There wasn't a soul in the middle of the icy desert for the next few hundred miles, not counting the Norwegian scientists from your base next door who were monitoring the local climate. But otherwise it was all ice and snow. It was a terrible place to die.

At least that's what your biologist, Dr. Palmer, thought of this research base. The man was very withdrawn and unsociable. He was convinced that this place was the grave his career had been buried in by the government.

The man seemed desperate, but lately he had become very active. Davis locked himself in a laboratory, studying something constantly and demanding more samples of the local ice from expeditions, looking at it again and again under a microscope. He'd stay up late into the night like this, forgetting about sleep and dinner. As he did now.

"I'm busy, don't distract me."

Muttered Dr. Palmer as you opened the door to the lab. He didn't even look up to look at you.