into a chair at the oval table. Tan offered her a cup of restorative drink. He was afraid to ask the doctor about his brother’s well-being; Kir Lak did it instead.

“Doctor, what do you say about the injured members of the rescue team?”

“You can just call me Alice.” She corrected, then turned to Tan: “I understand you are brother, Tay?”

Tan nodded.

“You better be with him when your brother wakes up. You don't have much time.”

Tan left and headed to the medical bay. Kir shook his head and asked the doctor about Yuki.

“Despite the fact that quick freezing was used. Not much chance, a few months at most. I'm afraid that the DNA abnormality will not give her a chance to live longer. I'm really sorry. They sacrificed their lives for us, unfortunately I can't help them.” Alice answered, trying not to cry.

There was a long, oppressive silence in the dining room. Paul Utley went out into the corridor and began to discuss something in a half-whisper with members of his team. After they agreed on something, Paul returned to the dining room and unzipped his chest pocket and took out a capsule filled with a purple liquid: “Kir, in the current situation there is no point in hiding the purpose of our mission. Atauda has our informant, he leaked all the information about the station and its structure, except for the location. The command set us the task of infiltrating the station's warehouse, where samples of the venom of the Nemurg beetle were stored and delivering it to our laboratory. There is no turning back, we have already been written off so maybe this will somehow help save the lives of your friends, especially since they deserve it.”

Kir took the capsule carefully. Professor Anna Mua was surprised that there were still samples at the station.

“This poison will kill them.” She objected. “Professor Valdarg gave injections to different ethnic groups, including pilgrims, everything ended in the death of the patient.”

“There is something you don't know about Anna.”  Kir stood up and headed towards the exit, stopped and called the doctor. “Alice, come with me, I will need your help.”

On the way to the medical bay, Alis dissuaded Kir Lak from experimenting with Nemurg poison. Kir, in turn, told her about Doctor Heng from Grothar and his healing story. Alice was surprised how the problem of the risk of death was solved. In the end, she agreed to do as Kir said.

A little later, when the danger of death for Tai and Yuki had passed, Tan asked Alice how the bioengineering machine got into their laboratory.

“It was delivered to us not so long ago, along with the results of research from some other laboratory. Before this, we were trying to figure out the old technology, but this was new.” She answered.

“In what sense is it new!”  Tan was surprised. “The Pilgrims stopped producing them four hundred years ago with the advent of DNA anomalies”

“I assure you, it was new. The work algorithms took into account all the latest changes in DNA. In addition, in the new research obtained by Professor Valdarg, the method of cell regeneration, which became known to us ten years ago, was confirmed. Kir told me about Dr. Heng's method, in my opinion it is the same, we were only missing some important detail.” Alice answered.

“This is exactly the detail that I did not tell the pilgrims about eleven years ago.” Kir muttered tiredly and looked into Tan’s eyes.

“Alice, why did Professor Valdarg use dead cells?”  Tan asked warily.

What a surprise Tan was when Alice told him almost the same thing that he heard from Said about the results of the research on the orgatox that they found on Sauter.

“How so!” Tan grabbed his head.

“Tan, I'm sorry, but among the pilgrims there is one who is misleading everyone. It is wrong to call him a traitor. He is pursuing some of his own goals.” Said Kir.

“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that we will all have even more problems if you Tang do not destroy the monster’s limb that you grabbed from the planet.” - Alice warned.