Chakwas herself could no longer clearly explain—even to herself—why she decided that her first surgical patient had to be Spectre Saren Arterius, a turian who had already become a legend in the Corps. Hardly because, as a male, a turian was physically more primitive—and therefore the trauma surgeon was sure she would perform the necessary surgical intervention faster on this patient. And perhaps less traumatically.
Working with a scalpel, Chakwas didn't think about it. She acted. Right now, during the operation, it mattered little to her. Though some part of her mind still kept working the question over, using every bit of information available to a doctor at that moment.
Saren, if one followed the logic of the situation Karin knew, had been the first to fall under the influence of the Reaper-Observer. And he had been under its influence far longer than Benezia.
Probably that was why Chakwas decided to operate on the turian first and the asari second. Besides, Shepard, as Karin remembered, had repeatedly noted—if not always explicitly and in words—that the turian had taken the worse of it and his condition was… heavier, perhaps. Still, as the medic recalled, the XO had not insisted that his view was the only correct one.
For Chakwas, as a military medic, cutting implants out of a sapient organic's body was easier. And in a way now more familiar than dealing with the routine knitting of fractures, eliminating strains, and other bodily troubles.
On the screens mounted on brackets above the surgical field, the data from small automatic and semi-automatic medical scanners glowed—reduced into large-scale graphic map-diagrams—helping the doctor navigate the jumble of microcircuits scattered through the turian's skeletal bones. Routine motions, a practiced technique. The main thing was not to miss an unnecessary or harmful implant, not to leave it inside the patient's body.
Karin worked, occasionally glancing at the Spectre's condition indicators. She knew Shepard had already flown out to the site of new excavations, the results of which were still unknown.
The frigate's arrival at Eden Prime this time had been as nonstandard as it could get. No one aboard the Normandy, as Chakwas now understood—even Citadel Council Spectre Nihlus Kryik—had assumed that the humans would have to shoot at a real, actual Reaper. Karin knew well that the frigate's crew were still actively discussing what had happened. There wasn't much to add: it was exactly the sort of event people habitually call "out of the ordinary."
Those enormous ships were supposed to be legends. Few modern sapient organics believed in them seriously and deeply. The legend, meanwhile, turned out to be… more than material. If not for the frigate crew's fast reaction, if not for the thorough instrument-and-sensor "beyond-the-relay" reconnaissance of the situation at Eden Prime… Chakwas would not have vouched that many of the Normandy's people would have survived. The Reaper could have managed to answer the frigate's attack with its main gun. And that weapon, according to objective instrument records—including video—was such that a scout frigate was better off never, under any conceivable circumstances, getting anywhere near it.
The Reaper turned out to be a great specialist in bending sapient organics to its will. Yes, Chakwas remembered that batarians, for example, used chipping almost en masse on sapient organics who fell into their hands and most often became the four-eyed species' slaves.
But the Reaper… as it turned out, it had done more to Saren than simply chip him. It had stuffed so many implants into the turian's body that, after reviewing the medscanner data, Chakwas was forced to conclude: even in the worst-case scenario, Saren Arterius, as the obedient servant of the "shrimp," was practically invulnerable to most types of modern weapons. Only a large-caliber artillery piece could have stopped him with a direct hit—something like the frigate's Thanix. Anything smaller was unlikely to produce the necessary result. The turian's frame was entirely covered in implants. Taken together, they sharply increased Saren's ability to survive the most terrifying barrage.
A turian Spectre—enslaved to the Reaper-Observer. Chakwas could never have conceived of such a real situation before. And now she not only had to see this turian but to operate on him. The Reaper, by the way, had not gone anywhere either—there it was, lying quietly and, for the moment, calmly on the surface of Eden Prime.
The pile of implants extracted from Saren's body and placed on the gleaming white-enameled medical tray beside the operating space kept growing. Karin tried to limit her field of vision strictly to the "operative zone." And from time to time she returned in her thoughts to the understanding that the enormous number of implants had not benefited the patient. Arterius had been in many serious firefights before the moment of his final submission to the Reaper.
