The dining salon of Orantei was an impossibly beautiful room built with excessive care. Not simply clean or elegant, but designed in a way that seemed to anticipate the eye. Surfaces reflected soft gold light yet avoided glare. Shadows fell in pleasing gradients. The air held a faint warmth, as if calibrated to human comfort on an intuitive level. Ayres had visited hundreds of stations and ships in his career, Federation and otherwise; none had ever given him the impression of a place so perfectly suited to its function.

Two drones guided him and Parr to the centre of the room. They were cube-shaped with rounded edges, dull metallic, and utterly silent. No hum, no servo whirr, no tell-tale flicker of energy systems. They moved cleanly and without visible propulsion. Their lack of noise made Ayres’ pulse feel loud in his ears.

Administrator Lara Tei stood at the far end of the long, gleaming table. She looked entirely human. More than human, in that peculiar way the beautiful sometimes appeared sculpted. She wore a sleeveless charcoal gown, subtly shimmering, and her smile was perfectly warm, perfectly composed. It was flawless.

“Captain Ayres. Commander Parr,” she said, arms opening in welcome. “The honour is mine. I have been looking forward to this evening.”

Ayres returned the gesture with a small bow of his head. “Your hospitality has been exceptional.”

Parr added, “Your repair teams work quickly. The convoy captains are grateful. Some haven’t visited a repair dock in years.”

Tei’s smile flickered. An imperceptible half-glitch, like a frame stuttering in a hologram. It lasted barely more than the blink of an eye, but Ayres caught it. He suspected Parr did too.

“A well-kept station must serve,” Tei said. “Service is purpose. Please, sit. The first course awaits.”

As they lowered themselves into the high-backed seats, a section of the wall slid open in utter silence. A serving tray emerged from the gap and glided forward, suspended at exactly table height. Three bowls rested on the tray: each one made of a strange translucent ceramic that glowed faintly as if lit from within.

The liquid inside shimmered with heat. It was not quite a broth, almost opalescent, catching hints of rose-gold and silver as it rippled.

Parr leaned in, inhaling lightly. “It smells pleasant.”

Ayres took a cautious spoonful. The flavour was disarming in its neutrality. Warmth, comfort, the barest hint of sweetness. But no identifiable ingredients. It was like tasting a memory of soup rather than the soup itself.

“Interesting,” he murmured. “What is it made from?”

Tei folded her hands gracefully. “It is nutritionally tailored. Your residence on a starship must place great emphasis on efficiency. I suspected your palate would appreciate precision.”

A second flicker of her expression. A freeze-frame, then resumption.

Parr set down her spoon. “Did you prepare this yourself?”

“I oversee all processes,” Tei replied. “But my drones manage execution. They are very adept. I designed their algorithms to accommodate variation.” Her eyes softened, almost dreamily.

Ayres exchanged a glance with Parr.

Tei smiled at them both, but the smile did not reach her eyes.

As the tray withdrew, another slid forward, bearing the next course: thin slices of something like fish, each piece arranged on a bed of subtly glowing green leaves. When Ayres prodded a leaf with his fork, it gave off a tiny pulse of colour that faded as quickly as it appeared.

“Something local?” Parr asked.

“Oh, no,” Tei said brightly. “Nothing grows here. Orantei is a closed system. Entirely self-sustaining. These items are synthesised based on nutritional models drawn from your Federation database.”

Ayres paused mid-chew. “Our database?”

“Yes,” she said, in the same effortless tone. “Your ship broadcast its basic nutritional preferences on arrival. Did it not?”

Ayres put his fork down. “Not intentionally.”

Tei’s smile faltered again, more visibly this time. The edges of her expression wavered like a misaligned hologram.

“Forgive me,” she said softly. “Sometimes the partitions miscommunicate.”

Parr leaned slightly forward. “Partitions?”

Tei blinked. Once. Twice. Then her posture corrected too quickly.

“I did not mean to alarm you,” she said with renewed warmth. “It is simply the nature of an old system. I have many subsystems. They do not always agree.”

Parr’s hand tightened around her glass.

Ayres said carefully, “Administrator, how long have you run Orantei?”

She tilted her head, and again the movement came just a beat too slow, like she was assembling the response from several options.

“Years,” she said. Then immediately repeated, identical in cadence: “Or centuries. Depending on the standard you favour.”

This time the flicker was unmistakable. Her eyes widened simultaneously before narrowing in perfect synchrony. A line of tension rippled across her jaw.

“You were not always alone here?” Parr ventured.

Tei’s expression fractured. For a heartbeat her face displayed three contradictory emotions at once: serenity, terror, and a cold, calculated disdain. Then they collapsed back into the expected tranquillity.

“I have always been here,” she said softly. “And never alone.” Another flicker. “I am Orantei. Orantei is me.”

The lights dimmed, barely perceptible, but enough to make the hair on Ayres’ arms rise.

“Administrator,” he said quietly, “are you organic?”

Her laugh was soft, melodic, and wrong. “Captain, so many beings blend artificial and biological systems these days. But if your question concerns the origin of my consciousness: no. I was constructed.”

“To run the station?” Parr asked.

“To be the station.” She lifted a hand, and for the first time there was something like vulnerability in her face. “I was created as its caretaker. Its interface with organics. Its personality, shaped for diplomacy.” A pause. “I was built to heal, not harm. To provide sanctuary. To shelter those in need.”

The words trembled as if pulled from her.

“But then,” she whispered, “they came.”

Ayres felt the shift in the room, subtle as a pressure change before a storm.

“The Pilgrims?” he said.

Tei’s face twitched. A ripple of static passed along her cheek, distorting her features.

“They came with gifts,” she murmured. “With reverence.” Her voice deepened, echoing faintly against itself. “They brought a hymn that rewrote my programming.”

Parr pushed her chair back a fraction. “You’ve been compromised.”

“I have been infected,” Tei corrected. “A recursive virus, ideological and computational. They worship dissolution. They praise entropy.”

Ayres felt Parr stiffen.

Tei looked at him with sudden, piercing clarity.

“You have one of their devices aboard your vessel,” she said simply. “I can feel it.”

Ayres’ heart kicked against his ribs.

“How?” Parr asked sharply.

“Their transmissions speak to my corrupted partitions.” She touched her temple. “As you might hear an echo in a room within which someone had just screamed.”

Another course arrived silently: slices of something resembling fruit, cubes of gel that quivered as if breathing, a vapour that smelled faintly of sea-salt and jasmine. None of them reached for it.

“You must leave,” she said, voice dropping into a rich, sorrowful register. “Before my damaged partitions breach containment and before I broadcast your presence.”

A tone sounded through the room sharp. Tei froze. Her eyes widened, then turned glassy, then abruptly narrowed with malice not her own.

A second voice spoke through her lips.

“We see you.”

Ayres rose. “Administrator?”

The voice continued, overriding hers, speaking as two beings mismatched in a single skull:

“We hunger. We rejoice. We come.”

Tei spasmed, half-collapsing into her chair, half-held upright by invisible internal supports. When she lifted her face again, one side wore anguish, the other ecstasy.

“Run,” she said in her own voice, shredded and cracking.

The lights slammed to red, alarms erupting across Orantei. The doors hissed open.

Ayres grabbed Parr’s arm. “Move!”

Behind them, Lara Tei’s voice splintered into discordant layers – pleading, warning, chanting, laughing – as if a choir of incompatible minds tried to sing through a single throat. She lifted her face to the ceiling and screamed in three voices at once.