Concur Davout signed.

He envisioned the last moments of the Beagle, the crew being flung back and forth as the ship slammed through increasing pendulum swings, the desperate attempts, fighting wildly fluctuating gravity and inertia, to reach the emergency nanobeds… no panic, Davout thought, Captain Moshweshwe had trained his people too well for that. Just desperation, and determination, and, as the oscillations grew worse, an increasing sense of futility, and impending death.

No one expected to die anymore. It was always a shock when it happened near you. Or to you.

"The cause of the Beagle’s problem remains unknown," Li said, the voice far away. "The Bureau is working with simulators to try to discover what happened."

Davout leaned back against his pillow. Pain throbbed in his veins, pain and loss, knowledge that his past, his joy, was irrecoverable. "The whole voyage," he said, "was a catastrophe."

I respectfully contradict Li signed. "You terraformed and explored two worlds," he said. "Downloads are already living on these worlds, hundreds of thousands now, millions later. There would have been a third world added to our commonwealth if your mission had not been cut short due to the, ah, first accident…"

Concur Davout signed, but only because his words would have come out with too much bitterness.

Sorry, a curt jerk of Li’s fingers. "There are messages from your sibs," Li said, "and downloads from them also. The sibs and friends of Beagle’s crew will try to contact you, no doubt. You need not answer any of these messages until you’re ready."

Understood.

Davout hesitated, but the words were insistent; he gave them tongue. "Have Katrin’s sibs sent messages?" he asked.

Li’s grave expression scarcely changed. "I believe so." He tilted his head. "Is there anything I can do for you? Anything I can arrange?"