“I never heard of these trials,” Lantos said, examining the white capsule skeptically.

“The results haven’t been made public yet. And tomorrow,” he said, with a grin, “may be the best field test we’ve ever run.”

“So we are the guinea pigs?” Kozak said.

Slater nodded and washed one of each of the pills down with the last of his coffee. Kozak and Lantos did the same, but Nika sat silently, waiting.

“Where’s mine?”

Swallowing, Slater said, “You won’t need them.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not coming into contact with any of the bodies.”

“Who said so?”

“The exhumations are a very dangerous and very grim spectacle. There’s no need to subject yourself to any of that.”

But Nika dug in her heels. “Do we really need to go through this again? As the tribal rep, and a trained anthropologist, I insist on being there.” She held out her palm, flat.

Slater glanced at Lantos and the professor, and they both looked at him as if to say, “Not my call.”

Slater dug into his shirt pocket, removed the packet he was planning to give Groves when he got back from his rounds, and plopped it in Nika’s hand, instead; he’d make up another one later for the sergeant. She smiled in victory and held the little plastic baggie up like a trophy, and the others laughed. Slater had to smile, too; no wonder she’d become mayor.

“Now they might make you drowsy,” he advised, “so take them just before you go to bed.”

“And where would that be?” Dr. Lantos said, glancing around the mess tent, one of the few structures erected that day.

“I’m afraid this will have to double as the barracks for tonight.”

“Then I’ve got dibs on this juicy spot under the table,” she said, tapping her foot on the insulated rubber flooring.

“And I will put my sleeping bag on top of that fat pile of cushions,” Kozak said, gesturing at the stack of mats that would be laid down to make a path to the graveyard the next day.

“Nika,” Slater said, “I was thinking that you could—”

“I already know where I’m sleeping tonight,” she said.

“You do?”

“I do.”

As they trudged across the colony grounds, covered with crates and bundles of supplies unloaded from the Sikorskys, Slater continued to argue with her, but Nika would have none of it. She felt it was her duty to make this gesture of atonement to the spirits who had once inhabited this place. There was no explaining such a “metaphysical” view, however, to a man as empirically oriented as Frank Slater. She recognized that it was his job as an epidemiologist to look at things as squarely and objectively as possible, and to keep all other considerations out of the equation.

It was her job, as she saw it, to remain open and attuned to it all — the seen and the unseen, the facts and the faith. She had grown up among the legends and the folklore of her people. Her first memories were of fantastic natural phenomena — the swirling lights of the aurora borealis, the barking of a chorus of seals draped like mermaids on the ice floes, the sun that set for months at a time. You could not grow up on the coast of Alaska, one shallow breath below the Arctic Circle, and not feel both your remoteness from the rest of the world and your oneness with the vast and timeless elements — the impenetrable mountain ranges, the impassable seas — that surrounded you. Instilled within her was a sense of wonder — wonder at humanity’s place in the great scheme of things — and an innate respect for any people’s attempt to create a belief system able to encompass it all.

When they arrived at the church steps, she expected Slater to stop, like a boy dropping off his date at her home, but he started up the stairs instead.

“Wait,” she said, and he turned to look down at her. One of the two doors had fallen off its hinges and left a narrow opening.

“Don’t go in,” she said.

“Why not? The whole place is tilting already — let’s see if it’s safe.”

“I’ll be careful,” she said. What she didn’t say was that she didn’t want his presence to disturb the vibe inside, whatever it might be — and she knew that if she so much as hinted at that, he’d think she’d completely lost her mind. She was surprised herself at how much she already valued his good opinion of her; it wasn’t something she’d experienced in a long time. The dating pool in Port Orlov was meager, to put it kindly.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, grabbing up her bedroll and backpack and sidling past him.

He looked unpersuaded.

“Here,” she said, taking the bilikin from around her neck and dropping it down over his head. “Now you can keep an eye on things even in the dark of night.”

“You’re going to need it more than I do,” he said, glancing toward the church doors.

“It’s the leader of the hunt who’s supposed to wear it.”

For that split second it took her to put the necklace on him, their faces had been very close, and she had felt his warm breath on her cheek. She had seen the stubble on his chin, and a faint scar along his jawline. Where, she wondered, had he come by that? And why did she have such an urge to run her finger gently along its length?

“See you in the morning,” she said, to break the mood. “Put me down for French toast.”

But he still appeared dubious as she slipped between the doors, then flattened herself for a moment against the back of one, with her eyes closed. It was only when she heard his footsteps descend the stairs outside that she opened them again, to a scene of such desolation that she was sorely temped to change her plans.

By the time Harley and Eddie had found their way back to the cave again, stumbling through the forest with their flashlights and their tools, night had fallen, and the wind had been blowing in their faces the whole time. Even with the black wool balaclava pulled all the way down over his head, Harley’s face stung like it been slapped a thousand times.

Eddie, similarly attired, had done nothing but bitch all the way back.

Especially because their haul had been so disappointing.

The moment they staggered into the cave — about the tenth one they’d tried — Russell had been up on his feet and shouting, “What the fuck? You left me here?”

Harley, trying to get the tarp back in place, had told him to shut up, but Russell was just getting going.

“Where the fuck have you been? I wake up, and I’m ready to go, and you two assholes are nowhere around! Where did you go? Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Because you got so damn drunk last night,” Harley said, gesturing at a few of the beer cans glittering in the glow of the Coleman lamp, “we didn’t have time for you to sober up.”

“You didn’t have time, or you didn’t want to share whatever you got? You went digging, right?” His eyes went to the shovel and pickaxe they had dropped by the mouth of the cave. “What’d you find? You holding out on me already?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, slumping in a weary heap against the wall. “We’re holding out on you.”

Harley tossed his backpack down, reached inside it and threw a string of crystal rosary beads on the ground. “That’s what we found.”

Russell picked it up, looked at the beads — apparently even he could tell they were pretty worthless — and tossed them away. “What else?”

“What else what?” Eddie said. “It took us hours just to dig up that piece of shit.”

“I don’t believe you,” Russell said, grabbing Harley’s backpack and shaking it out. A cascade of PowerBars, Tic Tacs, Chapstick, Trojans, and the like spilled out.

Harley felt his temper start to rise — this day had been bad enough already — and he was about to demand that Russell put it all back in the bag when he stopped himself. He could tell that Russell was on the verge of losing it altogether, and maybe a little drunk even now. He also knew what was really wigging him out — and it wasn’t the idea that he’d been cheated. It was having to spend the day alone, cooped up in this cave, wondering what was going on and whether or not he and Eddie were even planning to come back at all. Russell would never admit it — Harley knew that damn well — but he was having a panic attack.