Page 20 (1/2)

“You’re going to stay,” he said

The silence lasted three heartbeats Four Five

“It’s arranged,” Basia said

Prax hit hih the shoulder, balled fist shooting out of its own accord His knuckles sank into the flesh of Basia’s cheek, snapping his head to the side and rocking hi man boiled across the room at hi him back, the next one was to his ribs, and the one after that Prax felt his chair slide out fro but unable to get his feet beneath hi wild, kicked out He felt his foot connect with so, but he couldn’t tell if it was the table or Basia

He hit the floor, and Basia’s foot ca, and painful So He couldn’t ht He lost a baby too He’s not right

Prax rolled over, forced himself up to his knees There was blood on his chin he was pretty sure ca Basia stood by the table, hands in fists, nostrils flared, breath fast The daughter stood in front of hied father and Prax All he could really see of her was her ass and her ponytail and her hands, flat out at her father in the universal gesture for stop She was saving his life

“You’d be better off gone, brother,” Basia said

“Okay,” Prax said

He got to his feet slowly and stuht He let himself out

The secret of closed-syste that breaks you need to watch out for It’s the cascade The first tius that didn’t hurt soybeans at all The spores had probably cous took hold in the hydroponic syste up nutrients that weren’tthe pH That weakened the bacteria Prax had been using to fix nitrogen to the point that they were vulnerable to a phage that wouldn’t have been able to take theot out of whack By the time the bacteria recovered to their initial population, the soybeans were yellow, limp, and past repair

That was the ht about Mei and her immune system The problem was tiny, really A mutant allele produced a protein that folded left instead of right A few base pairs’ difference But that protein catalyzed a critical step in signal transduction to the T cells She could have all the parts of an ien, but without twice-daily doses of an artificial catalyzing agent, the alarm would never sound Myers-Skelton Premature Immunosenescence they called it, and the preliminary studies still hadn’t even been able to tell if it was more co effect or just the high radiation levels increasing otten there, Mei had developed a massive spinal infection when she was four months old If they’d been anywhere else in the outer planets, she’d have died of it But everyone caestate, so the child health research all happened there When Dr Strickland saw her, he knehat he was looking at, and he held back the cascade