Grace leans in, and the woman whispers something Ify can’t catch. Grace slowly breaks away, and the woman puts a hand to Grace’s face, smiling. The urge bubbles in Ify to ask Peter about gari and pepper soup, to tell him where to find the best jollof in Alabast, to connect him to Nigeria here and be reconnected with Nigeria on Earthland. Then she realizes where her thoughts have taken her, and suddenly the lights in the refugee ward are too bright, the scent of antiseptic too strong, the temperature too warm and too cold at the same time. Ify doesn’t see the rest of Grace’s interaction with the patient, because she has rushed out of the ward, shedding her lab coat and badge and thoughts of Peter along the way.

■  ■  ■  ■  ■

The walls of Ify’s bedroom glimmer with soft blue light.

Her tablets glow with readings of patients she has been studying and their various medical conditions. The physical ailments are easy enough to treat. Sometimes, it is simply a matter of seeing how the body and the brain are interacting, how they are learning from and about each other. At first, Ify thought it would be different when working on cyberized or partially cyberized patients. The braincase or the false organs, they were supposed to work on a pre-regulated rhythm or operate on a predetermined schedule, something that could be tweaked or adjusted or changed in a laboratory. She thought it would be like tinkering with the inside of a watch. But, just like with red-bloods, it is all about harmony. If she’s learned nothing else, it is that disharmony in one part of the body will lead to disharmony elsewhere. And that sometimes, to aid someone suffering physical pain, you needed to treat a disharmonious mind.

She knows she should be asleep, but her mind is working the main problem before her, and she cannot let herself rest until she finds a solution. Peter.