“Did your team give you trouble about visiting me?”

“Yes.” She told him about Bias and found herself almost resenting Zebara’s obvious amusement. “He’s just trying to be conscientious,” she finished up. She felt she had to make Bias sound reasonable, although she didn’t think he was.

“He’s being an idiot,” Zebara said. “You are not a silly adolescent with a crush on some muscular stud. You’re a grown woman.”

“Yes, but, in a way, he’s right, you know. I’m not sure myself that my encounters with coldsleep have left me completely . . . rational.” She wondered whether to use any of what the young officer had told her, and decided to venture it. “It’s like dying, and being born, only not a real start—everything over birth. Leftovers from the past life keep showing up. Like missing my daughter ... I told you about that, before. Like discovering Sassinak. People say ‘Get on with your life, just put it behind you.’ And it is behind me, impossibly past. But it’s also right there with me. Consequences