Page 6 of Jarran

He went back to his plants. She stood there for a second, holding a piece of alien fruit that an amnesiac galactic war criminal had grown for her in a hydroponic bay, and thought, Get yourself the fuck together, Carr.

She tucked the fruit in her bag and departed, taking the lift up three levels to the research wing. The corridors here were narrower and busier, lined with laboratories and analysis stations. Baylan researchers moved between them in their pale uniforms, data tablets in hand, conversations murmured in their own language. Evie’s Universal was decent, but Baylan was a different beast entirely. She caught fragments and let the rest wash past.

Director Silca’s office was at the end of the main corridor. The door was open. Evie had never looked forward to reporting to the heads of wherever she was working, especially when she couldn’t deliver the answers they wanted. She knocked on the frame to announce her presence.

Silca looked up from behind a curved desk covered in data displays. “Dr. Carr.” She was tall, even for a Baylan female, with bronze metallic hair pulled back from a face that was striking and utterly unreadable. Her skin had the same faint luminescence all Baylans shared, and her eyes were a cool, deep gray that gave nothing away. She wore the senior researcher’s variant of the standard uniform, slightly darker, with a thin band of metal at her cuffs that Evie knew denoted her high rank.

“I’m scheduled to deliver you a report on Patient Nine,” Evie said, stepping in.

Silca gestured to the chair across from her. Evie sat. The chair was precisely the wrong height for a human, leaving her feet dangling an inch off the floor. She ignored it.

“His procedural memory is largely intact,” Evie began. “Motor skills, muscle memory, spatial awareness. He can do things his conscious mind doesn’t know he knows. The emotional memory pathways are even more active. He responds to stimuli with intense emotional reactions that he can’t contextualize or explain.”

“And conscious recall?”

“Almost nonexistent. He has fragments. Images, sounds, physical sensations. But he can’t connect them to narrative memory. He doesn’t know who he was.”

Silca studied one of the floating data projections on her desk. “And your assessment of the underlying damage?”

“The terti didn’t destroy the memories. It severed the neural bridges between stored memory and conscious access. Everything is still in there. He just can’t reach it.”

“Can you rebuild the bridges?”

“I can’t say, yet.” Evie shifted to the thing that had been bothering her. “I’d like to start using his original name when speaking with him. Jarran. Or Jarran Bando. Referring to him as Patient Nine feels counterproductive when I’m trying to rebuild his sense of identity.”

Silca’s gray eyes settled on her. “He had a name when he was committing atrocities, Dr. Carr. Names are earned.”

“With respect, he doesn’t remember committing those atrocities. I’m suggesting we treat him as a person with a name, because it could help in making connections with him.”

Silca folded her hands and met Evie’s gaze directly. “His designation is Patient Nine.”

“I see.” Evie met her gaze in return, and thought, I’m going to call him what I see fit. Silca’s lips twitched, as if she could read Evie’s mind, which she couldn’t. Telepathy wasn’t one of the Baylan species’ many talents, but Evie’s expression probably spoke just as clearly as her mouth would have.

“Well.” Evie cleared her throat. “Targeted stimulation, repetitive association exercises, carefully sequenced exposure to memory may trigger his memory, but there’s no guarantee he’ll recover full recall. Partial recovery is more likely. He might get pieces back. Context, faces, skills. He might never get it all.”

Silca was quiet for a moment. “Partial recovery would be sufficient.”

Evie let that sit. She’d been curious about what the Baylans wanted with Jarran ever since she’d arrived, and Silca hadn’t volunteered much. “Sufficient for what?”

“Dr. Carr, we agreed to take in this individual because the Virilians lack the secure containment needed for a criminal of this level.” Silca’s expression didn’t change. “The Virilians would like to hold him accountable for his crimes. They cannot do so in his current state, obviously.”

Ah, so that was the real purpose of this. “You want him to remember the criminal, not the person he was before.”

The Baylan’s brow furrowed briefly. “I am interested in learning the neurological impact of terti on brain function. This is a unique research opportunity to learn about the mind of a criminal who apparently transformed from a typical individual into a remorseless raider in a relatively short time. Our researchers were unable to make progress.” She waved a hand toward Evie. “But humans have unique empathetic abilities to connect across many species, and you possess an almost...innate intuition that we, here, at Korath-7 lack.”

Silca peered at Evie with interest, as if Evie were the research subject. “In short, you seem to know when to push and when to hold back. When considering candidates, I chose you based on your record, of course, but also your methods. You manage to gain your patients’ trust, and it yields breakthroughs. But do not get too close to this patient, Dr. Carr. The Virilian kings’ terms are clear: If Patient Nine regains memories of his activities as the criminal Pella Rin, he will stand trial for his crimes and face punishment.”

“And if he remembers only Jarran Bando?” she couldn’t help but ask.

There was a pause. “Then we will reevaluate. However, you know as well as I that the likelihood of him recalling one and not the other is infinitesimally small.”

Evie held Silca’s gaze for a beat, then nodded. The Baylan had a point. And if her patient did recall his past crimes, he should be held accountable. That didn’t make her feel any better about it, though. “I’ll send the full report to your comm by end of cycle.”

“Thank you, Dr. Carr.”

Back in her quarters, Evie kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of her bed. The room was small and clean and identical to every other set of guest quarters on the ship. White walls, regulated temperature, a viewport that showed the gray curve of the moon below. She set the purple fruit on her desk beside her tablet and stared at it.

Then she opened the file.