Her breath fogged the glass plate in front of her face.

The door into the medical chamber was opening slowly, and she pushed into the room as soon as she could. She had a very limited time frame in which to work.

The protective suit was not particularly special; unlike a suit for thermal, radiation, or vacuum protection, there was no way to protect against intense krahteon bombardment - except to put something between you and them. It didn't even have to be dense, as krahteons had poor penetration of matter.

After she left here, they'd have to destroy the suit.

"Krahteon rate is still holding steady at 12.3 micro kraans," Dr. Genson said in her ear.

He was calmer now; that was good.

She also was certain that he was the one who had contacted Director Freeman. While there was no hard evidence, a signal had been sent, and he had disappeared off the record for the time.

But right now, she still needed him.

She approached Michal Denso, noting how the environment around him had already begun to warp and alter in subtle ways. This entire section would be a loss.

Denso was on the bed, unmoving as she approached.

"Entering enclosure," she said.

"Krahteons increasing - now up to 27.8 mK," Genson said, speaking faster and slightly higher.

"Calm yourself, Doctor," she chided. "I still have time at this level."

"You have minutes, Dr. Urle. With respects, I should have-"

"Now is not the time for this," she said harshly. "Be quiet unless you have something relevant to say."

The line went silent, and she stepped up to Michal Denso.

The man's eyes were not looking to her; he seemed in an unresponsive state.

Her priority was to her patient, but now there was nothing else she could do for him.

"Disconnecting primary breathing tube," she said. It was warped and changed, a miracle that it still even functioned. With a twist, the tube disconnected and she spared a glance inside.

It appeared like a thing alive, the inside having the color of flesh.

Setting it aside, she next disconnected the dialysis tubes. Blood spilled, and where it hit the floor it moved of its own volition for a few moments before going still.

And so the rest. Nearly every function of a normal human body had shut down in the man, and the slack had been taken up by machinery.

Lastly, she removed the device that stimulated the man's heart to still beat.

"Vitals?" she asked.

"Heartrate declining, Dr. Urle."

"Brain activity?" she asked.

Denso looked no different. His eyes, the ones on his face and elsewhere all still stared sightlessly at nothing.

"We read a decline in brain activity," Dr. Genson said.

She knew she should begin to leave. Her monitoring systems told her that she was already approaching mid-way point on her safe time, and leaving in this bulky suit was not quick.

But she had to stay to the end. No one should die alone.

A minute passed.

"Brain wave activity has ceased," Dr. Genson's voice came.

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She let out a breath and closed her eyes. "Note time of death. I will exit and we will begin-"

Michal Denso moved.

It was not a twitch, as some bodies did after death.

He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes focused upon her.

"Did you really think I would die, Dr. Urle?" he asked.

His voice was soft, almost intimate. It was the first time she had ever heard the voice of Michal Denso calm.

"We have activity," she whispered.

"What? We're still reading zero brain activity," Genson replied.

Denso smiled. "You have only killed what little held me back. I was still something of a man. Now, I have no chains left."

Verena met those eyes, and they were colder and deeper than the eyes of any being she had ever known.

"Dr. Urle!" she heard Genson's voice scream. "Get out of there, the krahteon emissions are skyrocketing!"

She turned, and moved as fast as she could. The suit was already feeling warmer, as the emissions began to alter it. Already the outer layers were peeling like sunburnt skin, the layers underneath already starting to shimmer in a strange way.

Her eyes were watering and the air grew heavy.

"Shut off air valves," she said. They had to have been altered.

She was only five meters from the door. Stumbling forward, it became harder and harder to lift each foot. Glancing down, she saw that the soles of her boots were turning to a liquid that adhered to the floor.

Only three meters now. Her boots felt like they were going to pull off her feet.

If she took many more steps, she wouldn't be able to lift them.

Dropping to her knees, she crawled the last few meters.

The door opened, and she crawled in. A spray of dust came out of the vents, coating her suit. Each particle would help absorb any stray krahteons.

The second door opened, and she crawled out, pulling off her boots and throwing them into the decontamination basket.

Ripping off her helmet, Verena gasped for air.

Odd, how even when she felt like she was suffocating, she'd felt no panic. She had wondered how she might react to a life-threatening situation, and here it was; even then, she felt nothing.

"Dr. Urle, are you all right?" Genson asked, panic in his voice.

"I am fine," she said.

"Did . . . did Denso wake up?" he asked her.

She looked back towards the room. "Yes. He is awake."

"How is that possible?"

She could not answer that. Nor could she find the words at the moment to tell them what he had said.

*******

His apartment was too quiet when the girls were at class.

Urle walked over to the fake windows that showed him a view of the stars. His sensors could tell it was a screen, but it still looked good.

One day, he'd be at the point he could truly be out there in the vacuum, no suit and no walls between him and the empty void, and look at the stars with eyes better than any human.

But it wasn't right now, today.

He'd messaged Verena over the last few days, giving her updates on the girls and also trying to hint subtly about the problem she had mentioned. See if what she feared was coming to pass. She'd messaged back some brief texts, but had not attempted to come around for another dinner or to see the girls at all. And no hint on the issue.

From how clipped the messages had been, he imagined she was deeply engrossed in her work. But given she had brought up the catastrophic possibilities . . . he could only trust in her.

He wished he could still be on duty, but he did not believe himself fit at the moment. Perhaps work would have been better for him, but Brooks had not entertained any notion he'd suggested of him coming back on yet.

And the Captain was right. He was barely able to do his job as a father.

Persis's sad mood had been quick to help lift. But Hannah was another story; she was a sensitive child, and she remembered Verena much better than her sister.

As much as he'd talked to her, tried to help her, he knew his daughter was still sad inside. She smiled now, she ate her dinner, and told excited stories of things that had happened in her day.

But in her eyes, you could still see the hurt.

And he couldn't fix it. Not just as their father was he failing, but as he, himself, he was failing.

He had always been one who had wanted to fix anything and everything. Even himself. To find the limits of his humanity and go past them.

But for all he had improved, there remained things that were unfixable.

Sometimes, there just was no catharsis. You just had to learn to live with the pain the universe gave you.

His attention had long since wandered from the view of space on the screen, but he took a moment to focus back onto it now.

In the darkness, the stars glowed. There was no twinkle, not without an atmosphere. Just perfect pinpricks of light at all sizes. At this angle, there wasn't even the galactic disk, just the dark and the light.

It was a simple fact that even stars died one day. But looking at them now, he felt a comforting sense of eternity.