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facility.
    Michael’s tank was the largest there, three meters in height and two meters in width, big enough to accommodate any person prior to The Sweep. Now the tank held Michael in an awkward embrace with his wings folded around him, obscuring a view of his torso, but any curious observer could see his face. The tank was filled with translucent nanite-laced gel that would, in theory, allow the severed wingtip to bond with the remaining stump.
    Deklan wanted to apologize to Michael for getting him to help with Avery, but Michael hadn’t awakened since his accident. Scans showed that he wasn’t suffering from any form of head trauma, but with so severe an injury Beal had kept him medicated on the way back up from Earth, and doctors on the Ring had kept him sedated before his immersion in the rejuvenation tank.
    Few people were psychologically equipped to be conscious while submerged for days or weeks on end as organs or limbs regenerated and they were fed through an intravenous drip. Keeping such patients in an induced coma was standard practice, as Deklan well knew from numerous misadventures. Given his claustrophobia, Michael was especially unsuited to being awake through the tank-enclosed rejuvenation process.
    Deklan kept close watch over his friend. He knew that Michael wasn’t going to do anything, but somehow he felt that he was supposed to be there, almost as though he had to expiate his sense of guilt.
    The beeping of his Uplink interrupted his self-condemnation. Susan’s face appeared on his wrist screen. “Deklan,” she exclaimed. “Thank God you’re alright. The news about rescue teams to Earth has been ugly. I was worried about you and Michael.”
    Deklan’s voice was subdued. “I’m okay, and I think Michael will be okay, but he got hurt pretty badly.”
    “Oh, no! How badly?” Susan’s voice was compassionate and helped to coax more information out of him.
    Deklan looked to one side as he answered, distancing himself from his words. “One of his wings was bitten off at roughly the midpoint. He’s in a rejuvenation tank right now, and I’m hoping for the best.”
    “Bitten off?” Susan asked.
    “It got pretty hairy. I need to visit the Keystone woman who did it. I haven’t had a chance to speak to her because she nearly died on the way back up here. It was a mess.”
    “Do you want to talk about it?”
    Deklan shook his head before he spoke. His eyes met Susan’s briefly before he looked away again. “What is there to say?” he replied. “I’m here with him. I don’t know what else to do.”
    “Well, you could stop being a baby.” Susan’s voice had lost all softness and was instead hard-edged.
    Deklan stared at her in surprised. This was not the reaction he had expected. “Excuse me?”
    “Michael’s an adult,” answered Susan. “It was his choice to go with you, so stop castigating yourself. At the very least you should have called me to tell me that you were okay. I’m guessing that you haven’t even called your parents. You realize that if you don’t and they see the news, your mother is going have an absolute meltdown, right?”
    Deklan held his Uplink as far as he could from his face. “Well, I guess so, but it seems important to be here.”
    “Why? Do you know how long it’s been since someone died in a rejuvenation tank?”
    “No.”
    “Seventy-three years. Get it through your head. Regardless of how bad Michael’s injury was, it’s okay now. Call your mother.”
    Instead of following Susan’s advice, Deklan went to visit Avery. She was in a secure ward but visible through two-way glass. Like Michael, she was in an induced coma. Unlike Michael, she was uninjured and healthy. The sedatives had been purged from her system, and bruises aside she was none the worse for wear. There were no signs on her body or face that she’d ever been anything but a normal woman. She lay in a diagnostic cradle that swept over her body in an unceasing search for further