They'd bundled the still shell-shocked girl straight from the Pod into the shower, leathers and all. The paste in her hair seemed to be made from a mud of the dirt from the cliffs: certainly it carried the same radiation signature. A Nebari's reflective hide would most likely have protected her from any initial damage, but prolonged exposure was a risk best not taken. The girl made no move to clean herself however, just sat there staring at the wall. So, Zhaan climbed in after her and began working it out herself. The shock of warm water hitting her still-clothed body and the sensation of alien fingers worming through her hair seemed to brook little response. Somehow, she managed to be stiff while slouching there cross-legged, and the silence stretched on like a skin that was rapidly being outgrown, given rhythm by the softly pounding spray. There was a hollowness in the Nebari's eyes, a hurt that had not been purged away in the maddening rush of air during the long drop from the Stone. It was not a physical hurt, one Zhaan could assuage by dividing it out between them. But perhaps there was something else she could do.
"Tell me about him. Your Nerri."
Chiana turned to gape at her. Indifferently, Zhaan continued to attack the rosy gunk in the girl's hair, chasing the whitish strands free of the toxic fixative that molded it into whimsical turrets and spikes. The girl fingered the healing scar through the bodice, where she'd forcibly removed the Life Disc herself, an unbearable reminder of loss. The attempt to drown that loss, Zhaan could understand, and she did not even take offense at the method. The company of it was another matter; Chiana did not seem to know or to care where the pale hides she wore had come from—they had not appeared from nowhere on a planet devoid of natural resources such as livestock or game—and if she didn't, Zhaan thought it best not to enlighten her just now.
Finally, she sighed like a war-weary soldier relinquishing his weapon, and spoke with effort. "Nerri was...was all kinds of good to me..." Water dripped from the tip of her blunt nose, face tucked down so that the admission fell safely into the puddle beneath her crossed ankles. "Chased the nightmares away. Taught me to keep my mouth shut, let me hide out in his shadow when I couldn't manage even that." The next bit seemed to force itself out against her will. "I'm, uh...I'm really gonna miss him."
There was nothing even a priest could say to that. She merely squeezed the shoulder closest to her in inarticulate sympathy and began to hum softly, almost as if to herself, the strands of melody perfectly calibrated to soothe and to console. That little grudging bit was enough confessional for one day, and Zhaan would not press for more; the strain of it seemed to have sapped the girl's strength and bravado all away. Stiff and chary muscles relinquished their hold, and at last she gave in to the exhaustion she had refused to acknowledge—emotional, physical, and spiritual—to lean herself half back against supporting knees, and through the contact Zhaan felt lungs expanding and contracting with the choppy rhythm that precedes tears. The pink and grey flower of her head rolled back on the wilted stem of her neck, giving its weight over into the Pa'u's sustaining hands as if that was all that kept her upright. The warm water pulsed down from the overhead, from the handheld spigot Zhaan used to scour out the most stubborn clumps of mud. Its soft warmth bathed the small area, mingling with the pungent odor of the strong soap and condensing into mist on the slick walls. Dirtied by the contaminants it washed away, the water swirled down the drain at the far end of the cubical to disappear for recycling and redistribution in one of its various functions aboard Moya. It took with it the unseen grime of day-old tear stains, the bitter taste of the hurt and confusion that came with the abandonment of death. The washing clean of the clay from the grave planet was a symbolic gesture as much as a healthful necessity.
"Hey," the thief broke in after a few hundred uninterrupted microts, as if she were trying to justify it to herself. "When Crichton...wasn't in a talking mood, felt...felt, well, like I had to run. Wasn't anybody else on Moya I could tell." Chiana turned full around where she sat. "I won't make the same mistake next time." Blinking water, which was now only slightly cloudy, out of her eyes, she muttered to her own knees, "Sorry I pinged out like that."
Zhaan smiled a forgiving indulgence. "My dear, you are perfectly welcome to 'ping' anywhere you'd like: we are none of us prisoners here. Only, next time," she advised as an afterthought, "I wouldn't take the Prowler, were I you."