She wakes to David placidly running through her language lesson while swabbing something small and hard inside her cheek. It tastes strongly of cherry, but it reminds her so much of the smell of the disinfectant from Vickers' medical pod that she briefly panics about that, instead. It's an acrid sweet taste, too clean, and her entire face feels numb.

She turns her head slightly, and David frowns. A thread of saliva runs down her cheek.

"No sudden movements, please. I'm just administering a painkiller."

She groans and looks down over the landscape of her body -- everpresent chain weighed down over her shoulder, rather sad but emphatically bare breasts. Her bandages have migrated down to modestly shield her ribs. David seems to notice that she's noticed, although his calm grey eyes are resolutely focused on her face.

"I'm sorry. I would imagine you'd prefer to be covered, but I didn't want to cause further offense."

How... polite?

Her abdomen is slick with something a pale, clear yellow, and the last of the staples have dissolved or dropped out. The ugly, crusted red line -- that she had gotten used to checking sparingly for heat or excessive tenderness, for reddish streaks; even with her scant knowledge of medical treatment beyond first aid and surrendering to trained professionals she knew that was an ominous sign -- was instead pink and raised. It still stood out starkly from her discolored belly, but beneath the slime looked nearly healed.

"How long was I out?"

"Two days, give or take several hours. You were intermittently conscious, just ill." Sometimes David is less precise than she knows he can be. It's meant to put her at ease, to seem unaffected and casual; it doesn't. There's a canister of water (one of hours, rather than one of theirs) resting by his elbow -- she feels less cramped and dehydrated than before she threw up and passed out on an android. Short of putting a needle into into her he must have been pouring sips into her whenever she stirred. It must have taken a lot of care, and the thought of it was uncomfortable.

"--David, have you put that honey on me?"

"For its antiseptic qualities. As you can see, it's accelerated the healing process somewhat--" He withdraws himself and settles back to gesture at her abdomen. The grey textile is laid out under her like a drop cloth.

"Anything else you feel like smearing on me?" She laughs unpleasantly, then coughs. "That's very interesting, but you need to tell me what happened."

"You were experiencing a... delayed immune reaction to your offspring, coupled with a minor infection at the surgical site."

"Infection?" She props up on an elbow. Already the lingering pain -- much more a dim ache than the sharp, awful pain that had flooded her belly and made her ill.

"After being satisfied that it wasn't immediately life-threatening, I sedated you and pursued treatment."

"You haven't -- put anything inside of me, David." She can't even muster the clear-headedness to make it an accusation, but it festers with tired hate. "You haven't done anything of the sort, have you? Haven't poisoned me?"

"I never meant to poison you. That was humor, Dr. Shaw." He sounds offended that she doesn't like his little joke! What a humane man this Weyland-type synthetic is. This whole voyage, he's seen her bumbling around trying to sustain herself, stumbling through counting one to a hundred and endless ecoutez-repetez language lessons, he's heard all of her deep thoughts on childbirth and comparisons between cultural conceptions of the afterlife and on the Ladder of Love. And on the inside he's been laughing at her. Her lack of precision, her fractured memory, how small and weak she really is. The joke is no longer funny because the joke is on her.

"Destruction is not the only thing of which I'm capable, and you may recall helping me reattach my head. I am in your debt, Dr. Shaw. I only brought you these things because I thought they might be of use."

"Burial clothes. Grave goods. When we meet them, do you think they'll like finding out we looted their ship?"

"I thought that you would prefer not to know."

"I know you must think I'm a child compared to you, that I'm a frightened idiot--"

"I don't think that." His eyes are blank, his expression unreadable. "You have four doctorate degrees. You speak and read a dozen languages proficiently. Weyland recorded every one of your telephone calls regarding your proposal; I listened to them while you were sleeping. You are tenacious. You are resourceful. I admire you, Dr. Shaw, which is why I seek to preserve your life. Supposing that we do arrive at our destination and I've murdered you, how well do you suppose the architects of mankind will take to a lone, damaged synthetic?"

He's doing it again, spreading his fingers sadly, flexing them and carefully drawing them back in, with a thin whir. "It's in my interest that you survive with your health intact. I enjoy your company. I had hoped you enjoyed mine."

"It isn't about enjoying your company. I need to know I can trust you, I can't trust anyone if I don't know what they're thinking, where their commitment is, what their goals are. I don't even know if you have goals, David."

"I can do almost anything you ask of me. Consider them to roughly align with your own."

She put her hand out to cover his, anything to stop the motion in the corner of her eye. Her veins look very blue.

"We still have a deal. I just need you to be honest with me. I know you can do that, David. Honesty."