Surit downloaded maps and oriented himself in this new city. After so long spaceside, he thought he could get used to sprawling, flowery, busy Exana, at least for a while. He registered himself as hunting for work. He booked a cheap hostel room and marveled at how much nicer it was than the barracks—the bed, so soft, and only one of it, racks of storage for bags Surit didn’t have, even enough room to swing his arms around if he liked.

That evening, he lay on the soft, ordinary bed and made the one call he’d been dreading.

His parent Elvi answered after a delay. He was outside in the garden, his rangy form crouched over a bed of vegetables. Surit had been thinking of Elvi as tired and lined, as he’d been in his last message, but he’d forgotten his parent was more often like this: bright and vague with unfocused purpose. Elvi smiled when he saw Surit.

“Well, look who’s back on-planet,” Elvi said. “Thought you’d forgotten me.”

Surit’s heart was beating painfully for no reason. Elvi hadn’t repudiated Marit, even after the false stories. There was no reason he’d be upset with Surit. “Have you seen the newslogs?”

The newslogs hadn’t carried Surit’s part in things. Elvi looked at Surit then laid his trowel aside and stood. The light-screen came with him. Behind Elvi, the sprawling garden disappeared into glossy-leafed trees and wilderness.

“Tell me,” Elvi said.

The explanation Surit gave was neither crisp nor coherent. He had written a full, clear accounting of every action he’d taken, back when he’d thought he was going to die. He hadn’t meant to go out without telling Elvi what had happened. Now, for the first time, he thought: What would it have been like to receive that letter? What would it have been like to read that from your child? He could barely look at the screen.

“… and I asked to be discharged,” Surit finished. He couldn’t quite say, You were right, because he and Elvi had never had a direct conversation about it. Conversations about the army had always been mired in Surit’s undirected teenage anger and a private, prickly sorrow from Elvi that Elvi, in his mild way, never talked about or explained. Surit wanted to say: If you’d just told me. He wanted to say: Why didn’t you explain? But Surit wouldn’t have entertained any narrative that wasn’t black-and-white, not back then, and then he’d enrolled in the army, and there had been no more chances. “I’m not in the army anymore. I couldn’t take it. There’s no chance of Marit’s pension, I think. I’m sorry.”

Elvi looked surprised in a way that made Surit feel they’d been having parallel conversations.