Saren's skull had been crudely operated on more than once; his jaw was held together with pins and plates, giving the Spectre a frightening look. Quite possibly that was why Saren disliked taking off his suit helmet. And if he did remove it, it was only when absolutely necessary.
As she removed unnecessary implants, the doctor studied the patient's face. She considered whether to take on maxillofacial surgery as well—putting, simply speaking, the Spectre's head back into a more or less normal condition. For now Chakwas decided to focus on leaving a minimum of implants inside the turian's body. After that, she would decide what to do about Arterius's face and head.
After rechecking the results of removal, Karin carried out the usual set of procedures to ensure the fastest healing. Then she put the turian into deep medicated sleep. The patient could not awaken for several hours now. If necessary, the duration of sleep could be increased within any reasonable limits. That meant there was enough time freed up to work on the asari.
Covering the turian's fully naked body with a drape fixed to a light wire frame, Chakwas stepped away from the bunk where the turian Spectre lay. She moved unhurriedly to the bunk where Matriarch Benezia lay.
Looking at the monitor readings hanging above her bed, the doctor confirmed that when the Reaper hit the ground on Eden Prime, the asari had indeed sustained multiple injuries.
In their report, the members of the landing party indicated that Benezia T'Soni most likely had not managed to sit down in a chair. Besides, her dress did not form a rigid frame the way a suit did. So the asari had plenty of problems with bodily integrity.
Benezia's age was far from young as well. Healing, Chakwas assumed as she performed the preliminary examination, would be long and hard. Shepard had already managed to put a set of splints on Benezia's left forearm and right shin while still aboard the Reaper, and had smeared a thick layer of panacelin and medi-gel over several wounds. He had carried out the necessary primary medical manipulations, which, of course, greatly eased the subsequent work for the professional doctor with the injured asari.
After finishing her examination, Chakwas carefully cut the black-and-white dress. She removed it from the patient's body, trying to preserve its integrity as much as possible. Of course, those cuts would have to be sewn later. But for now… the asari could make do with human women's dresses. The ship's technicians and engineers—women and girls—would help. The frigate's doctor had no doubt of that.
The underwear had been damaged too, but to a lesser extent.
Removing it, Chakwas freed the asari's head from a ritual-ceremonial cap and began the standard pre-op procedures.
Shepard had written in his report that she lay like a "broken mannequin." After scanning the matriarch's body with the small scanners, Karin confirmed the correctness of the conclusion reached by the marine special forces trooper: beyond fractures and sprains with bruising, Benezia had other bodily issues caused by the fall from a small—but still real—height.
It was a good thing Shepard had worked on the psyche of the Reaper's former captives on his own. Or were they still—slaves? Karin did not want to answer that question even to herself. She needed to start dealing with the injuries as quickly as possible. And the asari matriarch had many.
Never before would Karin have thought that a special forces soldier—an officer, a serviceman—could reanimate not a sapient organic's body but its essence, its soul, so professionally, safely, and—most importantly—so effectively.
Performing routine manipulations, Karin recalled how the XO had worked with the asari and the turian. Again and again she convinced herself: without his help, she would hardly be able to calmly and freely do her part of the job now, restoring the bodies of both injured sapients.
She remembered a word she had often seen on several Extranet sites—"husks," used to designate bodies stripped of mind and soul. Of course, as often happens, specialists and ordinary commenters without degrees could not agree on what exactly should be understood by husks. Neither historical digressions nor logical constructions with arguments "pulled by the heart" helped.
Karin recalled—and noted with some amazement—that she had unexpectedly managed to see real husks. Both Saren Arterius and Benezia T'Soni had been husks: obedient to the will and desires of the pilot of that gigantic ship (by the standards of most modern galactic species).
Husks. If not for Shepard, who had risked himself, both the asari and the turian would have remained in that state for a very long time—if not forever.
