“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?”