Overse slumped in her chair, frustrated. “Right, that’s true.” She looked tired. I suspected it was a bad idea to have a meeting when all the humans were running out of brain capacity.

Ratthi added, “I think Eletra is telling the truth, that her memories were altered, just like Perihelion’s were.”

“You just want to believe the best about everyone,” Overse said, still a little skeptical.

Ratthi snorted. “No, that’s Thiago. I’m optimistic but a realist.”

Thiago looked mildly insulted.

“No, that’s me,” Arada corrected, and smiled at Overse. “I’m an optimist.”

“We know, honey.” Overse squeezed her shoulder.

Thiago said, “Amena, are you back on the feed? What is your opinion of Eletra? Do you think she told you the truth, that she didn’t remember what happened?”

Amena seemed surprised to be asked for an opinion, but she swallowed what she was eating and said on the general feed, At first I thought so. They were both so worried about proprietary information and getting in trouble, that seemed real to me. Now … I don’t think she’s afraid enough. She was frustrated, trying to think how to explain. I think she’s either lying, or something has messed with her mind so much that she doesn’t know what happened, and now she’s afraid to admit it.

Arada looked up at the ceiling. “Perihelion, can you tell us anything else? What do you think happened?”

ART hadn’t said anything, and that was beginning to worry me. ART likes to give its opinion and I’m not even sure “likes” is the right word there, but basically, ART gives its opinion whether you like it or not. It was beginning to feel strange that it hadn’t weighed in yet to tell the humans they were missing something obvious or weren’t approaching the problem the right way or whatever.

When it still didn’t respond, I said, “ART is trying to reassemble its log data right now. It’ll be out of contact for a short time.”

Amena squinted suspiciously at me. “Is that true?” she whispered.

I made a gesture I was hoping she would interpret as “Please don’t tell them I’m lying.”

Arada said, “Thank you, SecUnit.” She scratched her fingers through her short hair, like she was trying to get her thoughts together. This was definitely a problem; the humans needed to recharge or sleep or whatever or their decision-making abilities would be even worse than usual. She continued, “So, right, none of this fundamentally changes our objectives. We still need to find Perihelion’s crew, but at least now we know our first step is to track down the explorer.”

I was hoping ART would comment, even if it was going to say something like “or else,” but there was nothing.

Thiago had been looking thoughtful, which I tried not to see as a bad sign. He said, “Arada, I’d like to get Eletra back into Medical for a thorough neurological scan. Also, that will give me a chance to speak to her myself. I’ll review Amena’s full report and then see if I can get us any more information.”