"How do you feel, Captain?"

Brooks kept his face calm as he answered. "I feel fine," he replied.

Dr. Logus looked back at him for a few moments, his expression even, before taking a note.

Brooks kept his cool; he had a feeling that Logus was wanting to see his reaction.

"It seems your crew are largely feeling the same way," the psychiatrist said. "Among them, there are only one hundred and sixteen who seem to have been upset enough by recent events to be taken off active duty for a rest. And among those, we expect all to be able to return to duty within two weeks."

Upset, Brooks thought. What a word to describe what they had been through.

The Craton was not the first ship to enter the Reality Break Shadow of a Leviathan and emerge in one piece. Granted - a few ships had done it, and most of those had suffered far worse.

But it was the first time that a Cratonic ship had done so. There had been thought that the nature of the ships might provide some protection, and Brooks felt like that had been a factor in their survival.

"Though," Logus added, "over 2,000 civilians have elected to transfer off the Craton in the wake of recent events."

Brooks couldn't blame them, and he felt like he had failed them. The Craton was not just a ship, but a city. Yet he did feel that his course of action had been correct.

It was testament to the scale of human civilization, he thought. As soon as the Craton had been brought back, a veritable army of thousands of very high-level psychiatrists and counselors had interviewed the entirety of those who had been on the ship - in only two weeks.

And now one out of every ten civilians was leaving. Friends leaving friends, even some people leaving family behind.

Something he would have to live with.

"I understand their choice," he told Logus. "And I wish them the best."

"You feel no antipathy towards those leaving?" the psychiatrist asked.

"Why would I?" Brooks asked, his voice having a hint of challenge.

"Perhaps you believe your actions are justified and theirs are out of line," Logus suggested. "Or that they are abandoning you."

"I don't feel either way, doctor," Brooks replied. "If anything, I fully understand their decision. I did my job - and the admiralty have agreed with my actions. As did the Civilian Board."

"With dissension," Logus noted.

Brooks hesitated. "Doctor, do you question my decision?"

The other man shook his head. "It is not my place. But it is my place to make sure you truly feel comfortable with all that happened, that you are ready to once again be in command."

"This is not the first such situation I've been in," Brooks noted dryly.

"Exactly. You say it as if that's a strength, but humans don't necessarily work that way, Captain. Trauma can remain unhealed just under the surface, and fresh trauma can make those old wounds rise."

"Do you consider me to be unhealed?"

The doctor studied him, and for a moment his face had an emotion flicker across it. It was subtle, but Brooks caught it.

Yes, he knew. The psychiatrist did not consider him fit to return to duty - but he could not prove his concern.

Which was just as good to Brooks as his approval - so long as he returned to duty, he was happy, no matter what people believed privately.

All that mattered to him was what those on his ship felt about him.

"Doctor," he said. "Have you ever encountered a Leviathan?"

"That is not relevant, Captain-"

"I know for a fact that you haven't."

Logus made no attempt to hide the surprise on his face. "Have you been looking at my files, Captain?"

"No," Brooks said with a laugh. "But you have a look I've seen before when you speak of them. You think of them in clinical terms - an 'event' or 'phenomenon'. It's nothing like that."

Brooks wondered if this was unwise to say, but he kept on anyway.

"I do not mean this as an insult, Doctor, and I hope you never encounter one. But for those who do encounter them, you understand your mettle afterwards. No one can truly withstand them, doctor, but if we survive we can cope. And if you can cope with them after the first time, you understand; you can cope with them again, so long as you are able to walk away."

The doctor said nothing, and made a note. But Brooks knew he was right. Both in private conversations and backed up by statistics; among those who survived encounters with Leviathans, they either broke or they didn't; those who didn't had an extraordinarily high success rate in further encounters.

"Captain, I know what you are saying, but those studies are based on woefully small groupings. So few people have encountered Leviathans, and among those, only a tiny fraction have encountered them twice."

And Brooks knew that he was alone, in having encountered a Leviathan more than twice.

