"You'll need to blend in more than you did on the street."
"I am capable of adaptation."
"You're going to need to smile."
A pause. Brief, but real. "I will endeavor to."
"Endeavoring isn't the same as doing."
"No," he agreed, with the air of someone who had made peace with a great many things. "It is not."
She went to make the call to her father, because she owed him that before the evening swallowed her. Edi-Veen retreated to clean the floor without being asked twice, which was either training or consideration — she wasn't yet sure which, and wasn't sure it mattered.
"Hi Dad."
"Coreni." Her father's voice did the thing it always did when he'd been worried — went carefully steady, the way a person's voice went when they'd been practicing calm. "I've been trying to reach you."
"I know. I'm sorry. It's been a strange night."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. I'm home."
A pause on his end. "I had the most terrible dream last night. That you were in danger somewhere cold and dark."
She was quiet for a moment. She thought about the dock. The cold, the dark, the water. His face, which was what she'd thought of when she'd been certain she was about to die.
"It was just a dream, Dad."
"Of course," he said, but the steadiness in his voice had shifted very slightly, in a way she recognized. Her father lied badly and rarely. When he did it, he went too calm.
"I actually wanted to ask you something," she said.
"Oh?"
"About my implants. The rejection — have you ever found anything that explains it? Any new research?"
Silence. Longer than it should have been.
"Nothing definitive," he said. "You know how these things go. More data needed, always more data. Why do you ask?"
"Someone asked me about it today. Made me realize I've stopped thinking about it."
"Someone," her father repeated. Another beat of that careful quiet. "Anyone I should know about?"
"Not yet," she said. "I'll explain when I understand it better myself. Are you free for dinner this week?"
"For you? Always."
She smiled. It was the right answer, and he always gave it, and it was one of the more reliable things in her life. "I'll comm you tomorrow. Get some sleep, Dad."
"You too, little one. Be careful."
She took the earpiece off and held it for a moment before setting it down.
More data needed, always more data. In twenty-six years, he had never once said that to her. Her father collected data the way other people collected certainties. He always had a theory. He always had an answer, even if the answer was provisional.
She filed that too, in the growing catalogue of things that didn't quite fit.