It was unlikely that specialists capable of returning Arterius and Benezia to normal would be found anywhere in the galaxy right now. Karin was inclined to rate what Shepard had done as nothing less than a realized miracle, of which she had been a direct witness.
In the few days since the new XO had appeared aboard the prototype scout frigate, so many important events had happened that Karin Chakwas could not remember seeing their equal across her long and varied practice—not only medical.
Shepard, as the doctor understood, was oriented above all toward continuous work—work that was high-quality and effective. He, quite possibly, did not know how to rest, did not know how to relax. In some measure, that configuration was dictated by his specialty: marine and special forces. Perhaps also by the fact that Shepard was an orphan.
As the head of the frigate's medical service, Karin, of course, reviewed the XO's personal file and dug through Systems Alliance Navy special databases. But there, to her great regret, there was little profile information capable of shedding enough light on many circumstances of John Shepard's life.
Chakwas knew about Akuze, knew that Shepard had a beloved girl back on Earth. Her name was Dana. She was a fairly well-known professional athlete. So in his personal life John might not have been lonely, as Chakwas supposed. But… already now, moving through the protocol toward the middle of the necessary procedures list, Chakwas remembered how warmly Shepard had treated her—the almost only woman senior officer on the ship.
He seemed to have inherited something from his present commander—David Anderson. Yet he did not mechanically copy Anderson's attitude toward her, the ship's chief doctor, from the "first after god on board." He treated her in his own way, so that Karin could not find even a trace of pretense or a "second bottom."
Quite possibly, John Shepard had fallen a little in love with her. The way David had fallen in love with her. Shepard, Chakwas was sure, had noticed that Anderson almost always called only her by her first name, not by surname or rank. And not only because she was a major and the ship's commander was a captain. Not only that. But also because David loved her, Karin Chakwas—loved her with a mature, even, deep love. A grown love.
Shepard, of course, loved Karin in his own way. He treated her like a mother he had never truly known—in the captain's file it was clearly stated that he had become an orphan in infancy. Either his mother had abandoned him, or the situation had unfolded some other way, leaving John alone. One thing was clear now: John knew how to love. He knew how to love, how to give love, how not to demand anything for himself in exchange for his love, for his wonderful attitude toward other sapients—not only humans.
And Karin also noted that John did not impose his love on anyone. On anyone. He did not divide, did not separate humans and aliens—the very "xenos" that humanity once invented in countless forms and colors, and then, upon encountering nearly a dozen and a half alien species in reality, frankly got frightened into a mild stutter.
John was equally ready to help a human, an asari, a turian—and undoubtedly a sapient organic of any other species. He loved sapient organics, in part because he understood: their lives were not easy, and it was not hard to give them a little love, a little participation, a good attitude.
Probably guided by the right of love, the right to give his love, and the ability to demand nothing in return, John had been able to help both Benezia and Saren in a way no professional medics or professional scientists—salarians, for example—could have.
John did not make his love into an obligation; he gave his love, helping sapient organics live. Not only through action—through his very presence. He gave both the asari and the turian as much time as it took to preserve them not only as biological objects, as bodies, but as personalities, as essences, as souls.
What John Shepard had managed to do in her presence… the best doctors of Earth or the Citadel could hardly have done. And he did it—and flew off. Flew off without having recovered from such a costly procedure for both soul and body. No wonder the ship's doctor considered it necessary for him to appear and remain in the Med Bay after the work at those strange excavations was finished.
Shepard loved his Dana. Karin did not merely see it; she felt it. And for John there was no problem in the fact that Dana was, in effect, his first love—and by an unwritten rule well-known to many Earthborn, such love rarely grows into something big. In the days Chakwas had known and observed John—there was no point hiding it—the more she understood: Shepard did not bind Dana to himself. He gave her full freedom to live her own life, to have her own circle of acquaintances and friends, including very close friends capable of someday becoming the main friends in that girl's life. What difference did it make—polygamy or polyandry? Humanity was wise enough to understand: what does not kill the soul makes a person stronger—physically and spiritually.