"Are we finished now, doctor?" he asked.

The psychiatrist frowned. "Almost. I'd like to ask you again about the events on the bridge. You've stated that Ambassador Kell was vital in allowing you to fire the Craton's weapons."

"It's all a matter of record," Brooks said dismissively. "Refer back to those debriefings."

"What I want to ask, Captain, is - do you believe that the Ambassador is fit to return to duty?"

That surprised Brooks. It must have showed, as he saw the psychiatrist raise one eyebrow.

"I have seen no reason to believe otherwise," Brooks said. "But that is ultimately up to you."

The doctor made another note.

"Thank you for your time, Captain."

Brooks stood. He wanted to demand to know the man's results, though he knew there was no good reason to deny his return to duty.

But let the doctor play his games. Turning, Brooks walked to the door.

It was made of a dark wood - a silly luxury item in Brooks's opinion. Better a door be made of something more solid that could withstand decompression.

He hesitated before it opened. His shadow cast on the wood made it look almost black.

And in that darkness, he still felt he could see the outline of the eye of the Leviathan.

Shaking his head, he opened the door and went out.

*******

"I imagine you must be very relieved, Pirra, now that you know all your tests came back negative," Dr. Logus commented.

Pirra gave the psychiatrist her best imitation of a human smile.

"I'm very relieved," she agreed. "I didn't feel any different, I didn't see any changes. But one is always worried after a brush with something like that."

"Have you had any issues regarding what you saw? Nightmares - flashbacks - that sort of thing?" Logus asked.

"No," she said.

"Sometimes trauma can be repressed," the doctor noted.

"I don't think that's as common in my kind as in yours," she replied.

While she appreciated that he was trying to help her, she wasn't one of his species. She didn't have the same reactions to things.

Yes, it had been horrible, what she had seen. But the . . . changes to the ship itself were just a blur in her memory now. Awful at the time, horrifying, but not leaving a lasting trauma in her mind. She had seen a lot of awful things, and she'd learned to cope.

The Hev, that was a different matter. In her mind at the time - and what she'd told the other Hev - they had killed themselves to escape their fates. It was a terrible thought, but probably the best of the possibilities.

The fact that one of them had tried to shoot her implied that maybe their deaths hadn't been so voluntary.

Given that the people on the Craton had noted feelings of paranoia, she was starting to wonder if perhaps they had simply turned on one another.

Their lives ending in an orgy of murder was much worse to think on.

But she could still cope with it. In space, things happened. People went mad sometimes. They sometimes did insane things. It happened to any species.

The psychiatrist was studying her, and she carefully hid her annoyance. She knew the man had lots of AIs to assist him, and had probably even studied her people's psychology to some extent, but he was still human and she wasn't. For him to judge her ability to return to duty irked her.

"You still seem anxious," Logus said.

She wasn't anxious, she was annoyed.

"I'm not feeling anxious," she replied.

The man's face didn't change - or if it did, it was a subtle enough human expression that she didn't catch it.

Suddenly she felt tired of the game; tired of living among another species with totally alien expressions and body language, who couldn't read her in the slightest. Having to painstakingly anaylze every movement on their weirdly-expressive faces was exhausting, and she just wanted to rest. She just didn't want to have to think through every goddamn rescue situation anymore-

Sitting up sharply, she realized he was right.

She was anxious; she was scared. Her annoyance and tiredness were directly connected to that. She had recognized it in herself before.

The man was still looking at her, and she felt both chagrined and annoyed that he had seen through her so well.

Yet he didn't seem judgmental; nothing about him seemed smug. He didn't push her to the point where she felt like she was losing face, and that helped a lot.

"Perhaps I am still, a little," she sang.

"The last two weeks haven't exactly been a rest," the doctor commented. "It was inactivity - but not rest."

She searched him for any condescension, but found none in his tone or face.

He was right; she'd been undergoing tests for ten days straight, staying in isolation. She had borne it well, but now that she was cleared . . . well, it was catching up with her.

