Three weeks later

Faith emerged from the hearing chamber flanked by Honor, Charity, and the other women who’d been involved in the attack that night. The flood of GAs had taxed CIA resources, and the hearing had been postponed until today. Milton, Tony, and Reg hadn’t been with them because of how the military justice system operated. No one who wasn’t directly related to an incident was allowed in the hearing room.

“Well?” Milton shot out of a chair and grabbed Honor’s hand.

“It was fine,” Honor said.

Tony didn’t say a word, but he scooped Charity into a tight embrace, and she hugged him back.

“We told the truth,” Faith added, “and the officer who heard our case said we’d been cleared of wrongdoing.”

Reg burst through an outside door wearing blood-splattered scrubs. “It’s over, right? I tried to get here earlier, but I was in surgery.”

“Yeah, it’s done,” Milton said. “Justice was served.”

“Good thing this is behind us,” Tony murmured.

Reg hovered near Faith, but didn’t touch her because of the gore on his clothing. “Bet you’re happy this is over,” he said low into her ear.

Faith nodded. She figured he’d stripped off his gloves and come on a dead run from the infirmary. A peek at his feet, with his shoes still encased in paper covers, confirmed it. She glanced at the women milling around the foyer. It was closing on dinnertime, but Milton might want them to do some time in the arena since they’d blown the entire afternoon with the hearing officer.

She opened her mouth to ask about her assignments for the remainder of the day when Charlie ran into the lobby with Hope next to him. Roy and Glory were right behind them. Their worried expressions shaded to joy as they sensed the jubilation streaming from everyone.

Milton clapped his hands sharply together. “I propose a celebration in the dining hall. See everyone there at nineteen thirty sharp. It will give the kitchen time to make something special.”

“Can we invite some of the new GAs?” one of the women asked, avoiding direct eye contact.

Faith bit back a smile. Looking right at Milton took some getting used to, even for them. His intensity never wavered.

“So long as I have a headcount within the next thirty minutes.” He angled his dark gaze her way.

“Yes, sir. On it, sir.” The woman turned and fled, flanked by half a dozen others.

Milton rolled his eyes. “I am not that big of a badass.”

“Yes, dear.” Honor tugged on Milton’s hand. “Let’s get out of here. I can fill you in on the proceedings later.”

Faith smiled at Reg. “Want me to walk back toward the infirmary with you?”

He grinned back. “That would be great. I need to do a little bit of finish work, but then I can clean up for dinner.”

She longed to touch him, but understood he’d broken protocol by leaving the clinic coated with potentially contagious bodily fluids. There wasn’t much danger, so long as the stains weren’t exposed to anything. Like her bare fingertips. She’d enjoyed her brief time working in his lab. Part of her indoctrination had been learning about infection control practices. The CIA had standardized policies, and she’d downloaded them, absorbing the information.

Once they were outside, Reg set a quick pace across campus. Over the last few weeks, he’d become almost as fast as she was. He hadn’t opted for a second injection because the initial one worked so well.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked.

“Not very much, really. The hearing officer had already studied our statements. He had a bunch of questions. Some he asked us privately in a little room off to one side, which was kind of a joke since all of us could hear everything.”

Reg cast a sidelong glance her way. “Did you tell him?”

“Oh hell, no. No percentage in it. He’d just have dragged us farther away, which would’ve meant we’d still be there.”

“True enough. Did he ask all of you the same things in that private room?”

Faith thought about it. “Yes, for the most part. The ones of us who actually cast the kinetics that killed the men got one set of questions. The other women didn’t have to answer as much.”

“What was in the extra questions?” Reg persisted.

“If we felt threatened. How we’d been threatened. What we tried before we resorted to lethal force. How worried were we about the other women. Stuff like that.”

“Did he ask about anything else?”

“No, but Honor read a statement at the end when he asked if we had anything further we wanted to add.”

“Really?” Reg narrowed his eyes to thoughtful slits.

“What?” Faith stopped shy of the clinic. There’d be no privacy once they crossed through its doorway.

“Means Milton was worried enough to make certain every single point about the incident being self-defense, pure and simple, got hammered home. I bet you anything he wrote it.”

“Now that you mention it, Honor’s statement did read like a checklist, but once she was done, the officer nodded and told us we’d been cleared and were free to go. I got the impression he’d come to that conclusion before he grilled us today, and the question and answer session was just a formality.”

