“It’s ironic. We thought that the endurance program was going to help the microbivores program, not vice versa.”

“It is ironic,” Stevens had agreed.

After going through most of the snail mail that had accumulated during his trip to Beijing, Berman leaned back in his ergonomic executive chair and stared out at the mountain scenery with unseeing eyes. He was thinking of what to say to his recently arrived guests, thankfully none of whom had witnessed the setback. It was implicit in the arrangement that the subjects of the testing program were expendable, but clearly deaths meant that something had not gone according to plan. He decided it would be counterproductive to tell them. Berman knew the current dignitaries would be severely jet-lagged on their first day in the United States. Everyone knew that flying east was harder than flying west, and there was no need to get them perturbed on top of that. Instead Berman composed a text to Whitney, asking her to arrange a lunch for the visiting dignitaries in Nano’s executive dining room, which he would attend, along with a few senior staff. She should also inform them that for the evening they would be at their leisure. Berman wanted the evening kept free for a more interesting purpose.

Berman quickly typed out another text, this one to Mariel, that said simply: “Come see me!” Berman was confident Mariel would be somewhere in the bio labs, as she always was. Whitney Jones he didn’t expect would show her face for at least another hour.

Precisely three minutes later, Mariel arrived in his office. She was one of only three people with access through the iris scanner outside his suite. The other two were Berman himself and Whitney Jones.

“We lost another rider yesterday,” said Berman. “That’s two in the same day.”

“I know. It’s unfortunate.” Mariel sat in one of the two chairs facing Berman’s desk. She crossed her legs. She wore slacks as she always did, and a silk blouse under her immaculate and heavily starched white lab coat.

“The first rider disobeyed the protocol, although he should never have been allowed out by himself so soon after getting the treatment. Looking on the good side, we’ll have more data on tolerances, which will be very useful. What these incidents prove is that the system works as well as or better than we imagined. Perhaps it’s the body that needs to adapt, like high-altitude mountain climbing.”

“Do we know exactly what happened?”

“Stevens thinks it was an autoimmune reaction due to or on top of a hypermetabolic state. We’ll know more when the report is in later today. We’ve got the team concentrating on finding out.”

“I’ll be interested to hear the details.”

There was an awkward pause in the conversation. Mariel noticed that Berman was looking at his computer screen and not at her. She had no idea why she had been summoned, but she needed to get back to work. Mariel couldn’t imagine that he’d called her to his office about the second cyclist’s death, since she knew he’d already gone over it at length with Allan Stevens. After a beat she said: “Do you need me for something in particular?”