"Perhaps I'll take a day of leave," she said.

"I was thinking perhaps ten days," the doctor countered.

"I can't go that long off-duty!" she burst out.

"The Craton's engines will be undergoing repair for at least that long," Logus pointed out.

"Yes, but I want at least a few days back on before the ship leaves port. To get back into the flow of things. I know you're trying to care for me - but it's my job to care for others in an emergency. That time could matter towards keeping me ready to do that job."

The doctor nodded. "I understand. Perhaps a week, then? Three days should be more than sufficient time to get back into stride, I imagine."

She still didn't like it, but nodded. "All right. One week."

The man nodded and made a note.

She felt like she had just been led by the feathers to this, but she still didn't see any duplicity in him - at least as far as she could tell. And though it was effort on her part, she had become fairly good at reading humans.

Dr. Logus dismissed her, and as she left she saw both Alexander and Iago waiting. Her commander rose and smiled.

"Are you all cleared?" he asked.

"At least to be out among others again," she replied. "But Logus thinks I need a week off."

"That's great," Alexander said. "Perhaps we can finally go do some of those things we've always talked about."

"That would be nice," she agreed.

Caraval stepped back. "Well, I'm just glad to have my second-in-command back. Have a good vacation, Pirra - I'll see you back in a week."

*******

Dr. Logus smiled lightly at the man before him, but he was somewhat unsure what to say.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

Boniface Tred opened his mouth to reply, then shut it. He looked away, then back, and repeated the process. On his second attempt he spoke.

"I feel itchy," he said.

"That . . . can be a side-effect of the deep-neural test that you requested," Logus noted.

"Are you sure it's not a serious sign? Like maybe my nerves were damaged?"

Logus smiled reassuringly. "We do monitor for that quite carefully, I promise. I have had such tests before - the itching can be annoying, but it will quickly fade."

The doctor wasn't sure what to make of Tred's request. The man had a very long file - he had had many visits to neurologists and psychiatrists over his life.

There was nothing wrong with that. The man had a nervous temperament, and Logus felt that without help he would be on a very low level of functionality, and quite unhappy.

"Why did you request another session?" Logus asked. He hoped he did not sound judgmental in the man's ears; he wasn't, but he legitimately wasn't sure what Tred hoped for.

"I . . . Well, I wanted to hear more about my results from a doctor and also to . . ." The man trailed off. "I'm just so freaked out, doctor."

Logus listened carefully. "Your results are very normal for a man your age and health. I do not feel you have much reason to be concerned."

The man nodded, but still looked miserable.

"What else is bothering you, Tred?" he asked gently.

The man was quiet a long moment, staring down at his shoes, before looking up and answering. "I was terrified when I thought that the Leviathan was going to destroy the Craton. And I wasn't even on it, doctor. I still can't get over it. It's not fair - it's not brave of me. I . . . I always knew that they existed. I grew up on that ship - but it wasn't that I was just scared of losing my home. I guess I just . . . never internalized the reality."

The man went silent, but just as Logus was about to talk, Tred spoke again.

"That ship is supposed to be near invincible. She could take dozens of hits from capital railguns and as long as one reactor was going she could keep fighting. I've thought about that a lot - in my head I guess I was always one of those lucky few who didn't get holed or sucked into the black. But the Leviathan? A couple of minutes more and she just straight up would have stopped existing."

Logus listened patiently, observing the man. He saw true fear and misery in him. Every biometric backed it up.

"Tred," he finally said. "You are a very talented man in your field. You could do great good at any one of a thousand facilities in the outreaches of a system or station. If you are so concerned, have you ever considered leaving the Craton?"

Shock went across Tred's face. His vitals jumped as if he'd been injured.

"Oh no," he said. "I can't leave the ship!"

"Why not?" Logus asked.

"Because she's my home," Tred replied.

*******

The silence had grown to a level that even Logus found uncomfortable.

He'd spent a lot of time sitting in silence with people who thought being noncommunicative was their best course, and he was a patient man. He had almost always won that game.

