He looked up to see Dr. Narang in the window. “Hi, Doc. More samples?”

“Actually, no, not now. I think we’ve gone about as far as we can, here. We—as in the ICDC personnel—will be packing it up, soon. We’ve determined that your nanites don’t represent an imminent threat. Your crewmates are clean, as far as we can tell. And of course, they’ll get a final, thorough scan before leaving Level 3. But I wanted to talk to you about your case, in particular…”

“It’s okay, Doc. I haven’t really had any realistic hope of a cure since the process completed. There’s no Ivan left, in a biological sense, so there’s no cure as such.”

Dr. Narang looked up for a moment. Ivan thought he might have seen her eyes mist up, just a little.

“Ivan, we’ve been in similar situations before, at least in a broad sense. People who’ve survived a disease, but became carriers. Or continued to suffer a chronic rather than acute form. Permanent quarantine is not unheard of.” Dr. Narang sighed. “I wish I could offer you more. Maybe, once they understand the technology well enough, they might be able to do something. I don’t know. Clone you a new body?”

“Not out of the question, Doc. Here’s the thing. I’ve asked myself, how long does a metal man live? Maybe it’ll take a hundred, two hundred years. But eventually, they might be able to do just that. I can wait. I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Narang reached behind her for one of the office chairs and sat down. “Now that we’re reaching the end of our mandate, a UEN administrator will be taking over. We’re making arrangements to have some nanites shipped to a couple of labs Earthside. They’ll continue the research, and hopefully we can come up with something eventually.”

Ivan nodded. But a sense of hopelessness settled on him. It wasn’t quite a death sentence, but it might as well be. He would never see his family again. He’d never touch his wife, never hug his children. Ivan Pritchard, in a very real sense, no longer existed.

Dr. Narang gave him an apologetic smile, then stood up and left.