I opened my eyes, immediately in a foul mood. My body yearned for more sleep, my fatigued mind fighting to gain traction, distracted by the scent of Andria on the sheets. For a long moment I simply stared out the curved viewport, my internal voice that was not ABE reminding me that, metaphorically, I had stepped in dog shit. You’re not in Florida. You’re a mile below the Antarctic ice cap in twelve hundred feet of water and Andria’s screwing another guy.

“Attention, Professor Eisenbraun. Night shift begins in fourteen minutes.”

Damn artificial intellect. Should have programmed it with a snooze button. Searching the ceiling, I located the neon-blue sensory eyeball housing the cursed three-dimensional camera. “Thank you, GOLEM. I’m awake.”

Leaning over the side of the bed, I dragged over my duffel bag, extracting a clean pair of boxers, white athletic socks, a pair of sneakers, and a plastic container holding my toiletries. I climbed into the briefs, then tried on the orange jumpsuit, surprised at how light yet warm the nanofiber cloth felt against my skin.

I spent the next seven minutes in the bathroom. Tossing my duffel bag and snow gear in a closet, I exited the stateroom at three minutes before the 6:00 P.M. shift change.

ABE guided me to the mid-deck entrance of the arboretum, located halfway around the circular corridor. The watertight doors slid open, allowing me to access a small anteroom that separated the exterior corridor from the glass door ahead of me, the interior of which was too heavy with condensation to see inside.

Pulling open the acrylic door, I entered the arboretum.

The humidity blasted me in the face, and then my senses were overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and scents of a tropical rainforest. Mist and heat pumped out of ceiling vents; vines partly concealed the recessed ultraviolet lights. The white noise of rushing water escorted me along a winding path that cut through a miniature jungle of palm fronds, fruit trees, and flowers, the sweet scents attracting neon-orange and blue butterflies and bees collecting pollen.

The path led to an artificial rock spiral staircase that descended to the lower floor. Standing in an artificial pond was an attractive brown-skinned woman in her late twenties, her jet-black hair pulled back and braided. She was wearing knee-high rubber boots over her jeans, feeding the fish from food contained in an apron strapped around her waist.

“Robert Eisenbraun, computer science.”

She looked up at me with sparkling indigo eyes. “Bella Maharaj, botanist.”

“This is really impressive. How long did it take you to achieve all this?”

“Less than four months. But the arboretum aboard Oceanus II is much farther along. The trees are already bearing fruit. Of course, we have far more space in that habitat since the cryogenic pods are relegated to the shuttle.”

“The computer assigned me to the arboretum. What can I do to help?”

“That depends. Have you ever heard of biomimicry?”