But staring at Kell, he knew immediately that he wasn't going to win this staring contest.

The being did not blink. He had not blinked once. Studying records, Logus had seen that Kell could blink, had done it regularly, at other times. But he wasn't now, and Logus had a feeling it was intentional. The being knew he would notice that, and it wanted him uncomfortable.

"I cannot force you to talk to me, Kell," he began.

"That is correct," the ambassador interjected.

". . . but it would make this faster and easier for both of us if you did. And to be sure, you could wait longer than my life without issue - I imagine - but I think you'd also prefer to be somewhere else sooner than that."

"What is this about?" Kell demanded. "I was told it was important."

"Do you know what I do?" Logus asked.

"Something that has no bearing on me," Kell said. "I do not care for the details."

"That's fair. It must all seem very silly to you."

Kell's eyes narrowed. He did not need to say to the doctor that he would not be patronized.

Regardless of how Logus meant it, he knew he needed a different tact.

"How do you feel?" he asked, trying the direct approach.

"I am no different than at any other time."

"You don't feel any different after your contact with the Leviathan?"

"Why would I?" Kell asked. It seemed a genuine question.

"It was a very profound and disturbing occurrence," Logus pointed out.

"For humans. I understand that. But for me it was not."

"There are no recordings of what happened, but from what others saw, you were very resilient against the Reality Break Shadow - but it did affect you."

"Not how it affected the rest," Kell replied.

"Oh?" Logus asked. "How was it different?"

Kell's head cocked to the side like a dog. "Even if I could impart this to you, why? You are not concerned with my 'mental health', so much as trying to learn more about my kind."

It stung Logus a bit; there was truth in that. "I am concerned with your health, Kell. But yes, I do also both want and need to learn more in order to do that better. Curiosity is a very human trait."

"It is also one that frequently gets humans killed," Kell noted.

"I don't think that was a threat, but I'd like to hear you say it wasn't," Logus said. He really felt certain that it wasn't, but at the same time he suddenly felt a thread of fear in his gut. He was prodding something that could kill him in a heartbeat.

"It was not a threat," Kell replied. Somehow it did not seem a retreat from him, but a gift given condescendingly by a superior.

Logus wondered; could he do anything but lay it all out at this point?

"The Admiralty - who control these things - just want to be sure that you are going to be all right after your experience. You have to understand why; regardless of species, nearly all beings display strong reactions to serious, life-threatening events. These can show themselves in subtly and sometimes dangerous ways. We have no experience with a being your age - or strength - before, and that makes us all the more concerned. We all just want to know you are okay to carry on."

He took a deep breath. "And on top of it all, Kell, we don't simply care about it for our sakes. We do care about your health for your sake. So all I can do at this point is ask you; will you indulge me?"

Kell's face never changed. "I feel fine," he said.

The Ambassador stood up. "I now invoke Article 72, sub-section 13 of the Treaty of Tor. I return myself to active duty."

Logus's heads-up display helpfully brought up the relevant part of the treaty;

Ambassadors and Staff of the Shoggoth People shall retain the power to determine their ability to perform their duties, barring intervention from Earth Congress or the objection of no less than ten Shoggoths.

"I see," Dr. Logus said. "I still, of course, will maintain my own notes regarding your fitness for duty."

Kell was already walking out of the room.

*******

"Sometimes I wonder why I was stupid enough to enter into the field of General Sapient Psychology," Arn Logus said, staring at the ceiling.

The lights dimmed obligingly, to the point where they didn't sting his eyes. Most ceiling lights didn't do that; it must have been Doctor Y's own settings in his office - purely for the comfort of biological beings like himself.

"I understand that you are simply venting your frustrations and it is not a genuine statement," the AI replied. "But I also understand that this is part of your own recuperation. Therefore I will reply that you do not mean that, and that you have done much good in your life."

Logus turned his head to look at the machine. It sat on the other side of its desk, as any doctor might when doing paperwork. It was sitting in a way to give him just the right amount of polite attention, its form humanoid if exaggerated in some respects.