John loved Dana; it was plainly visible and plainly felt. But he did not bind her to himself—she was free in her life and her fate. If she liked being near John, then she stayed near him by her own will. Not because she owed John anything or because John Shepard had, one way or another, tied her to himself. He did not force Dana, as Karin understood, to think about a wedding, about marriage, about pregnancy, finally. He gave Dana himself, helped her—and required and asked nothing in return.
Dana believed John. She knew him too well—they had grown up together in the same orphanage, and the documents said—in the same shelter. She believed him, but she, too, in an astonishing way did not bind him to herself; he was free.
Of course, it was quite possible that the reasons Dana gave John such freedom included the fact that both Shepard and his companion were orphans. Another cause might be that from an early age both had defined their paths, chosen professions. John was military; Dana was a professional athlete. Discipline, routine, a strict schedule. Life's frameworks—how could you do without them? Perhaps those circumstances also played their linking—and maybe cementing—role in the relationship between Shepard and Dana. For Karin, it did not matter much what Dana's last name was. For John she had always been—and Chakwas was convinced always would be—only Dana. It was enough for him to know her name. Not in words—by soul.
Dana understood that John met many people and probably at least assumed that one day John would meet his true, complete, only love. Maybe she was ready for that. Ready because she knew John would manage it so that she—his very close friend—would not suffer, would not feel abandoned.
Chakwas had seen how, not long ago, John wrote a letter to Dana, perched in a corner of one of the frigate's compartments on a fold-down seat. He wrote thoughtfully, slowly, sinking into memories. And she had seen him read Dana's replies—how he rejoiced at each letter. Even a short note—just a few lines.
Before the frigate stopped by the mass relay at the entrance to the system where Eden Prime lay, John had received too few letters from Dana. Too few, Chakwas sharply realized now. Too few.
Shepard loved Dana. And as Karin was now convinced, he was capable of loving many sapients like that—not only humans but aliens. If he had not been so capable of loving aliens, he would hardly have been able to help the asari and the turian so effectively and fully—two beings who had lived through, due to circumstances, not the best times. Lived through—and returned, thanks to Shepard's selflessness and heroism—yes, yes, entirely unshowy, in places even everyday heroism—to ordinary life.
Karin, pausing for a second, glanced at the monitors above the hospital bed and felt with special force that Shepard loved everyone aboard the Normandy. They had become his own. Yes, perhaps he paid special attention to her, the Med Bay's chief doctor, Major Chakwas of the Systems Alliance Navy Medical Service. But he had paid attention to David as well—Karin noted that automatically, perhaps subconsciously.
Shepard did not only command and lead, as befitted the ship's executive officer and the landing team commander of a prototype scout frigate. He studied.
Karin was convinced—and that conviction had just received additional proof—that Shepard had decided to learn a great deal, from both her and David. To learn quietly, without drawing his teachers' attention to it. But to learn for real, fully.
A few days of Shepard's presence on the frigate had shaken the crew hard.
Yes, the new XO was tough, strict, meticulous, even ruthless—Jenkins or Alenko or Moreau had no chance of falling under his hand or gaze again and again.
But the new XO was careful, attentive, quiet, modest, and able to see and understand much good not only in each human but in each alien.
If he had been even a little more callous, he would hardly have been able to cope so well with restoring the asari's and the turian's psyches. Many psychotherapists and psychiatrists—humans—could not have done even a hundredth of what Shepard managed to do in those minutes spent over the bodies and souls of those two former husks.
Former. It was unlikely the asari and the turian would often recall those months of powerlessness and helplessness now. They would remember them. And they would remember that it was an Earthborn human—John Shepard—who ended those times.
