Perfectly parallel evolution was ridiculous, of course. At least by any modern theory of evolution he’d ever read. Evolution wasn’t a blueprint; it was a series of mistakes that occasionally turned out to be beneficial. And the doctor knew those were few and far between. Evolutionary mutations were far more likely to result in the death of a species’s offshoot than anything that might benefit them in the long term, or even short term.

That left the insane—at least in Rame’s opinion. Captured humans actually seem the most likely, he thought as he waited for a test to run. The conspiracy theories surrounding the last century or two had continued to grow as humans reached into the stars, and even he, the scholar he considered himself to be, wasn’t immune to their attraction.

Of course, there was always the off chance that humanity was actually an offshoot of their culture, in some way. It was a longshot, in Rame’s opinion, but possible. No one had ever found the so-called missing link, and far too many of the discoveries that supported it had been proven to be hoaxes.

He was still compiling the data on his new patient when the computer sounded an insistent beeping, notifying him of his patient’s movement. Straightening from his task, Dr. Rame turned to the one-way transparency that separated him and the ship’s guest. She was moving around the room, pacing with increasing speed and intensity, pausing only to examine the door and mirrored glass, the few features in the otherwise drab medical isolation room.

He toggled the intercom switch on the wall. “Rame calling Captain Weston.” He knew that he should wear one of the induction units that the Command staff used, but he despised the feedback they sent through his jaw.

“This is Commander Roberts, Doctor. The captain has left the bridge for a moment. Can I help you?”

“Contact the captain and inform him that my patient has woken up.”

“Understood, Doctor.”

Dr. Rame hesitated a moment before reaching out and toggling the switch again. “Dr. Palin, this is Dr. Rame. She just woke up.”

“Gotcha, I’m heading down now.”

Gotcha? Rame shook his head as he flipped the intercom off.

Weston got the call from Roberts while in the gym, his daily workout time interrupted again by ship’s business. He changed back into his uniform and headed for the med-lab. By the time he arrived, a heated discussion had erupted between Rame and Palin.

“I don’t care what your qualifications are! She was just pulled out of a life pod that was floating in the middle of nowhere. I’m not going to let you break out the thumbscrews until I am certain she’ll recover!”

Weston never heard Palin’s retort since both of them fell silent when they noticed his entrance. “Hello again, doctors. I assume that we have a slight difference of opinion?”

Rame turned to Weston, infuriated. “This so-called doctor wants to interrogate my patient, and I simply will not allow him to drive her into a relapse.”