Bialar has never been without a plan or, at the very least, some idea of what he is doing. His current situation however defies planning and he has no idea what he is, never mind what he is doing. He watches Aeryn sort out her supplies and tries to ignore how foreign his own body feels.

Whilst her attention is on what she is doing, he pretends nothing strange has happened except that he has survived the impossible. He can ignore the fact the blackness of his hands is skin and not leather. But only when she is busy. When she looks at him, all pretence fails – her eyes hold a combination of horror and sympathy.

But she has at least stopped recoiling in repulsion.

He trails his altered fingers through the dirt. Sensitivity of touch has not been affected by whatever his skin has become, but it is no longer simply a case of feeling – his mind can detect the various elements, the minerals and particles, the very structure of the dirt unravelling in his head. From that he can extrapolate the likelihood of finding water, how fertile the ground is, what plants it can support. The result of so much information is the beginnings of a headache and he lets the dust filter out between his fingers.

Static prickles over his skin and he looks up to find Aeryn watching him, a quizzical expression on her face.

"I can feel it," he tells her. She smiles slightly.

"You're still Sebacean enough for that, then?"

He shakes his head. "No, you don't understand – I can feel it, Aeryn. Every grain, its make up, I…"

"Like a sensor?" She walks over and squats in front of him, takes his hand. A volley of senses hits him and he gasps.

"Yes," he croaks. "Would you… let go please?"

She drops his hand as if it's gotten hot and sits hard on her rear. "What did you sense?"

"What didn't I?" he retorts. "You hate this, don't you?"

She opens her mouth, then closes it again, drops her head. "It's hard, Bialar," she says quietly. "Not just my training, the idea of irreversible contamination, but just seeing you… wondering how much you suffered, are suffering still. How little I can do to help." Her eyes tear. "The fact I cannot even touch you without it hurting you."

"It does not… hurt, Aeryn. It's just… so much to process." He smiles slightly. "Rather like receiving the transponder all over again."

Aeryn rubs at her eyes, the motion impatient as if she is annoyed by her emotional outburst. He watches her slip back into Peacekeeper mode and sighs inwardly – it would be better for them both if she did not do that.

"It's about control," she says then and he briefly wonders if she read his mind before he realises she is talking about him and not herself. She gives him a sour grin. "You're good at that, so this should be fairly easy."

He ignores the slight. "What should?"

"Well it is like the interface. I remember how at first every system was so overwhelming, but slowly my mind could push it away until I could focus on one thing at a time. This is just like the transponder, only Talyn is in your mind now. It should be possible for you to filter out what responses you don't need at any given moment. Like how being aware of breathing is not necessary in order to do it."

He blinks and feels slightly stupid. "I should have thought of that," he tells her ruefully. She shrugs.

"Too much information," she says. "You probably can't think straight."

It is true – the inside of his head is so much chaos – but he closes his eyes and concentrates on his breathing. In and out. In and out. And the cacophony of noise recedes. He is still aware of everything, but it no longer dominates. He smiles and opens his eyes again.

"Thank you," he says to her sincerely.

"No problem." Then she holds out a hand.

He regards it warily, aware of what he had felt and that she'd kill him if she really knew, but then reaches out. Her skin is warmer, more pliable than his own. He can feel the nervous sweat on her palm, the way her fingers tremble slightly, the pulse of her blood. But those things are purely physical. This time there is no onslaught of emotion, no flurry of confused thoughts as occurred the last. He nods.

"It works."

Aeryn grins. "Seems I'm useful for something after all."

"I would say so."

She seems a little taken aback by this, but then smiles again. "So if you can sense everything like that, then you must know if you're injured or not?"

"Strangely, I seem to be fine," he says and then shrugs. "The pain is easing."

"Talyn said that is it probably because you were in deep space, that the coldness prevented too much damage."

"He is probably right." He snorts softly. "He knows more about such things."

"Can you not access his consciousness?"

In all honesty, he has not tried as there is enough to adjust to, not least the fact he is no longer Sebacean. But now Aeryn has asked, he reaches inside himself, the process similar enough to using the transponder than he does not feel uncomfortable.

"Bialar?"

He doesn't hear it so much as be aware of it. The sensation of Talyn's mind stirring within his own is extremely odd.

"Talyn. I did not think I could reach you."

"Neither did I. But it seems we can inter-communicate after all."

His lips twitch. "Inter-communicate?"

There is a mental shrug.

"Can you think of a better term?"

"No." He can't and the phrase does not truly matter if he knows what Talyn means. With him inside his head, his thoughts overlying his own, there is no room for misunderstanding. "How are you faring?"

"It is very strange."

"Indeed."

"But… I am adjusting. And this is better than the alternative."

Bialar cannot argue with that. "Yes." He opens his eyes and looks at Aeryn. "It would seem that I can," he tells her.

"Right. Well you two need to decide what we do now. Do we bother trying to find a diagnosian? What do you want do? And where do you want to go?"

He chuckles at the stream of questions and holds up a belying hand. "One thing at a time, Aeryn." He debates the first question. "There is nothing that needs doing medically. I am… not adverse to what has happened. Certainly not enough that I wish to loose Talyn, if indeed we could be separated now. I suspect not. What I would like to know is what this body is capable of, what strain supporting two minds the mind can take. Whether we can find someone with the answers to those queries is another matter though."

"Well we're not going to find anyone by sitting around on our eemas," she notes and scrambles to her feet, holds out a hand. "Come on, Crais. You wanted a new path. Let's go take it."

He chuckles again, takes her hand and allows her to pull him up. He isn't sure – about anything really – but neither is he willing to sit and let this second chance pass him by. He is alive. For now, that is more than enough.