“Oh? Oh. I see. You expected tears of joy, shock, elation at rescue, and all that? But consider my situation. I was stranded on an alien space station, and a neural reprogramming device attempted to take over my brain, without success. An alien voice bellows at me constantly inside my head, in an alien language I can nevertheless understand. Now a stranger in an invisible space suit says she’s come to save me, at the behest of a woman I was secretly infatuated with, if not in love with. That seems implausible, so it may not even be real.” He shrugged. “I don’t really understand my own reactions either. I’m probably disassociating pretty hard right now.”

Callie nodded. “That’s fair. Maybe seeing Elena will help ground you.” Now that her suit wasn’t camouflaged and the radio worked again, she said, “I found Sebastien.”

“Is he all right?” Elena’s voice was strained with hope and worry.

“He’s… upright and talking. You know him better than I do. Come and see.” To Sebastien: “She’s on her way. With a couple of others – my engineer Ashok, and a… consultant named Lantern.”

“That’s an odd name. Though I suppose names can change a lot over the centuries.”

“I don’t know. We still have Johns and Marys and Michaels. Lantern isn’t human, though.”

Now he seemed interested. “An intelligent alien species? But not the one that built this station?”

“No, but Lantern can understand their language, pretty much, and she understands how their machines work. We needed to reach the control room so we can turn off the security systems, and get the hangar doors open again so we can leave.”

“You can indeed do all that from the control room.” Sebastien still sounded entirely too serene. “You can take that helmet off, you know. The atmosphere is marvelous in here. I’ve got the mix just right. You’d think you were back on Earth, only without the pollution we had in my day.”

“No thanks. I like to put a layer of tough material between me and any passing brain-spiders.”

“Oh, the neural implants are nothing to fear. Technology is a tool. Not inherently good or bad. All that matters is what you do with it.”

“Right. I’m Captain Machedo, by the way.”

“I don’t care.”

Before Callie could react to that statement, Sebastien shoved past her, throwing his arms wide and shouting, “Elena! Take off that helmet and let me see your pretty face!”

“Sebastien!” Elena unlocked her faceplate and pushed her visor up, which wasn’t quite as bad as taking her whole helmet off, then rushed into Sebastien’s arms and embraced him.