"A Tachyon Harp?" Israfil asked incredulously.  "I wonder what that could possibly be for."  Israfil's voice trailed off.  It seemed like not much time had passed, and already he had been in two pretty intense battles.  Technically, he had killed a lot of people, but he wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about it.  There was a barrier between knowing something was true and actually experiencing it; he knew he had killed people but he didn't experience murder.  "Umm, Mike?" Israfil asked with some trepidation, "H-have you ever...injured another person before?"

[hr]
Meanwhile, in the female pilots' quarters, Tera, who was feeling unusually fatigued from the prior mission, was climbing into her bunk when her hand slipped and she accidentally knocked one of her belongings down.  As it slid across the floor, Tera ran after it but lost her footing and fell on top of some luggage.  Without thinking, she reached inside to see if the thing she had dropped had fallen in, and pulled her hand out, holding a picture of Blythe and a man she didn't recognize.  Curiously, she wondered who the man was, though she was seized by a sudden anxiety.  The emotions that she was programmed with made her nervous and guilty; she knew she had crossed the line.  Her face flushed as she knew she had to quickly put the picture back before anyone caught her.  Tera wasn't normally this clumsy or thoughtless; perhaps the doctor was right about cogs giving their pilots mental stress.  She thought about what she had heard in the infirmary, and to the difficulties she had using Mayura's scanning ability across such a vast region of space.  But those thoughts could wait.  Tera looked over her shoulder to see if there was anyone behind her.