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here.’
    Cody nodded vacantly as he peered out into the darkness. ‘Sure. Reece will do it.’
    Bethany snorted in amusement. ‘Be quicker for us to take them out. Reece hasn’t set foot back in the observatory since we set the camp up.’
    Cody nodded.
    ‘You okay?’ Bethany asked.
    Cody blinked out of his glum reverie and turned to her. ‘Yeah, sure. Sorry. Just spoke to my wife and daughter, kind of brings it home how far away they are.’
    Bethany smiled. ‘You should have got this assignment out of the way before playing happy families, Cody.’
    ‘You got a boyfriend?’ Cody asked.
    ‘Are you hitting on me?’
    ‘No, not at all, I meant that… ’
    Bethany giggled. Cody picked up a pair of winter gloves and tossed them at her.
    ‘I’m not attached,’ she replied as she ducked the missiles. ‘I was, but we split up a couple of months back.’
    ‘Sorry to hear that.’
    ‘It wasn’t serious.’
    ‘What about the others? They got families, partners?’
    ‘Why do you ask?’
    Cody shrugged. ‘Jake seems interested in getting a feel for everybody’s status, for want of a better word. Says it helps figure out how well people will cope up here.’
    ‘You think they’d tell me?’
    ‘Maybe,’ Cody replied.
    Bethany shrugged.
    ‘Well as far as I know Bobby Leary is either single or a serial adulterer because I can hardly hold a conversation without him checking me out. Reece seems like the kind of guy who has only ever had a relationship with a petri dish, and Charlotte probably only mixes with other senator’s children.’ Bethany thought for a moment. ‘She’ll suffer the most.’
    ‘What makes you say that?’
    ‘Bobby will chase me around the whole time here, Reece will stay on his own, you’re married, I’m happily single and Jake’s too professional to play kiss-chase with anybody. Charlotte’s the fish out of water. It can’t be easy spending your life mixing with politicians and movie stars and then getting dumped out here on your own.’
    ‘I thought she said she wanted to do her research while she was young enough.’
    ‘Bull crap,’ Bethany snorted. ‘She’s only at home with caviar, champagne and chauffeurs. This is probably something her father arranged to bring her back down to Earth. You can tell she doesn’t want to be here and doesn’t like any of us.’
    ‘What about the two soldiers, Brad and Sauri?’
    ‘What about them?’
    ‘I figured they’re on some kind of punishment detail, getting stuck with us here instead of with their team over at the base.’
    ‘Makes sense I guess,’ Bethany agreed. ‘None of the military seem interested in us.’
    Cody nodded and looked out of the darkened windows at the distant lights of the base.
    ‘Not exactly a comforting thought,’ he said.
    ***

4
    Crystallised.
    That was the only word that described the Arctic for Cody as he guided one of four heavy duty snowmobiles across the bleak terrain. It felt as though he were in a vast dome of glass, the icy plains frozen in time and glistening as they reflected the starlight in the soaring vault of the heavens above. A thin sword of light glowed across the horizon ahead, keeping distant hills in silhouette. A few thousand miles away, down in Boston, it was midday and people were bustling out of their offices for lunch.
    Here, it seemed like they were traversing the surface of the moon.
    The snowmobile’s engine growled as Cody guided it toward a series of small prefabricated buildings erected out on the lonely plains, the headlights reflecting off sparkling particles of ice whipped up by the powerful belts of Jake’s snowmobile a few yards ahead.
    Behind Cody followed Bradley Trent and Charlotte Dennis on two more vehicles. Jake guided them in to the camp and slowed. Ahead, Cody could see Reece Cain about a hundred yards away out on the ice erecting a tower of aluminium tubing some ten feet tall. Nearby, Sauri stood guard with a rifle cradled in his grip.
    Cody shut off the