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EVALUATION
=Is he dead? He’s lain there for almost two of their hours.
=His chest area is moving. That’s where the lungs are, that supply air and keep the body shell alive.
=You think I don’t know that?
=Of course you do. I just thought—
=I needed a reminder of my scientific role?
=Please do not take offence. Your qualifications are as good as mine. It’s just… fear.
=What of?
=Not of, but for. Fear for you.
=You know there’s no need. I can deal with anything we discover. Haven’t I proved that on other missions?
=I don’t doubt your capacity for our research, your evaluation abilities. What I fear for is your… reaction strategy.
=Which I won’t talk about now.
=Which… is apparently now your favourite reaction strategy.
=You must trust me to know how to behave.
=I must, must I?
=Is that sarcasm? Maybe you’re the one who needs his strategy examined.
=And maybe your empathy with the specimens has contaminated me as well.
=Wait!
=Yes, your reprimand is right. We should pause and re-connect. Our emotional balance appears to be off-kilter, our language protocols slipping into their casual idiom—
=No, I mean wait because he’s moving.