Performing the final part of the surgical protocol, carrying out the necessary manipulations, Chakwas thought that the turian Spectre had been the reason the Reaper scout succeeded in capturing the elderly asari. And the reason Benezia had crossed into the category of captive. And obedient slave of this Reaper. A standard chain formed: Reaper—Saren—Benezia.
Yes, later, after Benezia met Saren… if only she knew how exactly that meeting had happened… Benezia fell under the Reaper's growing mental influence, which the few narrow specialists who used the term called "indoctrination."
A few dozen minutes—and Chakwas covered the asari's naked body with a light drape supported by a wire frame. Most of what was needed had been done. Now it was important to understand how the healing would proceed.
Stepping away from the patients, Chakwas went to her worktable and sat down in a chair. She called up the full monitoring data on the wall displays—taking into account both the recently performed manipulations and their results, static and dynamic.
The diagnostic suite performed a repeat check; the Med Bay VI processed the incoming information and displayed comparative tables and graphs.
Reading the values, thinking over the dependencies, forecasting developments, Chakwas waited. Shepard's help allowed her to hope that fewer than several hours would pass before first one, then the second Med Bay patient would come to, awaken. And—in both the literal and figurative sense—return to this world. No longer husks. But ordinary representatives of their species. Free of any foreign influence or interference. If Nazara had not protested or opposed Shepard or her. If it had not attempted to block the XO's and ship doctor's drive to return the asari and the turian to normal ordinary life. Then the interventions performed allowed cautious hope: very soon the patients would revive. And—wake up.
Yes, the turian's and the asari's breathing evened out, the pulse no longer raced; there was no unnecessary muscle tension, no "clamping" in the bones.
Yes, both patients would still have to spend several hours on strict bed rest with no right to move freely.
Karin was already convinced that both Saren and Benezia would be quite shaken by both the fact and the content of their, in every sense, liberation from a husk-like state.
The Med Bay's hospital beds were designed to house not only humans but representatives of many species known to Earth. So now both the turian's crest and the asari's headcrests rested in special recesses in the headboards, allowing the patients to keep their heads straight without straining neck muscles and ligaments.
Yes, Chakwas remembered well that a turian's neck was a very vulnerable part of the body. But here, in the Med Bay, she could be sure: Saren had nothing to worry about.
Nihlus, of course, would not delay in showing up. But that was up to her—the frigate's doctor—to decide what visitation schedule should be set for these patients—very heavy patients, by the way—to ensure their fastest and fullest recovery. Visits were important and necessary. But that was not a matter for the next few hours.
Had she, the frigate's doctor, imagined that a few days after leaving the "fitting-out zone" she would have to operate on real critical patients? No, probably not. The galaxy had lived too long without strain. Perhaps even, as the imperials liked to say, "drifting with the current." And now the breathing of not a local but a galactic war was felt more sharply. Many apocalyptic forecasts and prophecies began, once again, to come true.
Time passed unnoticed. Chakwas fully realized herself as a Med Bay recluse; she liked being its sole mistress and, if possible, its only inhabitant.
She did not need anyone's company and calmly accepted that until something extraordinary happened, none of the Normandy's people would look in on her.
In the end, a medic exists to always be ready to help a non-medic. Always be ready. Chakwas was ready.
And that readiness paid off. She had her first real, special, heavy patients in a very long time. Patients who, after the surgical interventions, were now approaching the moment of their—one hoped—complete recovery.
Chakwas did not want to look at the desk omni-tool display right now for information about how things were going with those very strange excavations. She was used, in complete solitude, to going still, letting her gaze lose focus, and relaxing. Time flowed quickly and imperceptibly that way.
There was no signal from the equipment—neither sound nor light. Karin felt that the first to awaken, strangely enough, would not be Saren but Benezia. Maybe humans really were right to consider asari—women?
"Quite possible," Chakwas thought, rising and approaching the asari lying on her back, already trying to open her eyes…
Benezia's gaze—cloudy, unsteady, unfocused—still settled on the face of Chakwas leaning over her.