“That’s possible. How are you feeling?” He reached for her, but then dropped his hands to his sides. “Damn it. I want to hold you, but I can’t.”

She chewed on her lower lip. “In terms of how I’m feeling, relieved kind of trumps everything. I’m glad it’s over, plus it would have been a bitch explaining a different outcome—one where we ended up in the brig—to all the GAs here.”

“I’m guessing most of them know about the incident.”

Faith nodded. “We can be thicker than a pack of thieves since we don’t just use words to communicate.” She checked her internal clock. “I was going to stop in at the clinic, but how about if I meet you at home?” She paused. “I like the sound of that.”

“Sound of what? Home?”

“Yes. Our home. It seemed like maybe we were moving too fast when I agreed to share your apartment, but it hasn’t hurt us.”

“Quite the opposite. Home is perfect. I’ll be there by eighteen thirty.”

“Oh good.” She clasped her hands together and switched to telepathy. “Means we might have time for a quickie before dinner.”

“You do know how to motivate me.” His telepathy was still fairly primitive, but easy enough for her to understand. He blew her a kiss and ran lightly up the steps into the infirmary.

Faith switched directions, heading for the building where Reg lived. Charlie and Hope were on the top floor in an obscenely large apartment that had once been Milton’s. Hope had always been a special friend, so proximity to her turned out to be an unexpected plus.

The genetically altered had poured into Langley after the night Frank and Tony told the compounds how to escape the Doomsday sequence. Some GAs only remained long enough to confirm someone knew who they were, and to reassure themselves no one would hunt for them any further. Everyone wanted to meet Reg, shake his hand, and thank him for his candor.

As time passed and no one showed up with a chip on their shoulder and blood in their eyes, she’d relaxed. So had Reg. He’d believed enough in what he was doing to reveal his identity, and her kin respected him for that. She saw it in their minds and in their eyes when they stopped by the infirmary or Frank and Tony’s lab to meet the man who’d had the guts to apologize.

Frank had surprised her by wishing her and Reg well. There hadn’t been a hint of jealousy or discontent as he told them he was happy for them. When she’d murmured that maybe one of the newly arrived GA women would love and appreciate him, he’d winked and told her he was already working on it.

She let herself into the building where she lived now and made her way to the third floor. Reg’s apartment had been devoid of much of anything personal. Not anymore. She’d added her things, and they’d made several shopping trips into nearby communities, selecting furnishings that appealed to them both. He’d told her he had a boatload of stuff in a storage unit, but that it could stay there until they bought a house someday.

Faith walked into her new home, inhaling deeply as the door shut behind her. The place smelled like them. Him and her, and she loved everything about sharing her life with Reg. It was just past eighteen hundred. Plenty of time for her to get out of the formal black suit she’d donned for the hearing.

She kicked off leather pumps and slid her pantyhose down her legs, snagging them on a fingernail. Faith held the flimsy heap of nylon at eye level. Yup. Definitely a hole.

Who the hell designed a piece of clothing that wouldn’t even last through a single wearing? Disgusted, she tossed them in a wastebasket. She might never have to wear nylon stockings again for the rest of her life, and it would be fine by her. She slid out of her jacket and blouse on her way into the bedroom and stopped at the closet long enough to hang her suit back on its padded hanger. Her skirt joined the other items, clipped to another hanger.

Shucking her bra and panties, she headed for the bathroom and flipped the taps, standing under the shower once the water was hot. It felt heavenly pummeling her. They’d gotten three-minute showers once a week in the compound, and sometimes the water had been cold.

That life is truly over. Even in the compounds.

Some GAs had opted to remain in their compounds, but compound life had joined the modern world. Someone, maybe Frank, maybe Tony, maybe Milton, made it clear to the Nameless Ones that women were to be handed full rights. No one had objected, so maybe it was a relief. As she thought about it, the Nameless Ones couldn’t have been comfortable hiding truth from the women. Living in fear of the fallout once the women discovered they’d been powerful enough to tell the men to go to hell all along.

Hell hath no fury…

Faith laughed. Her sensitive hearing picked up the sound of the front door opening. Meant Reg was home. She hurried to sluice water over her soapy hair and body so he could have the shower. Before she was done, the glass door opened, and he stepped into the steamy enclosure, his arms surrounding her from behind.

He nuzzled her neck and cupped her breasts in both hands. “I was hoping I’d catch you in here,” he said.

