Ratthi went out with the kit. The yelling on the comm had calmed down but I could hear tense voices from the rec room. Preservation-controlled facilities like this don’t have SecSystems recording everything and cameras everywhere because privacy blah blah blah but I could eavesdrop through the comm and my drones. If I wanted to, which I didn’t, not right now.

Arada said, “Ratthi’s right, SecUnit, you should let the system make sure the wounds aren’t contaminated.” She hesitated. “Did I…” She took a sharp breath. I just stood there because I didn’t understand the question yet. She added, “Was there any other way…”

She didn’t finish again but this time I knew what she was asking. “No. If you’d waited any longer, I would have had to try to use a drone. He’ll probably survive, if the others give him medical attention.”

She really hadn’t wanted to shoot anybody, and had told me she had to force herself to learn how to use the weapon. I hadn’t particularly wanted her to learn, either. (Humans have a bad tendency to use weapons unnecessarily and indiscriminately. Of the many times I had been shot, a depressingly large percentage of hits had come from clients who were trying to “help” me.) (Another significant percentage came from clients who had just wanted to shoot something when I happened to be standing there.)

Arada rubbed her eyes and her mouth pulled in at one side. “Are you trying to make me feel better?”

“No.” I actually wasn’t. I lie to humans a lot, but not to Arada, not about this. “I wouldn’t try to make you feel better. You know what I’m like.”

She made a snorting noise, an involuntary expression of amusement. “I do know what you’re like.”

Her expression had turned all melty and sentimental. “No hugging,” I warned her. It was in our contract. “Do you need emotional support? Do you want me to call someone?”

“I’m fine.” She smiled. On the feed, the MedSystem signaled it was ready. “Now you make sure you’re fine, too.”

She stepped out of the compartment and set the privacy filter on the doorway. I stripped off my clothes and dropped them in the decontam bin and got onto the platform. It would run a check for contaminants and pop the projectiles out of my shoulder and chest.

The process only took three minutes, just long enough to finish the scene of Lineages of the Sun I’d had to pause when Thiago had decided to get me shot. The MedSystem tried to cycle into the therapy and post-treatment options and I stopped it and climbed off the platform. The feed told me we had made orbit and were in the process of rendezvous with our baseship.

My clothes now smelled like decontam fluid but they were dry and clean. I got dressed and opened the privacy shield.

Thiago stood in the corridor. Oh, joy.

He looked angry and upset, which I could tell, even though I was looking just to the right of his head. He said, “Did you kill those people?”