Tristan chose that moment to jump up onto the comconsole, stepping on the sensor pad and a few other sensitive areas. It let out a squawking alert, and Sabrina jumped as Tristan turned into a flying ball of fur, zooming off the comconsole, bouncing off the chair on the far side, and racing in a half-circle along the floor until he found the heavy drapes behind Sabrina. He was halfway up them before she caught him.
"Marie, take that thing into the other room, will you?" Ford said, annoyed.
Marie giggled, highly amused by the cat's acrobatics, and reached out her arms as Sabrina handed her the panting cat. Then she walked out, singing a lilting little tune to him as she went. Ford looked after her and closed the door.
"This might be classified," Sabrina said hesitantly.
"Did it never occur to you that I might have a security clearance almost as impressive as yours?" Ford replied, picking up a chair and moving it so he could sit beside her.
Sabrina looked at him, trying to decide whether to take him seriously. Finally she decided that it was possible, and he'd been so much help to her lately that she didn't want to upset him. She activated the message playback.
"Lady Sabrina," High Wayship Shahina's voice said. It was mellow and lilting, and Sabrina discovered that she recognized it instantly, even though she'd heard it only a few times before. "I have spoken with Tirqwin Arakshanarfelaouzan. He feels it is necessary for him to converse with you in real time. When you receive this message, please contact me and I will act as a relay for your conversation. We have received permission from Homeworld to do this. I hope this finds you well."
The message terminated.
"Oh God," Sabrina breathed. Tirqwin had to speak with her, wouldn't leave her a message. It had to be bad news.
Ford laid a hand on her shoulder. "Don't assume the worst, Sabrina. Whatever it is, we'll face it together. All right?"
She nodded, closing her eyes for a moment to steady herself. Then she pressed her hand against the comconsole again and directed Control to put her interstellar call through. "High Wayship Shahina?"
"Lady Sabrina. Please wait a moment while we connect to Homeworld."
After an agonizing eternity, the comconsole screen displayed Tirqwin's image. He looked anxious and exhausted, Sabrina thought, not like someone with good news. "Tirqwin?" she called.
"Sabrina! And Niavar. I did not expect to find you there as well." Tirqwin said as they both peered into the screen.
Ford said, "I'll leave, if you prefer, Father."
"No. I am glad someone is there."
"How is Scotty?" Sabrina burst out, unable to wait any longer.
Tirqwin sighed. "He is still alive. Barely. We are going to have to take him out of stasis again soon for the next step. That is what I want to talk to you about, Sabrina. I want you to understand all the risks, and if you think they are too great, we will stop now."
"To stop is certain death," Sabrina protested.
"There are worse things," Tirqwin replied.
A wordless protest rose from Sabrina's throat, a wounded sound. Ford glanced at her and touched her gently on the back, to remind her that he was there. She took a deep breath, and he let his hand settle on her shoulder. "Tell me what you need to tell me," Sabrina said to Tirqwin.
Tirqwin paused, his face set in grim, anxious lines. Sabrina could not remember ever seeing him quite this way before. If he could have sold his soul to undo this situation, avoid this moment, he would have done it in an instant, she knew. Come on, she urged him silently. Get it over with. Tell me. The truth, all of it—or at least as much as we can both stand.
"We developed a genetic template for repairing Scotty's body," Tirqwin began. "We had to use more Wayfarer material than we hoped. I am afraid when we are finished, his physiology will be only about thirty percent human. But there are advantages to that."
Sabrina could tell Tirqwin had chosen to begin with the easy news, so she tried to accept this calmly, preparing for whatever horrors would follow. "Scotty with your strength and endurance? He'll be unstoppable. Just tell me he won't have your mental abilities."
"No," Tirqwin said. "He will not have those. The brain is, of course, the trickiest part of the reconstruction. I am not sure how much you know about human neurology, Sabrina."
He was sliding into his professorial mode, trying to get comfortable there and distance himself from the information, she thought. "Next to nothing," she replied. This was no time to worry about exposing her ignorance. "Nobody on our world seems to understand the way our brains really work."
"There is a reason for that," Tirqwin said, a faint glimmer of humor flickering across his gray eyes. "It is complex, but in a way that is quite different from how my own brain works, for example. At first, we hoped we could simply remove his brain intact and store it until his body was ready for it again. This procedure is frequently done in the creation of Wayships and would be reasonably routine. However, on closer examination, we found that Scotty's brain is too badly damaged by the radiation to be viable for very long, even given a healthy body."