But Logus knew from experience that the AI was sitting there simply to look like a doctor; all of its paperwork had been filled out even while it attended its other duties. Its intelligence was such that, barring an emergency, it was usually multi-tasking on dozens of activities at once.

On some level it bothered Arn that the robotic body he beheld was not the true Dr. Y. It was only a shell, a puppet, that it controlled. It was safely backed up in other memory cores, both here and probably a billion others back in the home territories of its digital kind.

But really, with a digital being, who was to say what was truly the thing? At that point one began to get into the philosophy of what is life? and he really wasn't in the mood for that.

"Thank you," Logus said, a little more grumpily than he intended. "I hope that doesn't mean that saying I've done good is simply to make me feel better."

He wasn't truly concerned, and he had the feeling that the AI doctor had been perfectly aware of the potential implication.

"Not at all, not at all," Y replied. "Tell me, do you feel any different after prolonged contact with the Ambassador?"

"No? Other than frustrated. If I had to deal with patients like that all the time, I think I'd quit," Logus said.

"Your biometrics say the same. In fact, all beings who encounter the Ambassador seem to show no long-term consequences. Only a short-term increase in adrenal function, heart rate, and other basal stress-relief signs."

"Didn't the Advisory Council on Interspecies Relations already determine there was no significant risk from contact with its kind?" Logus asked, curious despite himself.

"Yes, they did. However, I feel that it cannot hurt to keep track."

"I suppose not, since you see the data anyway. But why are you so curious?"

"I have simply wondered," Y explained, "if there is some similarity between the Ambassador's kind and beings such as Leviathans - to what extent? And why is it that there is no Reality Break Shadow around them?"

"Perhaps a matter of scale. Like gravity," Logus suggested. "It exists, but so small it's imperceptible."

Now that it had been brought up, it bothered Logus a little, though.

He pondered that, but Y spoke again. "It is most instructive watching the logs of your sessions, I must add. You handle even alien psychologies surprisingly well. That is no small feat for a being - and yes, this includes my kind. Making accurate models and statistical probabilities of so many varied beings is difficult even for us."

"Thank you, doctor. If that's true, though, why do I have this headache?"

Y hesitated. "I could explain the biometric causes, but you know these. It is a stress headache."

"And it was also a rhetorical question."

"I prefer to answer those as if they are serious questions," Y noted. "Organic beings expect me to be overly-logical and miss jokes."

"Wait, wait," Logus said. "Are you saying you play a bit more . . . robotic because you think we expect that?"

Dr. Y steepled his mechanical fingers and leaned forward over his desk. "And how does it make you feel to know that?" he asked.

Logus started laughing. "This is why I like to visit you when you're in port, Y. You are very good at making me laugh."

"I try," Y added. "On a more serious note, I am somewhat concerned for our captain. He does not seem to like you as much as I do."

"That is putting it mildly. But I am concerned as well. He is a good man, with a great record. I can't justify keeping him off active duty, but I feel he is bottling up too much."

"This may be true, though I believe some humans have done this and been successful with it, in a professional sense."

Logus grimaced. "We care about his health beyond that, though."

"Yes. It is why I have placed a formal request for your reassignment to this ship," Y noted.

"Wait, what? You want me assigned to the Craton?"

"Don't act so surprised, Dr. Logus. I am certain you have already placed a request for this exact transfer - and while our captain might stop you, if I also request it, then the odds of him attempting to stop it - and his odds of being successful if tries - drop precipitously."

Logus shook his head. "You didn't break into my personal records to learn that, did you?"

"No. I simply know you, Doctor. It's what I thought you would do." Y's metal head angled slightly. "Because it is where you feel you could do the most good."

A smile crossed Logus's face. "Well, then - thank you, Doctor."

"You are welcome. And welcome to the Craton, Dr. Logus. I predict you will experience many more headaches while you are here."

Logus grimaced again. "I think you're right about that."

*******

FINIS