“We were just talking about Koenji Wizard,” Quinn said. “It’s an entertainment feed out of Samavasarana system.”
“I don’t know it,” Elvi said, and Xan, spinning slowly about his z-axis, launched into a description of the story. It involved a hidden space station built by angels that were also human desires in physical form. And apparently there were a lot of songs, one of which Xan sang. Cara joined in for the chorus. Elvi listened and, to her surprise, felt herself beginning to relax. Xan’s enthusiasm and the benign, childlike narcissism that drove him to the center of every conversation were actually a joy. For a few minutes, Elvi was out of her own head. It was easy to forget that he’d been a seven-year-old for over forty years now.
She almost regretted coming back to herself.
“Cara?” she said, nodding toward the other side of the common room. “Could I borrow you for a second?”
The girl who wasn’t a girl froze the way that she and Xan did sometimes, suddenly going as still as stone. It only lasted a moment, but it was eerie every time. Then she nodded and pushed gently off in the direction Elvi had indicated. Elvi tossed her empty bulb in the recycler and floated over to meet her. Xan, still with Quinn and Harshaan, blinked anxious black eyes at them, and Elvi waved what she hoped was reassuringly.
“What’s on your mind, Doc?” Cara said. Her casual informality left Elvi feeling warm toward the girl every time she heard it. For someone who’d been imprisoned and experimented on for decades by an induced sociopath, Cara had given her trust to Elvi quickly.
“Couple things. I wanted to see how you were feeling. The last dive was . . . There were some interesting readings. It looked like you were in a different kind of sync with our big green friend. It was looking more like a nonlocal reaction than something with light delay.”
“Yes,” Cara said, so quickly it was almost interrupting. “I felt like that too.”
“And since we don’t know what this is, I need you to tell me how you feel. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Cara said. “Going in there like this seems . . . I don’t know. It feels good. It feels right.”
Which Elvi knew already. She’d seen the scans and knew what the connection was doing to Cara’s endorphin levels. It was anthropomorphizing to say that the BFE wanted Cara to come back. There was no reason to think it had any will or intentions. But it wanted the girl to come back.
Somewhere deep in her mind, Elvi knew that what came next was a mistake. And that she’d chosen to make it.
“Given that,” she said, “I’d like to consider accelerating the session schedule. If we could take a day or two less between the dives—”
“That would be great,” Cara said. “I don’t think there’s any reason not to. I can handle it.”
Her grin was so genuine—so human—that Elvi couldn’t help grinning back. “All right then. I’ll talk with the team, and we’ll get a new protocol schedule out. Maybe we can try another run as soon as tomorrow?”
Cara gave a little shiver of excitement, and from across the common room, Xan frowned and looked anxious. More than anxious. Melancholy. Elvi took Cara’s hand, squeezing her fingers, and Cara squeezed back. A human gesture of connection, as old as the species.
“It’s going to be all right,” Elvi said, not realizing until she heard herself that she was echoing Fayez. That she hadn’t believed it when he said it.
“I know,” Cara replied.
Chapter Nine: Kit
His father looked out from the screen, eyes red from happy tears. Probably, Alex Kamal had wept over Kit the same way once, but Kit had been a baby then. He didn’t remember it, and so seeing it now felt like the revelation of something new.
“I am so proud of what you and Rohi are doing. The life you’ve put together. It’s—it’s—it’s hard to understand what it means to make a family. To bring a new person into the world. But now that you have, I hope you can see that’s the love we had for you. Me and your mother both. It’s overwhelming. This is everything I hoped you could find. And I know—I know—that you’ll be a good father. A better father than I was.”
“Oh, fuck, Dad,” Kit breathed. “Are we doing this again?”
“The bad things that happened were never about you. About how much I loved you. How much I do love you. I am so full. What you’ve done, it just leaves me feeling so full. I’m so happy. I’m so happy for you.”