They found the first spots of the fungus a few minutes later.
"Fungus!" Mantelish said, startled. He began to rumble in his pockets. "My microscope—"
"I have it." Lyad handed it to him. She looked at him with concern. "You don't think—"
"It seems possible. We did come in here last night, remember? And we came straight from the lab."
"But we had been decontaminated," Lyad said puzzledly.
"Don't try to walk in here, Professor!" Trigger warned as he lumbered forward. "We might have to de-electrocute you. The Commissioner will scrape off a sample and hand it out. This stuff—if it's what you think it might be—is poisonous?"
"Quite harmless to life, my dear," said the professor, bending over the patch of greenish-gray scum the Commissioner had reached out to him. "But ruinous in delicate instruments! That's why we're so careful."
Holati Tate glanced at Trigger. "Better look in the black box, Trig," he said.
She nodded and wormed herself farther into the innards of the transmitters. A minute later she announced, "Full of it! And that's the one part we can't repair or replace, of course. Is it your beast, Professor?"
"It seems to be," Mantelish said unhappily. "But we have, at least, a solvent which will remove it from the equipment."