“Oh really? Why’s that?” she teased, knowing full well what he meant. The press of his erection into her backside provided ample proof of his intentions.

Reg turned her in his arms and crushed his mouth down atop hers. Faith threaded her arms around him, feeling her nipples pebble where they pressed against his chest. Sex had been magical between them, and it just kept getting better. He was an endlessly inventive lover, and they’d gotten into the habit of linking their kinetics to drive each other higher still.

He moved his arms until his hands cradled her butt and then lifted her effortlessly. She wrapped her legs around his waist, opening her body to his probing cockhead. Faith wriggled until he slipped inside her.

Reg tore his mouth from hers. “Damn, you feel amazing. It’s scary how hard I want you.”

“Not any harder than I want you,” she countered, breathing fast. Faith pressed her distended nipples against his chest rubbing them from side to side as sensation ratcheted through her.

He drove into her, holding her in place. She watched his face, loving the lust spiraling through him. His arousal fueled her desire, and she tightened her muscles around him as he plumbed her. His cock swelled even more, but he’d wait for her. He always did.

Her belly clenched with heat and need as she welcomed the hunger engulfing her. This might be a quickie, but the higher she rose before tumbling over the edge into pure, unbridled sensation, the hotter those feelings were.

He angled his head and ran a string of biting kisses up her neck. His fingers dug into the backs of her legs. She moved her focus from her nipples to her neck to her thighs to her vault in a round robin of heat and desire. Faith clung tighter with her legs and wrapped her arms around his upper body, raking her nails up his back.

It elicited a long, low groan from him, and he closed his teeth over her shoulder, biting and sucking. His thrusts grew faster, more frantic, and her commitment to hold her orgasm off as long as possible crumpled. Spasms shot through her, and she felt him release in blasts of juddering heat.

They clung to each other with the shower’s spray pummeling them.

“You’re wonderful, amazing,” he managed, still breathing hard.

“You’re pretty incredible yourself,” she countered. “Good thing you had your nurse put that IUD in for me, or I’d be pregnant by now.”

“That wouldn’t be the end of the world.” He pulled out of her body and disentangled from her. “But I’m selfish enough to want some time alone with you before we add to our family.”

“It’s not selfish. It’s practical.” She leaned back, letting the luxury of endless hot water lave her.

Reg pumped liquid soap into one hand, washing himself. “That’s a good lead in.”

“To what?”

“I have a totally impractical suggestion, but I cleared it with Milton.”

“What might that be?”

“How would you like a week away from the CIA?”

Her eyes widened. “I’d love one, but I haven’t been here long enough to qualify for a vacation. The P&P manual is quite clear about that. Section IV, Subsection C states—”

“Milton overrode it. What sounds better to you? Hawaii? Florida? Cabo San Lucas? Whatever you’d like, I’ll make it happen.” He turned off the water and pushed the glass door open. Grabbing towels off hooks, he handed her one.

“What about the infirmary?”

“I’ll get a locum doc to cover for me.” Reg snorted laughter. “That, if nothing else, will ensure Milton treats me like royalty after we get back. No one else will work the hours I do—or provide quite the level of patient oversight.” He wrapped another towel around her streaming hair, tucking the ends in. “Those are housekeeping issues, Faith. Do you want to get away for a while with just the two of us?”

Her heart cracked open and spilled over. She nodded because she didn’t trust herself to speak.

“Then it’s settled. It won’t happen right away—because of those housekeeping issues—but I’ll start the ball rolling. All you have to do is tell me where you want to go.”

“I—I don’t know,” she stammered. “I’ve never been anywhere. It might be better for you to choose for us.”

Reg chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve been to some of the world’s garden spots. If it ain’t choked with rubble from bombed out buildings, I probably haven’t been there. How about this? After dinner tonight, we can haul up possible destinations on the Internet and get a feel for where we’d like to go.”

“It’s a good plan. There’s always Milton’s ranch or that place in the San Juans where Roy took Glory.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “those are possibilities, except I want to take you somewhere special. A place that’s just yours and mine. If it works out, maybe we can go back to wherever it is every single year to celebrate being together.”

“And if it doesn’t?” She quirked a brow.

“Then we go somewhere else until we find a spot we both agree is perfect.”

Faith draped her towels over hooks and threw her arms around Reg. “I love you. I still feel like I don’t quite deserve you, though.”