Sabrina blinked. She only realized she had begun to shiver violently when Ford put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close enough to lean against him. She tried to say, "There must be something you can do," but no sound came through her moving lips.
"There are still options, Sabrina. There is still a chance," Tirqwin said hastily.
Ford said, "Go on, Father."
"Normally, when a brain is removed to a Wayship, it is first scanned and the data stored in a specially built matrix. Then, if some mishap occurs, it can be reloaded into the brain if necessary. However, given the nature of the human brain, we are not sure how successful this procedure would be for Scotty, especially since when we are finished, his brain will no longer function as a human's. The memory patterns might not make sense to his new brain. Even if they do, I fear the radiation may have disrupted his memories, and the scanning and reloading procedures may scramble them even more. It might produce a worse effect than simply retraining him."
It was a moment before Sabrina could speak. "But a person is the sum of his memories, Tirqwin. Without them, he won't be Scotty. And just telling him who he is and what he's done won't produce the same effect."
"You are correct," Tirqwin said. "It will not. But it might be better than driving him insane with a lifetime's worth of fragmented memories."
Sabrina hugged herself, shivering. Ford's hand moved up and down her back in an attempt to comfort her, but she barely felt it. "What do you suggest, Tirqwin?" she said at last, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "What's the best chance for him?"
"I think we should proceed with the scan, get as much of his mind as possible safely stored and hope it isn't already too damaged. Then, when his new physiology is stabilized, we can try to determine what the chances are of a reloading being successful. I...I think I should mention that there is still a significant chance of error in the genetic reconstruction, too, Sabrina. But that should all be repairable, mostly a question of trial and error. His mind is another matter; if we decide to try to copy his stored memory into his new brain and it fails, we cannot undo it."
"Couldn't you just load a few memories, see how it goes?" Sabrina asked.
Tirqwin shook his head. "Human minds do not work that way, Sabrina. Memories are not stored in specific places; they are all interconnected. You do not remove memories by cutting out specific cells, for instance. There is no way for us to isolate any specific memory and load it into Scotty's brain in any way that will make sense to him. And that is another thing. Even if the memories are successfully copied into his new brain, the specific electrochemical sequences used to trigger or retrieve those memories may no longer work due to his altered biochemistry."
Sabrina rubbed at her forehead. "You make it all sound so hopeless."
"If it were hopeless, I would not be here," Tirqwin replied.
Yeah, right, Sabrina thought wearily. He couldn't give up on this; neither of them would ever forgive him if he did. The odds of success were irrelevant to his determination. But not to hers, necessarily. All her worst fears had just been outlined, in harsh scientific terms. Scotty returned, but not himself, seemed the best she could hope for. Changed in body and mind, with little or no memory of himself, could he still be her brother in any meaningful way? All their shared experiences gone. He would have no memory of their parents, their childhood. Of her. And that was nothing compared to the horror of creating an insane being, tormented by fragmentary, meaningless memories that they could not undo. Surely letting him die a heroic death was better than that? Or, if his mind was irretrievable, surely he was already dead?
Scotty had strong views about not artificially extending his life if there was no hope of a cure, she knew. They'd talked about it, but Sabrina knew that in the back of their minds had been the conviction that nothing would ever happen that Mara and Praxatillian medicine could not eventually cure. They'd never really been convinced either of them would ever face this scenario.
"Do you need some time to think about it, Sabrina?" Tirqwin asked. Compassion filled his voice, drowning out the anguish momentarily. "A few days do not matter while he remains in stasis."
"Tirqwin," she said, trying in vain to steady her voice, "a few days of thinking about this will drive me mad." She glanced at the screen in time to see his mouth twist wryly in agreement. "Go ahead with the scan. Go ahead with the genetic reconstruction. When you get done and have some idea of the odds of successfully reloading his memories, call me. We'll take it from there."
He nodded. "I thought you would say that. But I needed to hear it from you."
"I know," she murmured. "Tirqwin...keep me updated, will you? Call me as often as you can?"
Tirqwin glanced away for a moment; then his wry smile was back. "I will call more than you want me to, I'm afraid, Sabrina. You are the only person I can have a non-technical conversation with. And...seeing you will remind me why we are all doing this."
Through the haze of her own pain and shock, Sabrina dimly realized that Tirqwin had been through a hell of his own since returning to Homeworld. "How's Khediva?" she asked.
"She is fine, having some upgrades and repairs done," he replied. "How is Mara?"
