The launch site

Threshold Institute · Site record

Name

The launch site

In the game

The space station / launch site, a raid site

The space agency flew to the planet from the launch site. It had flown there since year 38, in a secret partnership with the Institute, which had its own people aboard every flight and took charge of everything the flights brought home (T-043). In year 41 a hold that Kerstin Holm had sealed in flight was opened in the hangar with the big door shut, and nine skitters came out of the cargo pods at once (T-043). Six days later a spitter woke in the hangar's cold store (T-044).

In year 43 the relief flight landed with a sealed sample case from the silent colony, and the case was set down in the hangar under quarantine. By the next morning the grass around the hangar had died, and within a month a ring of dead ground ran from the hangar to the fence (T-047). The case was burnt on the pad by the Institute's order, and the spread did not stop (T-047). The ground crew were sent home, and the town nearest the launch site sickened with them through the winter (T-048).

The notes left at the site tell the rest: the crew of the last flight in the infirmary, the grass grey at the fence line, and mission control closing the site as the readings rose from the hangar outward (the duty desk note and the control room recording, journal finds).

Found here

The files that name this place in their line on where the threshold was found:

File	Found	Where found
T-043 Alien skitter	Year 41, month 3, day 14	The launch site’s hangar, in the cargo hold of the agency’s third flight home from the planet
T-044 Alien spitter	Year 41, month 3, day 20	The launch site’s hangar, in the cold store
T-047 The pollution	Year 43, month 9, day 4	The launch site, spreading from the hangar where the relief flight’s cargo was set down
T-048 Infected	Year 44, month 2, day 11	The town nearest the launch site

Named in containment procedures

The files whose containment procedures name this place, to hold a threshold here, to keep one away, or as a rule for the place:

File	Class	Found
T-043 Alien skitter	Class II	Year 41, month 3, day 14

Also named in

The last column says where in each file.

Part III: Going through (the objects)

File	Found	Where named
T-038 Tomorrow Radio	Year 36, month 10, day 5	Addendum T-038-B
T-042 Endless Battery	Year 40, month 8, day 30	Addendum T-042-B

Part IV: The planet and the pollution

File	Found	Where named
T-045 Burrower	Year 42, month 7, day 2	Discovery
T-046 Drifter	Year 43, month 1, day 9	Discovery
T-050 Toxic boar	Year 45, month 8, day 30	Addendum T-050-4
T-053 Mutant sludger	Year 46, month 10, day 2	Addendum T-053-3

Part V: The widening

File	Found	Where named
T-054 Porcelain Mask	Year 47, month 6, day 21	Addendum T-054-1

In the journal

These 3 finds lie here, in full. Reading any one of them writes the step Something came back into your journal.

Terminal · The launch site

Flight log, last return

Relief flight, return leg, Year 43. Return burn nominal. Cargo: one sealed sample case from the silent colony's lab dome, carried aboard by K. Holm for the Institute and listed in no manifest, stowed in the aft hold under seal.

Day 3 of the return. Two of the crew report headaches and a metallic taste. Cabin air reads clean.

Day 5. The seal on the sample case reads intact, but the frost on it is grey and keeps coming back after we wipe it.

Landing confirmed, Year 43, month 9, day 4. Crew to quarantine, sample to the hangar under quarantine. Flight closed.

Note · The launch site

Note on the duty desk

To whoever has the next shift: do not go into the hangar without a mask, whatever the board says.

The crew from the last flight are all in the infirmary now. The doctor says it is not a fever. It is in their lungs and it is spreading.

The grass outside the hangar doors went grey overnight. This morning it was the fence line. I am going home to my family.

Recording · The launch site

Control room recording

[Static. A man's voice, tired.] This is mission control. We are closing the site.

Whatever came home on that flight is not staying in the hangar. The readings rise from there outward, a little further every hour.

The Institute's people had the sample case burnt on the pad. It made no difference. Nothing they have stops it, and nothing we have does.

The journal also names this place in:

• The step Something came back
• Director's memo, a note at the Institute's site
• Research dictation, a recording at the Institute's site