He wound his arms around her. “Sweetheart. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you. I’ll always be grateful you—”

“Hush. No apologies. From either of us.”

He licked his way up her neck and settled his lips over hers for a brief, sweet kiss. When he moved his mouth from hers, he said, “We need to get moving if we’re going to make nineteen thirty. As it is, we’ll need to drive.”

Faith checked her internal clock. How the hell had they burned up forty-five minutes in the shower? She dove for the hair dryer and used the high setting to get some of the water out of her hair. “Guess our quickie wasn’t all that quick,” she called over the noise of the dryer.

“Did I hear a complaint?” He headed for his side of the closet and started dragging clothes out.

“Nope. Never from my lips.” She padded into the bedroom and looked at Reg who’d put on dark slacks and a pale green shirt, topped by a dark sports coat. “What should I wear?”

“How about that long, teal skirt and black tunic we picked up the other day?”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Really. You’ll look like a goddess in them.”

Heat swooshed from her chest over her head, and she knew she was blushing, but she didn’t waste kinetics redirecting the blood. She pulled on underthings and then the soft, woolen skirt and beaded tunic that she’d thought were a ridiculous splurge at the time. A quick glance in the mirror stopped her dead.

“I don’t know about the goddess part,” she said, “but these are attractive. Much more than I thought they’d be when I saw them in the store.”

“That’s because you refused to try them on. Grab some shoes. We need to be gone.”

Faith ran into the living room and shoved her feet back into her discarded black pumps. Her hair hung in curls to her waist, but she didn’t have time to tame it.

Reg draped a black shawl over her shoulders. “I’m a lucky man, Faith. You’ve made me very, very happy.” Winding an arm around her shoulders, he guided her out the door.

Faith leaned into him. “I’m happy too. So much so, it’s unnerving.”

He didn’t answer. Just kissed the tip of her nose and helped her into the car. Before they got to the dining hall, he said, “We’ll have lots of happy times, lots of tomorrows. We’ll have times that aren’t so perfect, either.”

“But we’ll get through them because we have each other.”

“Exactly.” He brought the car to a halt in a parking place.

Milton and Honor stood next to the door, clearly waiting for them, along with Roy and Glory, Hope and Charlie, and Charity and Tony. Frank was part of the group as well. Faith got out of the car and waved to the other women.

Reg joined her, and together they hurried toward the others.

“Good thing you got here,” Honor said. “You had thirty seconds to spare.”

“Or what?” Reg countered. “We turn into pumpkins?”

Faith laughed, recognizing the Cinderella fairytale analogy. They all talked at once as they moved into the dining hall, and joy filled her. Not only was this a new beginning for her people, but a new life for her and her four sisters too. They’d all found special men and a life that had meaning and purpose.

It was impossible to ask for more, and Faith didn’t intend to tempt fate by doing anything other than offering up her undying gratitude for the future unfolding before her.

 

You’ve reached the end of Keeping Faith, and the end of the GenTech Rebellion books. Will there ever be another one? I’m not sure, but if you enjoy science fiction mixed with your romance, you might like Icy Passage, a novel that came out of my love affair with Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. A sample follows.

 

About the Author:

Ann Gimpel is a USA Today bestselling author. A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has appeared in a number of webzines, magazines, and anthologies. Her longer books run the gamut from urban fantasy to paranormal romance to science fiction. Once upon a time, she nurtured clients. Now she nurtures dark, gritty fantasy stories that push hard against reality. When she’s not writing, she’s in the backcountry getting down and dirty with her camera. She’s published over 45 books to date, with several more planned for 2017 and beyond. A husband, grown children, grandchildren, and wolf hybrids round out her family.

Keep up with her at or

If you enjoyed what you read, get in line for special offers and pre-release special reads.

Icy Passage

Chapter One

Micah Greenwich sucked air as he pushed up from his squat, a weight bar balanced across his shoulders. He did one more squat before a wave of dizziness threatened to bring him to his knees. Gasping, he shucked the bar onto pins protruding from the back of the squat rack and grabbed one of the metal stanchions for support. A headache pounded behind one eye, and he felt nauseous.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” he muttered, still clinging to the metal cage shoved in a back corner of the gym at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. No one was in the gym. Not at this hour. Granted, the perpetual night for part of the year, followed by perpetual day, yielded some odd circadian rhythms, but Micah rarely had competition for any of the gym machines or weight equipment late at night.

