Xenobiology: A Hard-Science Alien Why-Choose Romance

The plants were lying. Or the sensors were. Alice preferred plants - a sensor can be fooled, and a closed ecosystem cannot.Ariadne Station grows human crops beside Aruun photobiology cultures under a lighting array designed to offend everybody equally, and for three years that compromise has held. Then the greenhouse bays start returning readings that should not be possible, and Dr. Alice Rennick has to work out whether the station's biology is failing or its instruments are - before a sealed system that four species depend on tips past the point of recovery.She does not solve it alone. Vael, Rukh and Silen are specialists in their own right, biologically and culturally distinct, and none of them is a human with decorative ears. The science does not bend for the attraction, the attraction does not excuse the professional ethics, and nobody is required by biology to love anybody.The first Contact Expedition novel. High heat, real xenobiology, four points of view, and a heroine whose expertise is what changes the outcome. No fated mates. For adult readers.