Samm raised an eyebrow. “Something in the life support?”

“Is it really going to be that simple?” asked Heron.

“How do you know it isn’t the coma?” asked a Partial named Aaron near the wall.

Samm glanced over at the soldier. He considered the idea. “It could have been, but I think it’s unlikely. If slowing a person’s metabolism postponed expiration, we’d have seen more variation in the dates.”

“Not the coma itself,” said Aaron, “I mean the coma’s cause. The sedative. What if the humans who did this to us built in a way to keep us going?”

Heron still hadn’t taken her eyes off Samm. “Is Williams the cure?”

“That would be ironic,” said Samm.

“That would be useless,” said Gorman. “You’ve seen what that thing did to us. Even if it gives us thirteen new years, is that really a solution? We’ll still die after twenty, plus a massive stretch of physical and mental torture in the middle of it.”

“Different usage could have different effects,” said Heron. “Use it in small doses and it’s just a really good sleep aid that helps keep you alive longer.”

“He’s not a sleep aid,” said Dwain, “he’s a member of our squad, and you can’t use him like this.”

“That can’t be it anyway,” said Samm. “Dr. Morgan took Vale specifically to look for a cure for expiration. If he already had one, he would have said something.”

“Saying something would have forced him to reveal what he’d done to these ten,” said Heron. “Morgan would have flayed him alive, and half the humans in the Preserve.”

“I have half a mind to do the same,” said Gorman.

“They’ve done nothing to you,” Samm snapped.

Gorman waved his hands in a feeble gesture that included the respirator, the gurney, and the entire room full of sickly, crippled Partials. “You call this nothing?”

“I call it Dr. Vale’s work,” said Samm, “not theirs.”

“We’re not just talking about the coma,” said Gorman. “What about everything else? We started a war to get away from human oppression—a war that you’re telling us literally ended the world—and now, thirteen years, later we wake up to what: more oppression. Worse oppression. Our entire species is dying, and you come in here like somebody’s pet Partial trying to tell us how bad the humans have it. Do you have any spine, soldier? Do you have any self-respect at all?”