He glanced at the weight plates balanced on the ends of the forty-five pound bar, thinking perhaps he’d misjudged and put too much weight on it, but that wasn’t the issue. He shrugged. Maybe he was getting sick. Something was going around. So far, he’d been lucky during his brief stint at the southern end of the Earth and had avoided the colds and flus McMurdo residents passed among themselves like candy.

He wiped sweat from his face with a ratty towel and decided to call it a night—at least for working out. He still needed to stop by his lab. Because he was the newest and greenest microbiologist, he’d been assigned archaea, the most ancient single-celled life form on the planet. His cultures had taken a decidedly odd turn, though, a couple of weeks back—growing like mad and not looking like any prokaryote he’d ever seen. While he might have started with archaea, what was in his bins didn’t look much like them anymore.

Another wave of nausea battered him, and he folded his arms around his midsection, wondering if he was going to vomit. Saliva flooded his mouth, but he choked it back. Even though he didn’t feel like doing anything beyond finding his bed, he left the gym and made his way three buildings over to his lab. McMurdo was a series of prefab buildings with interconnecting doors and insulated tunnel-walkways, so you didn’t have to go outside into the weather. Antarctica never got particularly warm, and nights were always bitter.

He glanced out a window at an inky sky shot with stars, and a reluctant smile split his face. It might be minus something outside, but it was beautiful too. He’d always loved wild, remote places, and Antarctica was about as wild and remote as it got—shy of signing up to be an astronaut, which was a long-standing dream of his.

Micah frowned, wondering if the astronaut gig was even possible. The United States had cut their funding for the space program rather dramatically. Besides, he needed more in the way of credentials to even be considered for something like that. With another swipe at his still sweaty face—the more he thought about it, the surer he was he was coming down with the flu—he pushed open the door to his lab and froze, not believing his eyes.

“Britta?” he called. “Marguerite!”

The women didn’t answer. They sprawled face down on the floor in front of his main workbench, clearly passed out. Wondering if they’d gotten into the high-grade, ethyl alcohol he used to preserve things, he called their names again, louder this time. The longer he looked at them, the weirder he felt. They were too still. Sudden fear gripped him, making the nausea worse.

“Jesus fucking Christ. Why me?” he muttered, and raced to the women. He bent, grabbed Britta’s shoulder, and shook her. When she didn’t respond, he flipped her over and stared at her cherry-red face.

Fighting a deeply sinking feeling, he turned Marguerite over. She looked just like her friend and roommate. Micah squatted next to them and laid his fingers across their necks, searching for a pulse.

Nothing.

He placed his ear over their hearts, willing there to be something, anything, before he started CPR. Still nothing. He ground his teeth together, unnerved. How could there possibly be two dead women in his lab?

Even though he was pretty sure it wouldn’t do any good, he tilted Marguerite’s head back and breathed into her mouth before doing chest compressions. When he looked over at Britta, he understood he had to have help and lurched to his feet. Snapping up the wall phone, he punched in the afterhours code for the clinic. As soon as one of the nurses answered, he screeched, “Send help now. Third micro lab.”

His headache worsened. So did his twisting, roiling guts, but he went back to the women. He didn’t need to be a doctor to recognize death. Despite the futility, he alternated CPR from one to the next. Five long minutes passed—but they felt like five years—before the door burst open.

“Christ!” One of the docs—Stewart maybe, Micah was too rattled to take a good look—pulled him off Marguerite. A tall, broad-shouldered woman Micah didn’t recognize examined Britta.

“Looks like carbon monoxide poisoning to me,” the female medic said flatly. “This one’s well past CPR.”

Dr. Stewart rocked back on his heels. “Yeah, her too.” He trained his blue eyes on Micah. “What happened?”

Micah shook his head. “Damned if I know. I just got here. I had dinner in the mess hall, worked out in the gym, and then I swung by here to check on my cultures.”

The woman narrowed her eyes and half-crawled to where Micah sat on the floor. She folded her fingers over his wrist and took him in with practiced hazel eyes. Her reddish hair was short, almost in a butch cut. She pressed her lips into a harsh line, frowning.

“I’m Ariana,” she said, letting go of his wrist. “One of the nurse practitioners. How have you been feeling?”

“Bad,” he admitted. “Think I finally succumbed to the community disease everyone else has.”

