Nineteen chilling hours later, Sisto was sitting in a small lounge on a plush sofa, drinking from a cup of water and staring out the window. His mind was coming back to him. He remembered everything that had happened in agonizing detail, though he understood little of it. He had been treated for what turned out to be mild radiation contamination and poisoning. The levels on the ship began dropping as soon as the ship was out of the pirannamyte. He was treated and was currently as fine as he could be. Thinking was still hard for him, but he managed.

Another alien in the hospital's navy-blue uniform entered the lounge. Sisto only saw that its eyes were small, and its face had a pointed beak. Every other feature blurred together so he might as well have been talking to a blob.

"Hello," said the alien, and according to its voice it was likely female. "I understand you're the brother of the other patient that came in with you."

Sisto nodded. He was looking mostly at her, but not quite making eye contact. It wasn't that he wasn't trying, but his eyes couldn't quite do it yet. "His name is Brak," was all he managed to say.

"Thank you," said the alien. "Well, you'll be pleased to hear he's still alive and shows no more contamination. The radiation poisoning doesn't look to be fatal. The pinpricks on him from the teeth don't look to be severe in the least and should heal on their own in a few weeks."

Sisto sensed the hesitancy in her voice. "But?"

The alien took a moment before continuing, cautiously, "Well… yes, there were complications." She sat down in a chair opposite him, which made Sisto realize for the first time that there was a chair opposite him. "Well, we don't know a lot about your species, being so rare in this part of the galaxy, but from what we can tell the exposure caused a thinning blood vessel to burst."

"Where?"

"In his brain."

Sisto's breath hitched.

"At the moment we don't know what the effects will be. Some patients are able to recover fully, and others are permanently disabled. It'll take time. I'm sorry."

"Right now. Is he-?"

"He's not conscious," said the alien.

Sisto stood up.

"You'll be the first to know if anything changes," she continued.

There was a door, in front of Sisto and to the left. He went towards it.

"I don't recommend that you leave yet, but if you want I can—"

He stopped hearing. Sisto went out the door and no one stopped him. He went forward, down a corridor until he was outside. The sun was bright on his face and he walked towards it.

Two months later, they called him.

Sisto was living in a one-room basement apartment in the city that he rented ill-gotten proceeds. As soon as his mind fog lifted, two days after arriving on this planet, he went to work fleecing, pinching, and otherwise stealing until he had enough cash to put down for a month-to-month lease. It was just like the old days, before he and his brother went interstellar and had to make do staying on one planet. They had started small, pickpocketing and hustling, before graduating to burglary and robbery. Once they had gotten their first spaceship, they could begin piracy in earnest.

This time, though, it was different. He was doing it alone, and he was only stealing enough to get by. He found no thrill in getting away with things and found no satisfaction in the things he took. At first, he was emotionally numb. That didn't last, and it gave way to only negative emotions. Frustration. Fear. Anger. Depression.

He had a communicator and a private number, which he gave to the hospital. He begged them to call him only under three circumstances: if Brak died, if he was well enough to leave, or if he had the mind to ask for Sisto. He didn't have it in him to hear anything else. So, when his communicator signaled him, it took concentrated effort to force himself to answer it. Well, he told himself, there's only a 1/3 chance that it's bad news (Sisto had never been great at higher math.)

"This is Sisto," said Sisto,

"Hello, I'm calling on behalf of your brother, Brak? He's been asking about you; he says he wants to see you."

Sisto was quiet for a long time, so long that the person on the other end was afraid he hung up. "Sir? Are you still there?"

"I'm here," said Sisto. "I'll be right over."

In the intervening time Brak had been moved to a rehabilitation facility on the far side of the hospital campus. It was a cinderblock building with the rest of the hospital to the south and a large, enclosed garden to the north. Sisto found Brak inside, in a sort of lounge area furnished with soft seating and rounded tables. Brak himself was dressed in a gray robe and sitting in a green armchair, looking out the window over the garden. Though he didn't look like he had been stabbed all over, he wasn't looking fantastic. His eyes looked duller, somehow, and a bit sunken. His short whiskers were drooped. Next to him was the wheelchair he had ridden here in.

Still, his face lit up when Sisto sat down next to him in the wheelchair. "Hey, buddy!"

Right away Sisto was thrown for a loop. He had never once, in his entire life, been addressed as "buddy," especially not by Brak. Brak was simply not the type. Brak was ferocious, merciless, and at times bloodthirsty. He did not address anyone as buddy, pal, friend, or any other such silliness.

"Er- Master?" Sisto tried to regain his mental footing. "I've been waiting patiently this whole time for your orders."

"Oh, yeah, we didn't get that, uh, what do you call it… du—dur—eh, dylax—"

"Duraxite," said Sisto. "No, we did not."

Brak waved his paw dismissively. "Ah, that's okay. We'll get 'em next time."

"Are—are you sure?" The idea of Brak brushing this off like it was nothing was inconceivable. As in, Sisto could not process it and was momentarily dumbfounded.

"Yeah. They say that I can go soon, we'll go do whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?" It had been so long since Sisto was given liberty to do whatever he wanted that he couldn't really think of what he wanted. Lately he had been doing little more than survive. The thought that things weren't about to go back to normal terrified him.

"Yeah. I don't know… I'm not really good at planning stuff right now. We could just… I dunno." He looked out the window at the garden below. It was lush and green, with a shimmering lake in the middle surrounded by a walking path. "It's pretty outside," Brak continued softly. "I like to sing my lake song when I'm looking down at it."

"I'm sorry, your lake song?" The Brak Sisto knew had never sung so much as a space shanty.

"Yeah. Oh, I like to look at the pretty lake/All the time that I'm awake/When I work, I take a break/To look down at that pretty lake."

Sisto was baffled. For all intents and purposes, he was talking to a stranger. A stranger he had known his entire life, yet a stranger he was meeting for the first time.

"I think I'm gonna go to sleep," said Brak. "Can you help me get back to bed?"

Sisto stood up in an instant. "Of course, Master!" he said quickly.

Brak slowly tried to stand up, and he held onto Sisto for balance and support. With a quick maneuver, Sisto moved him into the chair. Brak pointed in the direction and Sisto wheeled him into the small room where he was staying. After that, he helped Brak transfer from the chair to his bed, and Brak was asleep within a minute of his hinder hitting the bed.

Once Brak was asleep and Sisto was alone, the full weight of what had just happened began pressing down on him. He remembered when he went emotionally numb when they were first separated in the hospital, and he realized now what is brain was trying to keep him from feeling and realized he could not stave the emotion off any longer.

It was complete, all-encompassing guilt. It was his fault this had happened to his master because he was too cowardly to try and get the ship out of danger, instead taking the only place that would protect him from the radioactive cloud while he left Brak to suffer the effects as he steered the ship to safety.

It was his fault that Brak was like this. Completely, unambiguously, Sisto's fault.