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He’d heard humans sometimes say that the severely injured looked smaller, and he mused with no mirth that it was true in Logus’s case.
That the man had survived this long was one of those things that was difficult to explain. That human concept of will overcoming the impossible was one he had never accepted, instead believing that numerous small factors combined to inject more unpredictability into outcomes.
He felt shaken in this belief, because Arn Logus should not be alive now.
His right arm was gone, torn off by the armor-piercing rounds that had penetrated the door of the bunker. Beyond that, his entire shoulder was too damaged to restore, along with the lung on that side of his body, and a portion of his lower mandible, taken off near the joint.
Humanity were so frail, he thought. And yet they trekked out into the stars anyway, aware on at least some level of the danger that faced them.
Reality was so often cruel to biological life . . .
Yet they still went out.
Perhaps one day, he’d understand why they so desperately fought for such things.
“Hello, friend,” he said, turning his voice cheery, though he did not feel it, as he began to replace some of the bandages. A number of drones aided him.
The evidence suggested Logus was not aware, but sometimes the subconscious understood things in its own way. A primitive, yet highly powerful system of the human mind.
So he would talk to his friend, and perhaps in some way it would help.
“After preliminary repairs are done, we will be heading to Gohhi Station. Isn’t that exciting? I know you have always wished to visit the place. So rare to find a human system that is not in the Sapient Union and is friendly! Or, well, friendly enough. I have heard stories from there . . .”
Perhaps that was not wise to talk about right now, he decided.
“. . . but I’ll tell you those another time. The doctors there have far more equipment than I do – an entire cloning lab! It will not be long before they are fusing a fresh arm and shoulder and . . . lung . . .”
He felt parts of his mind at war with itself. Different emotional cores were experiencing surges of feelings that were creating conflicting desires, and it was overwhelming.
He should keep talking.
He should give his friend silence.
He could not bear to say more words.
He was a coward for not saying them.
Finishing his work in silence, he dismissed the drones, and restructured his schedule.
Words still did not come, but he would stay here for awhile.
Other Terrestrial 
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