Dr. Stewart joined them and squatted next to Micah. He ran a hand down the side of Micah’s neck and listened to his chest with a stethoscope before exchanging a pointed glance with Ariana. “Where’s the CO meter in here?” he asked.

Micah gestured behind him. “On that wall.” He twisted to look at it, but the indicator light was green—safe. Maybe it was defective. His scientifically trained mind arranged informational bits into an unpleasant pattern. “The women,” he said. “If I’d been firing on all cylinders, I’d have figured it out as soon as I looked at the color of their faces. They died from carbon monoxide poisoning, didn’t they?”

“Probably,” Dr. Stewart said cautiously. “But it’s conjecture at this point.”

“That cherry-red color is a dead giveaway,” Ariana said with conviction. “Nothing else will do that.”

“We’ll wait for an autopsy before we make statements like that.” The doctor eyed his colleague coolly.

“Yes, Doctor. Sir. King of all things medical.” She set her lips in a thin line, clearly biting back further sarcasm. “Meantime,” she ground out, “I’m pretty sure he—” she jabbed a finger at Micah “—has whatever killed these two.” She stood and punched numbers into the wall phone. “I’m calling security.”

Dr. Stewart sifted his hands through his untidy, blond hair. “Tell them to alert maintenance. Until we figure out what killed these two, we’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

Micah straightened. “Wait a minute,” he sputtered. “The meter says it’s safe. For all we know, Britta and Marguerite got poisoned elsewhere and just happened to be in here cleaning when they collapsed.”

Dr. Stewart got to his feet and hauled Micah upright. “For tonight, we’ll put you in the infirmary and run tests to check if your hemoglobin’s been compromised. I’ve got to alert the boss and talk with base security. We’ll to get to the bottom of this.”

“But my lab—”

Dr. Stewart made a chopping motion with one hand, and the rest of Micah’s protest died unspoken.

Ariana hung up the phone and nodded at Dr. Stewart. “You take care of the boss. I’ll deal with security and maintenance. Need to get the gas sniffer in here to make sure there’s not a leak.”

Micah tried to focus, but the room spun crazily. He really was wiped out. Much more tired than a thirty-year-old man had a right to feel.

“Can you walk?” Dr. Stewart nudged him.

Micah focused bleary eyes on the physician. “Yeah. I think so.”

“How are you feeling?” Ariana asked the doctor.

He shrugged. “Normal. But it takes time for exposure to take a toll. Micah probably lives in this lab, except when he’s asleep.”

“Yeah, but,” Micah pointed out, “those women didn’t. They clean all the science labs. Maybe one of the other ones is the problem.”

The doctor folded an arm around Micah’s waist supporting him, and led him out of the lab. “I’m on it. By the time you wake up, we’ll know more.”

Micah staggered through the door, flanked by Dr. Stewart and Ariana. “What are you going to do about the women?” he asked.

“You were there when I alerted base security. They’ll take care of them,” Ariana assured him. “For tonight, focus on getting well.”

* * * *

It hadn’t been just that night, though. Micah spent the next three days in the infirmary sucking bottled oxygen. When that didn’t clear his red blood cells fast enough, the doctors ordered chelation treatments. In the meantime, he had a chance to think, and he didn’t care for what he came up with. Besides, it was so fantastic, no one would believe him.

Maintenance had given his lab, and the other three microbiology studios, a clean bill of health, which meant he could go back to work tomorrow. Even more disturbing, the entirety of the science wing where the dead women cleaned showed zip in the way of evidence of a gas leak. In the interest of thoroughness, maintenance had checked the female dorms too, and found exactly nothing. Autopsy was conclusive regarding cause of death, but no one could figure out how the women had been exposed to a big enough dose of carbon monoxide to kill them.

The same was true for him—major exposure to something pigging up his hemoglobin, but without an identifiable source. Another few hours without medical intervention and he’d have been just as dead as Britta and Marguerite.

Armed with that knowledge—and a phalanx of unanswered questions—Micah spent his downtime in the infirmary mapping out a series of tests to run on his strange archaea colonies. He had suspicions, but needed facts before he presented them to Jack DeVoe, the man in charge of McMurdo operations. If he went to him now, Jack, who had a Ph.D. in biochemistry, would laugh him right out of his office. And there would go Micah’s hopes of earning his chops, so he could go on to something more prestigious than working at McMurdo Station.