In the moment of silence, the air purifiers in the walls were very loud. Tennal could almost see the two of them from the outside, standing in the middle of the pale green flooring, surrounded by medical equipment and the smell of antiseptic gel. Tennal-and-Surit. Two nodes of one body, pretending they were still fully human. It seemed horribly plausible that if Surit died, parts of Surit’s mind would linger in Tennal’s. Tennal even imagined he could learn Surit’s architect abilities if he tried hard enough and Surit’s consciousness weren’t there to get in the way. It would be easier as the walls between them eroded.

He had to stop thinking like that. They had merged far enough.

“But this is all irrelevant, isn’t it?” Tennal said impatiently. Neither he nor Surit was going to die, so they might as well knock this on the head and look for other options. There must be other options. “You don’t have the equipment.”

“I do.” The medic gestured to one part of the medical bay. Tennal had no idea what most of the scanners were used for, but one of them had heavy-duty shielding like there was something in it that gave off radiation. “The ship has it.”

Surit had opened his mouth but stopped. “I thought you said it was very specialized.”

“It’s standard,” the medic said, with only a fractional pause. “This is a well-equipped bay.”

“Why do you have this?” Tennal said.

“It comes with—”

“No, it doesn’t,” Tennal said. Surit was trying to remember if he’d ever seen a list of standard medical equipment for a troop ship. Tennal, on the other hand, watched the medic’s eyes.

Surit realized something was wrong, and his attention fell in behind Tennal’s, focused along with him.

Their doubled attention magnified Tennal’s senses until he didn’t even need to read. They could see the medic’s eyes dilate, see the pulse in his neck. Tennal-Surit felt like something so far up the food chain that this human was a grub crawling on the ground. They felt like a predator.

“Lieutenant Yeni!” the medic said.

Tennal-Surit jumped at the crash from behind them. Their new awareness broke apart. Tennal spun around and saw Surit had tripped—like his knees had just given way—and his body had fallen onto a counter, sprawled across a tray of empty glassware. None of the toughened glass had broken, but Tennal could feel his shock mirrored between them like a feedback loop.

“Good job, Lieutenant,” Tennal said flippantly, to cover up what that meant. They’d let themselves get too distracted. It was getting worse. When he grabbed Surit’s wrist to haul him to his feet, it felt like holding one of his own limbs.

Surit wasn’t thinking about that, though. Tennal could feel him thinking about something else entirely. His gaze came up and focused on the medic.