“Obviously, I’m not going to tell you or else you’ll have erased your brain for nothing. But Before Times Ben would have been able to guess it. Don’t worry, though. I knew a good spot.”

“What if they find it? The Th-Thythin?” I asked, lisping the last word. I reached up to my mouth and felt around.

Patton cringed. “Yeah, you knocked a couple of those out somehow. I’d hate to see the other guy!”

I glared.

“It’s not a big deal. They’ve got all sorts of doctors and stuff here. They’ll mount a railgun on your head if you want them to. Teeth are nothing. Once you’re feeling more yourself, we’ll work on that grill.” He smiled, truly satisfied with his answer.

“The Th-Scythin?” I prompted.

“Well, we knew they’d left you on the drift and so we took the Electra to find you after we moved Aszerat to a safe distance across the universe, repaired the Switch, and ditched the Chime. We also wanted to see if they’d buggered off, which they had. Poor guys. Running around the galaxy trying to find the unfindable. They were spotted a handful of times across the Dasma Arm. There’s even been rumors about the ship just falling apart right in front of people. I don’t even know if it still exists.” His eyes went wide. “Hey? You want to see the one you found?”

“I found?”

“Yeah, this one Scythin was stuck in a radiation shield with the Chime. You climbed up there and got it. It’s on display in Aszerat’s main port as sort of a memorial to what happened. Very creepy.” He began gathering the empanadas into his arms as I looked on, strangely.

“Hey?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“My parents...”

“That’s a tough one, Ben. You don’t really know them anymore. Maybe we’ll work on your coherence and see what happens. Who knows, you get up to one or two percent some day and maybe go visit.”

“But they probably think I’m dead.”

“You kind of are dead, to be honest.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know that!”

“They don’t,” said Patton. “Look, I took care of it like you asked.”

“What do you mean you took care of it?”

“Well, you know, we got over near Earth and I just made a call.”

“You called them?”

“Nah, nah. I’m not an idiot. That’d be way too traumatic for them. I thought about sending a letter, but I didn’t have their address. I figured the library did, so I called Ludlow the Librarian and just asked him to write a little note on our behalf and mail it to them. He’s good people so he said no prob. I shot a photo for him to send along so your parents would know you were good.”