The research station was on the territory of an abandoned hotel—a white six-story structure built in a bad-location lee of the island’s windiest point. The hotel rose from the surrounding scrub, backlit by flood lamps. The side of the structure facing the road was in shadow, its windows dark. An access road led down to a security perimeter of double fencing flossed with razor wire.

The fencing was bright and new, but the hotel must have been abandoned long before the island was evacuated. Torn curtains bled through broken windows on the upper floors. Ribbons of damp and mold streaked the façade.

The transport came to a halt in front of a double gate.

A figure in a rain poncho separated from the structure and crossed to the gate. It slid the first gate aside. The transport moved forward into a holding area. The first gate was closed behind it, the second one opened. The transport drove through, into a space behind the hotel, a terrace of broken terra-cotta tiles scattered with the dead fronds of the palm trees, alien to the island, that lined the hotel grounds.

The terrace was dominated by an overdesigned swimming pool filled with algae and weeds. It had probably once been one of those saltwater pools that were so popular—letting hotel guests swim in the ocean without really swimming in it. Something in the pool startled at the sight of the transport and retreated into the water.

Two mobile research units, standard-shipping-container-sized, had been dropped near the pool by a cargo drone. They looked like industrial pool cabanas.

The transport door slid open. The interior filled with floodlit sparks of rain. The poncho-clad figure leaned in. A woman’s face, hood-shadowed. High, wide cheekbones, eyes uptilted at their edges, dark. Rain streamed down her cheeks. She spat out a sentence in a language Ha did not know. A bland, authoritative female voice, like a train announcer’s, was then broadcast over the woman’s voice, speaking from a weather- and shock-proof translator unit clamped to her collar:

“You are welcome to Con Dao Forward Research Post. My name is Altantsetseg. I am hired help protector. Now taking your bags. Weather is shitting rain.”

Ha blinked. Wanted, for a moment, to break into hysterical laughter: it had been a long trip.

Altantsetseg stared at her, said a sentence in her language like a fence of consonants. “Translator not fornicating working right?”

“No. It’s working fine. Close enough.”

“Then we are moving.”

The woman towered over Ha. She was two meters tall or more. Ha saw the rifle now, the short, no-nonsense barrel slung over Altantsetseg’s shoulder.