Quinn caught Miles’s nod, and made a note on her report panel.

Aragones called up charts on his comconsole. “The worst first. We could do nothing for your Mr. Kee or Ms. Zelaski.”

“I … saw Kee’s head injury. I’m not surprised.” Smashed like a melon. “But we had the cryo-chamber available, so we tried.”

Aragones nodded understanding. “Ms. Zelaski had a similar problem, though less externally obvious. So much of her internal cranial circulation was broken during the trauma, her blood could not be properly drained from her brain, nor the cryo-fluids properly perfused. Between the crystalline freezing and the hematomas, the neural destruction was complete. I’m sorry. Their bodies are presently stored in our morgue, waiting your instructions.”

“Kee wished his body to be returned for burial to his family on his homeworld. Have your mortuary department prepare and ship him through the usual channels. We’ll give you the address.” He jerked his chin at Quinn, who made another note. “Zelaski listed no family or next of kin—some Dendarii just don’t, or won’t, and we don’t insist. But she did once tell some of her squad mates how she wanted her ashes disposed of. Please have her remains cremated and returned to the Triumph in care of our medical department.”

“Very well.” Aragones signed off the charts on his vid display; they disappeared like vanishing spirits. He called up others in their place.

“Your Mr. Durham and Ms. Vifian are both presently only partially healed from their original injuries. Both are suffering from what I would call normal neural-traumatic and cryo-amnesia. Mr. Durham’s memory loss is the more profound, partly because of complications due to his pilot’s neural implants, which we alas had to remove.”

“Will he ever be able to have another headset installed?”

“It’s too early to tell. I would call both their long-term prognoses good, but neither will be fit to return to their military duties for at least a year. And then they will need extensive re-training. In both cases I highly recommend they each be returned to their home and family environments, if that is possible. Familiar surroundings will help facilitate and trigger re-establishment of their access to their own surviving memories, over time.”

“Lieutenant Durham has family on Earth. We’ll see he gets there. Tech Vifian is from Kline Station. We’ll see what we can do.”

Quinn nodded vigorously, and made more notes.

“I can release them to you today, then. We’ve done all we can, here, and ordinary convalescent facilities will do for the rest. Now … that leaves your Mr. Aziz.”

“My trooper Aziz,” Miles agreed to the claim. Aziz was three years in the Dendarii, had applied and been accepted for officer’s training. Twenty-one years old.

“Mr. Aziz is … alive again. That is, his body sustains itself without artificial aids, except for a slight on-going problem with internal temperature regulation that seems to be improving on its own.”

“But Aziz didn’t have a head wound. What went wrong?” asked Miles. “Are you telling me he’s going to be a vegetable?”

“I’m afraid Mr. Aziz was the victim of a bad prep. His blood was apparently drained hastily, and not sufficiently completely. Small freezing hemocysts riddled his brain tissue with necrotic patches. We removed them, and started new growth, which has taken hold successfully. But his personality is permanently lost.”

“Everything?”

“He may perhaps retain a few frustrating fragments of memories. Dreams. But he cannot re-access his neural pathways through new routes or sub-routines, because the tissue itself is gone. The new man will start over as a near-infant. He’s lost language, among other things.”

“Will he recover his intelligence? In time?”

Aragones hesitated for too long before answering. “In a few years, he may be able to do enough simple tasks to be self-supporting.”

“I see,” Miles sighed.

“What do you want to do with him?”

“He’s another one with no next of kin listed.” Miles blew out his breath. “Transfer him to a long-term care facility here on Escobar. One with a good therapy department. I’ll ask you to recommend one. I’ll set up a small trust fund to cover the costs till he’s out on his own. However long that takes.”

Aragones nodded, and both he and Quinn made notes.

After settling further administrative and financial details, the conference broke up. Miles insisted on stopping to see Aziz, before picking up the other two convalescents.

“He cannot recognize you,” Dr. Aragones warned as they entered the hospital room.

“That’s all right.”

At first glance, Aziz did not look as much like death warmed over as Miles had expected, despite the unflattering hospital gown. There was color and warmth in his face, and his natural melanin level saved him from being hospital-pale. But he lay listlessly, gaunt, twisted in his covers. The bed’s sides were up, unpleasantly suggesting a crib or a coffin. Quinn stood against the wall and folded her arms. She had visceral associations about hospitals and clinics too.

“Azzie,” Miles called softly bending over him. “Azzie, can you hear me?”

Aziz’s eyes tracked momentarily, but then wandered again.

“I know you don’t know me, but you might remember this, later. You were a good soldier, smart and strong. You stood by your mates in the crash. You had the sort of self-discipline that saves lives.” Others, not your own. “Tomorrow, you’ll go to another sort of hospital, where they’ll help you keep on getting better.” Among strangers. More strangers. “Don’t worry about the money. I’m setting it up so it’ll be there as long as you need it.” He doesn’t know what money is. “I’ll check back on you from time to time, as I get the opportunity,” Miles promised. Promised who? Aziz? Aziz was no more. Himself? His voice softened to inaudibility as he ran down.

The aural stimulation made Aziz thrash around, and emit some loud and formless moans; he had no volume control yet, apparently. Even through a filter of desperate hope, Miles could not recognize it as an attempt at communication. Animal reflexes only.

“Take care,” he whispered, and withdrew, to stand a moment trembling in the hallway.

“Why do you do that to yourself?” Quinn inquired tartly. Her crossed arms, hugging herself, added silently, And to me?

“First, he died for me, literally, and second,” he attempted to force his voice to lightness, “don’t you find a certain obsessive fascination in looking in the face of what you most fear?”

“Is death what you most fear?” she asked curiously.

“No. Not death.” He rubbed his forehead, hesitated. “Loss of mind. My game plan all my life has been to demand acceptance of this” a vague wave down the length, or shortness, of his body, “because I was a smart-ass little bastard who could think rings around the opposition, and prove it time after time. Without the brains …” Without the brains I’m nothing. He straightened against the aching tension in his belly, shrugged, and twitched a smile at her. “March on, Quinn.”

After Aziz, Durham and Vifian were not so hard to deal with. They could walk and talk, if haltingly, and Vifian even recognized Quinn. They took them back to the shuttleport in the rented groundcar, and Quinn tempered her usual go-to-hell style of driving in consideration of their half-healed wounds. Upon reaching the shuttle Miles sent them forward to sit with the pilot, a comrade, and by the time reached the Triumph Durham had recalled not only the man’s name, but some shuttle piloting procedures. Miles turned both convalescents over to the medtech who met them at the shuttle hatch door, who escorted them off to sickbay to bed down again after the exhaustion of their short journey. Miles watched them exit, and felt a little better.

“Costly,” Quinn observed reflectively.