The nurse seems perturbed. "You mean you have something that does the same thing when you're on a ship, or you mean there's a reason you shouldn't have computing access on a ship? Recursively nonpublic is, uh, if you don't want to tell me why you don't want to tell me and I should drop the whole subject."

"Let's drop the subject. May I see the moon?"

"Of course! Are you feeling okay to walk to the courtyard?"

He assesses the condition of his balancing apparatus. "It might be easier with a cane."

"I'll be right back." He goes out into the hall for a minute and returns with a shiny aluminum cane with a comfortable handgrip at the top, and shows Kyeo how to adjust it to his height. "I bet future medical care is way better," he says apologetically. "Do you think you remember any medical stuff well enough to reinvent it?"

"I'm not a doctor."

He says something the phone decides to translate as "[Mild expletive]" and then "That's the problem with everything getting more complicated all the time. Follow me, I'll show you the courtyard."

He follows with the cane.

They go down the hall, down an elevator, and out into a little garden enclosed on three sides by the building. It has a tiled walkway and grass and flowering shrubs and willow trees with little benches hidden under them. One of the benches has a green-and-pink-haired person on it, wearing several layers of colorful casual-looking clothes and a glowing red bracelet and staring up at the leaves.

The moon is in the sky. It's Earth's moon, in the third quarter.

He looks at the moon thoughtfully for a while. "Earth's moon is very famous," he mentions.

"I'm glad. My cousin went there once."

"I've never been here before.

It doesn't look like I would expect it to in my time, though."

"It's mostly just researchers and support people, right now. Nobody wants to raise kids there until they can make sure they'll be able to come back to earth with no health problems."

"That makes sense."

"Wait, if you're from only a hundred years in the future, how fast do your ships go?"

"It depends on the ship. It takes weeks to get between systems."

"You have FTL? Do you remember any of the math?" The nurse looks split between skepticism and intense excitement; he's kind of swaying back and forth about it."

"No. I am not an engineer."

"What did you do?"

"I - was a soldier."

"Hmm. If your people have FTL, do you travel in time a lot? Are you able to get home under your own power, or expecting to be picked up, or other?"

"We do not usually travel in time."

"If the linguist thinks you're really from the future I can find a physicist who might be able to get you home. Do you want something to eat while you wait?"

"Yes please."

"In your room, or the hospital cafeteria? It's mostly the same food, and we can stop by your room and get you that handcomp on the way."