"She's on Daskis right now, hoping to finish up soon and come home," Sabrina said. "She asked me to let her know when I heard from you, so I'll send her a message right after we're done."
"Tell her that I love her."
Sabrina had to smile. "Surely she knows that by now."
"It is not something you can say too often," Tirqwin replied. There was an awkward little pause, and then Tirqwin said, "Sabrina—"
She extended a hand, as if to dismiss the worry in his voice, but found she couldn't summon the voice to respond. The numbness was fading, and the pain and horror were towering at the edges of her awareness, ready to engulf her.
"We'd better go, Father. We've trespassed long enough on Asnefer and Shahina's goodwill," Ford put in.
Tirqwin nodded. "Of course. Take care of yourself, Niavar. And of Sabrina. I know her too well to think she will take proper care of herself."
Sabrina managed to say hoarsely, "You're the one who won't take care of himself, Tirqwin. Especially if Khediva isn't keeping an eye on you. Try to take it easy, will you? You'll need your strength trying to keep Scotty in bed while he's recovering."
Tirqwin tried to smile. "I know. And I will."
"And...take care of him...." Sabrina's voice faded into a tight whisper, and she looked down so Tirqwin wouldn't see the tears spilling over her lashes.
"I will." Tirqwin hesitated, as if wanting to say more; then he abruptly cut the connection.
Sabrina just sat there, her mind spinning with grief and anxiety and horrific possibilities. Ford hesitated, then led her to her bed and made her sit down, standing over her uncertainly. She could feel the concern coming off him in waves, but she couldn't speak, couldn't move. Her soul-searing anguish hardly let her think, much less act.
She didn't know how long it was until she became aware of two hands, one on each cheek, pressing hard. "Sabrina!" Ford said, his voice slightly hoarse and his tone full of frustration and worry. "If you don't say something, I'm going to have you sedated!"
That didn't make any sense to her, but she struggled to speak, just to stop him from dragging her to the infirmary. She didn't know what he wanted her to say, though. There didn't seem to be anything she needed to communicate. Finally she settled for taking him literally, and murmured, "S-something."
Ford gave her face a little squeeze before letting his hands drop. He took her numb, limp hands in his own and laid them across her knees. "That is not funny," he said sternly.
That made her want to laugh, strangely, and it was with surprise that she heard the high, thin sob coming from her own throat. And that was the last thought she had for a while as the grief burned through her, leaving her helpless to do anything but weep.
——————————-
Several times that night, Sabrina was pulled from a nightmare in which she confronted what remained of her brother, either insane or a blank, mindless entity, by a firm shake from two warm hands and a voice telling her to wake up for a moment, try to forget the nightmare, and go back to sleep. When her standard wake-up chime sounded, she woke abruptly from a dream in which she was in her old house, in her hometown, with her family and friends, none of whom recognized her or seemed to know she had ever existed.
"God," she breathed, as Ford muttered something under his breath and slapped at the wall panel to silence the chime.
"You need more sleep. I didn't realize you'd set an alarm," Ford said.
"I don't want to sleep anymore," she said wearily. "I got enough to get by. Did you—did you get any? I didn't mean for you to sit up with me all night."
"I'm fine," he said, unfolding himself from the floor. "How are you feeling?"
She sighed. "I'll be okay. I guess. I...I can't think about it and still go on. I have to think about something else. Anything."
"All right," he said reluctantly.
He started to move away, but she reached out and grasped his hand. "Ford?"
"Yes?"
"What...what do you think..." She had to stop and take a deep breath. "It's all so horrible, Ford."
"I know it is, sweetheart," he said softly.
She didn't even notice the endearment; it seemed natural, something he would say if she really were his little sister. "Everything Tirqwin told me is so horrible. What do you think he left out?"
Ford looked down at her, surprised. "It sounded complete enough to me, Sabrina. I don't think he held anything back. He wanted you to know the risks."
She sighed. Perhaps Ford was right, and Tirqwin had needed to give her the facts so badly that he hadn't tried to protect her against the worst. Or perhaps, in a strange way, he had told her everything seeking a kind of absolution for their almost inevitable failure. "I can't think about that," she murmured finally, realizing it.
Ford nodded, squeezing her hand before he let it go. "Let's have some breakfast, all right?"
"I don't feel like—"
"Sabrina."
She sighed again, too weary to argue. "All right."
"Good. I'll go see what kind of mess I can make in your kitchen while you get freshened up." He tossed her a reassuring smile over his shoulder as he left.