It was a condition of his release.
In the past, he would have laughed at that condition. But he was no longer the same man.
For the first time in years, the universe was open to him.
But he was no longer thinking of it as a place full of things. It was a place full of creatures—sentient beings with lives of their own, problems of their own, loves of their own. Creatures he had never gotten to know.
He had been afraid to get involved with others, afraid they would hurt him.
And one of them had. He had a new hand to show for it.
But he had hurt her worse.
And her daughter—her innocent cloned daughter—was paying for all of it.
Yu couldn’t make up for what he had done to Talia Shindo. But he could make sure he didn’t do anything like that again.
And the first way he could do that was to stay out of the Recovery business. To live an honest life, whatever that meant.
He wasn’t sure how to do it, but he could learn anything. If he could remove a flowering fidelia from its colesis tree without killing the tree, the vine, or the flower, he could do anything.
He just had to concentrate on it.
And he had to think through the consequences, something he had never done before.
Everything he did effected someone else.
Strange that he had to live half of his life before realizing it.
But he knew it now.
He’d learned that lesson.
And it changed everything.