Tennal, opening his eyes, jolted suddenly back to the physical room and became aware that Surit’s hands were on his chest, unnecessarily, like Surit thought of this as mental CPR.

Surit realized it at the same time. He looked down at his hands on Tennal’s tunic, then took them away. Tennal only had a moment to miss the warmth before he realized Surit was speaking, with his vocal cords and his lungs and all those other things Tennal had temporarily forgotten they both had. They must have been talking in their minds up until now. That was probably bad, given what they knew about their sync degrading.

Surit said, with finality, “Just because someone else is okay doesn’t mean you had to be.”

There was silence.

“I think my mind is nearly back together,” Tennal said conversationally. “Don’t suppose you could do me a favor and sand off the rough edges?”

Tennal could feel Surit’s mind moving around him, marking out the boundaries of Tennal like a hundred pinpoints of stars. “No.” It was a flat denial.

Tennal’s eyes were dry and full of sand. He blinked too many times.

He wasn’t meant to vanish into the cold void of the cosmos. He was human, and he had a body and memories. He had Surit, he had Zin, he had the person he’d been the past few weeks and the weight and shadow of the person he’d been all his life. He would have given anything to escape for so long, but he wouldn’t give those up. He was back in his body, all unreliable five foot eleven of it, with his mind—flawed and erratic, but his—pinned to it by Surit’s network of stars. He shook himself mentally until he was settled into every inch.

He sat up.

“All right,” he said. “I’m here.”

CHAPTER 27

Surit slept through the night in total exhaustion. He thought he felt Tennal wake up. Surit was so tired that he managed to drag his half of their shared brain back into sleep and barely even felt the separation until he woke.

There was a cup of dispenser coffee beside Surit’s bunk. The smell wafted over, rich and bitter. And a foil-covered breakfast tray. Tennal had never done that before.

Surit picked up the coffee. There was a standard packet of milk powder on the tray next to it. He stared at the packet.

He’d talked about this with Tennal. One of them took their coffee with milk powder; one of them didn’t. His own taste had slipped Surit’s mind last time, but he’d been distracted. Now, he consciously tried to remember, but to his unease, he found the information wasn’t there. His preference was just … gone.

It was only a cup of coffee. Surit drank it.