“No, he was telling me that if I were worried about you, then he wanted me to end the psychological aspect of your rehabilitation, and to please take care to do that.”

“And you want to stay involved, right?”

“It’s my job. Of course I want to stay involved. I have no idea what the major is thinking. Or what you’re thinking, for that matter. If you don’t like my methods, could you please do me the courtesy of telling me so to my face?”

“This is definitely the major’s doing,” Rei said as he rose from the deck chair. “I just follow his orders. He told me that it wasn’t necessary for you to keep treating me. If there’s something going on between you and the major, that’s not my problem.”

“Where are you going?”

“The sauna.”

“Are you running away from me?”

“Running away?” Rei chuckled without even thinking. “You seem like you want to fight with me, but you don’t know how to. Okay, here’s how it works — if you don’t want me to run away, you chase me. If you get in my way, I hit you. Major Booker gave me permission to do that, naturally.”

“Who are you at war with, Captain Fukai?”

“The JAM.”

“It doesn’t look that way to me.”

“You trying to be my girlfriend now?”

“What?”

“The sauna. Are you coming in with me?”

“If you’re going in, then yes, of course I will.”

“Dressed like that?”

In response, Captain Foss slowly took off her white coat, then grasped the hem of her sweater and began pulling it off too.

“Forget the sauna,” Rei said. “I don’t think I could deal with you asking me about this and that in a tiny, hot little room.”

Captain Foss paused, her pale belly showing. “Then will you come to my office?” she asked.

“No.”

“You’re not yet psychologically fit to return to combat duty.”

“You’re right,” Rei replied with a nod. “There’s something I need to settle with you first.”

“Settle with me?”

“Why are you so interested in what goes on in my mind? That’s going to gnaw at me until I get an answer.”

It was annoying how she was always following him around. There was no escape from her on the base, and ignoring her required an enormous amount of effort. The only thing left to do was to have it out with her once and for all.

The race in the pool wasn’t over yet. The last swimmers had just dived in, and everybody was paying attention to them. Rei might have lost interest in the swimmers, but the people in the pool area were still aware of him. As Rei looked to be walking away, one of them whistled and called out, “SAF’s bugging out of here.” There was no scorn or anger in his voice. It was simply delivered as a situation report. The cheers died down. It’s the same reaction I get from other units in battle, Rei thought. The Special Air Force really did hold a special position in their forces. Rei left the pool area without looking back.

In the locker room, he changed out of his swim trunks, put his wristwatch back on, then logged his exercise on a form he carried on a clipboard. When he’d gathered it all up and walked out of the locker room, Captain Foss was waiting for him.

The basic reason why she had come was that, technically, this was the time when she should have been examining him, and as his attending physician, she wasn’t amused by his arbitrarily deciding to do a bit of independent training instead. He’d just been following Major Booker’s orders, but it was clear that the major hadn’t been able to convince this doctor. That left it to Rei, the concerned party in this matter, to get her to agree. If he managed to make her see that he didn’t need her to treat him anymore, it’d take a load off of his mind as well. The result would be the same whether Major Booker made the move or not. Thinking that, Rei renewed his resolve. He canceled the strength training session he’d scheduled for after his swim and left the center to have a chat with Captain Foss.

Back at his quarters in the SAF residential area, Rei changed again, into his ground duty fatigues. Since he had no intention of going to Captain Foss’s examination room, he headed to the sortie briefing room instead. Captain Foss followed him without a word.

The room was dark and deserted, the ceiling lights automatically turning on as they entered. As they did Rei felt a twinge of preflight nerves, which he hadn’t sensed for a while.

The main monitor along the front wall of the room, which normally would have displayed mission action data, was dark now. As Rei stood in front of the computer terminal to the side, Captain Foss finally spoke.

“How do you feel? What are your impressions, coming here?”

“My impression is that I want to get back into the fight as soon as I can. My physical rehab is going just fine, better than you claim. As far as I see, there’s no problem with me going back into combat. Major Booker’s just being cautious. He’s after perfection. Is that what you’re after too?”

“I am, though my position is different from the major’s.”

“What is your position in the FAF? Why did you come here? It doesn’t seem like you were forced to join up, but I don’t get the sense that you’re just another doctor who’s hot to do their job either. Military doctors don’t disobey their superior officers.”

“I’m not disobeying my superior. Who happens to be General Cooley. Even Major Booker has to admit that.”

“You’re just like the JAM,” Rei said, his voice cracking. “I don’t know what you think of me and I can’t communicate with you very well. I don’t know what you’re doing here on Faery. Meanwhile, you just keep coming after me. You’re an unknown, Foss. Does General Cooley even know who you are?”

“She’s a distant relative of mine.”

“Huh?” Rei leaned against the computer console, not thinking as he made his dumbfounded grunt of surprise. Captain Foss kept her eyes on him as she drew closer and sat down in one of the front-row seats. Almost like a child who’d been ordered to stay after class, thought Rei.

“Although,” Captain Foss said, “I’d never met her until I came here. She didn’t know we were related either. Still, I used the family connection. I was never going to get anywhere with my research into the psychological makeup of FAF pilots without actually coming here. The truth is, I wanted to come here as a civilian.”

“So that’s how it is,” Rei said. “What a pain in the ass.”

“Major Booker said the same thing. But my interest wasn’t going to get any priority unless I worked here as a military doctor. I’m working on a detailed report of the patients I’ve examined, which includes you. But there’s no evidence that Major Booker has read what I’ve submitted so far. I find it insane that he’d just ignore it and then claim that I’m unnecessary. It wasn’t like that back in the Systems Corps. My work was valued there. From what I’ve seen, I’d say that the SAF is a collection of weirdos.”

“That doesn’t sound like the way a doctor would talk.”

“Okay, that’s true. I was a little rash there. But I’m a human being with feelings too, you know,” Foss said.

“You’re the one who needs counseling. You aren’t used to the environment in the SAF. I don’t need you. Anything that has to do with me, I’ll handle by myself. I’m not looking for help from anyone. Conversely, I don’t help anyone. I don’t want to get wrapped up in anyone else’s feelings. Any feelings that aren’t mine are illusions. That’s the sort of people who make up the SAF.”

“Perfectly put,” Captain Foss replied with a nod. “You’re not abnormal individually, but in a group, you literally become ‘special.’ The idea of putting together a team of people with a limited ability to feel empathy is fascinating to me.”

“That’s thanks to Major Booker’s skills. Or, more accurately, to General Cooley’s. The JAM aren’t human. They’re beings whose true nature is still a mystery to us. The general thinks that you need people with inhuman

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