The Engineers finished the diagnostics a little before evening.
Most of it was what they expected. Pumps, switching banks, a few sensors that stopped reporting and needed replacing. The last screen was different, and the Engineer who opened it turned the console so Kordula could see.
It was a distribution chart. The reactor's output ran in from the left, and on the right, it split into branches.
A thin branch went to PCL-2 itself. Ventilation, lighting, the laboratories upstairs, the lift, the cryogenic storage. Everything they walked past that afternoon fit inside that one line.
The rest of it went out along the transmission lines. Three thick branches, marked PCL-1, PCL-3 and PCL-4, each labeled SCHEDULED EXTERNAL OPERATIONS.
Two of those branches ended in red.
"It's still sending power down lines that don't reach anything," the Engineer said. "Whatever it can't deliver, it sheds. It's been doing that for months."
Kordula looked at the chart for a while.
