Chiara had changed. He was no longer the stocky, cheerful man he had been on the Constellation , whose brown eyes had smiled at the world through thick glasses and who had laughed and joked as he assured his patients that all would soon be well with them. He was thin and his face was haggard with worry. He had, in his quiet way, been fully as valiant as any of those who had fought the prowlers. He had worked day and night to fight a form of death he could not see and against which he had no weapon.

“The boy is dying,” Chiara said. “He knows it and his mother knows it. I told them the medicine I gave him might help. It was a lie, to try to make it a little easier for both of them before the end comes. The medicine I gave him was a salt tablet⁠—that’s all I have.”

And then, with the first bitterness Prentiss had ever seen him display, Chiara said, “You call me ‘Doctor.’ Everyone does. I’m not⁠—I’m only a first-year intern. I do the best I know how to do but it isn’t enough⁠—it will never be enough.”