“You didn’t know? Open your eyes, Dr. Ike-en-stein. It was your monster that initiated, designed, and carried out every phase of this little adventure, including the selection of the six men and six women onboard. These were not random selections, my friend. The question is why? Why us? Was it our résumés or our DNA? Did GOLEM want competence, or did it base its selections on some AI computer dating algorithm it believes equates to human compatibility?”

I held on as Yoni banked the sub away from Oceanus, heading for another pattern of lights in the distance. “Are you saying GOLEM was playing matchmaker when it selected the crew?” The statement seemed preposterous to me.

“It is a working theory, based on observation. Take Lara Saints. Young, brilliant, easy on the eyes. She could have any man at SEA, yes? Only her psychological profile indicated a compatibility with older men.”

“How do you know that?”

Yoni smiled, the expression causing his coffee-brown goatee to twitch. “Before I designed these toys, I was a hacker. What is important here is that your computer selected Donald Bruemmer over younger, and in several cases, far more qualified system engineers to work in the same lab as Lara. Coincidence? Maybe. Then there is your former boss, Monique DeFriend. She is a wild one—perfect for Jason Sloan. Yes, we needed a cryogenist onboard, and yes, Mr. Sloan is certainly qualified, but is it just a coincidence that he is the masochist to Monique’s sadist desires? As for the arboretum Indian girl and the Dutch scientist, they may hate each other now, but for the first eight months these two spent many long nights working in the garden together, and they still sleep together … at least they did last night.”

“Is that it?”

“Not quite.” Yoni paused to wipe condensation from his wire-rimmed glasses. “You haven’t met the Russian physicist, Egor Vasiliev, he’s on Alpha shift. I am reasonably certain he was intended for Dharma Yuan. I cannot be sure, but I think the Chinese woman scared him off with her regression therapy and the whole talking to dead people routine.”

“She talks to dead people?”

“She communicates with their souls. I didn’t believe it either, until we had a session. Suffice it to say she convinced me, and I don’t convince easy.”

“What about Andria?”

“Nothing personal, my friend, but your former fiancée apparently likes the all-American testosterone type, even if he was born in Canada. Is she qualified to be Commander Crew-cut’s copilot? You tell me. From what I hear, she hasn’t even earned her pilot wings for the lunar shuttles. But she’s as tough as an Israeli commando, just like Read. Not that you are not.”

“What about you?”

“I was paired with our resident exobiologist, Dr. Amanda Lynn Moss.”

A woman’s angry voice filled the cabin. “Yoni, what the hell? I’ve been waiting ten minutes.”