Approaching the bed, Karin had time to take the readings: the patient's awakening was within norm.
"Wh-where am I?" the matriarch exhaled, trying to focus her gaze, striving to see the surrounding objects more clearly and in detail.
"You're aboard a military ship, in the Med Bay," Karin answered quietly.
"Nazara…"
"It… let you go." Chakwas did not want to go into details now, clearly sensing that the asari was not yet capable of perceiving them normally.
"I… feel strange. I remember the impact. The floor traded places with the wall and I… lost consciousness," the asari whispered. "Who are you?"
"A doctor. My name is Karin," Chakwas replied simply and clearly, reading the instrument deck's indicators out of the corner of her eye but focusing most of her attention on the patient's examination.
"I… I don't feel underwear or clothing on me. You…"
"When the ship struck the ground, you were seriously injured, Benezia. I operated on you. That's why you're covered by this drape now." Chakwas touched the light, sturdy fabric of the covering.
"I wasn't alone inside… the Reaper…"
"Saren Arterius is here too, in the Med Bay." Chakwas held up a mirror for the asari. "Don't turn your head—just look…"
"He…" The asari looked in the mirror at the sleeping turian and looked away. "Also…"
"Yes. Injured," Chakwas confirmed. "He fell too. I had to operate on him as well. Right now he's asleep. Deeply. And he can't hear you…"
"I… feel strange, Karin." At last the matriarch's gaze gained clarity and grip. "My vision… is back. I can see you clearly now."
"Glad to hear it," Chakwas replied. "As for how you feel… you've come out from under the Reaper's influence, Benezia. And very soon you'll regain your former freedom and wholeness."
"But… I was convinced that…" the asari said timidly.
"It's impossible to break free of a Reaper's indoctrination," Chakwas said calmly and quietly. "Everything is relative, Benezia."
"How do you know me, Karin?" The asari's gaze clearly showed astonishment.
"I'm an officer of the Systems Alliance Navy Medical Service. And you're aboard a military combat scout ship. It wasn't hard to look you up."
"And you know now…" the matriarch continued.
"A lot," the doctor did not deny. "About you. And about him." Karin glanced toward Saren.
"May I ask you, Karin. I would like you to…" Benezia, as the medic understood, quite predictably grew embarrassed. The embarrassment was understandable: men and women of different species, and asari who considered themselves sexless, did not want to be seen "half-dismantled" or "dismantled." And that "dismantled" state was so ordinary for patients in hospitals and infirmaries.
"He's asleep, Benezia. But if you want." Chakwas pressed a few sensors on her wrist omni-tool—and Saren's bed was separated from the rest of the Med Bay by a screen.
The asari calmed down a little.
"He… He tried to choke me more than once…" Benezia said quietly. "And now I remember it… especially clearly. He… He almost killed me… Several times he tried to kill me. And I knew, and I know now—that terrifying giant ship demanded it of him. Saren… became that ship's slave. And then… I became its slave too…" The asari matriarch closed her eyes and fell silent for several minutes.
Chakwas was somewhat surprised that an asari elderly even by her species' standards not only woke quickly enough but spoke so many words aloud.
And she remembered, the moment she came to, a great deal—Karin was not merely sure of it, she was convinced.
Benezia opened her eyes; her gaze touched the doctor's face.
"You… operated on me?"
"Yes," Chakwas nodded. "Our ship is small. I'm a trauma surgeon."
"I don't understand. What happened?" The asari's gaze swept the Med Bay. "We're both here… so we've probably been here a long time?"
"Yes," Chakwas confirmed. "You were unconscious for a long time. Both of you."
"So he… is free of the Reaper's influence too?" the asari asked barely audibly.
"Yes. Just like you, Benezia," Chakwas answered.
"But…" the asari hesitated. "That means…"
"It means you couldn't be responsible. And you can't answer for actions taken under such," here the ship's doctor made a particular emphasis noticeable to the patient, "pressure. And we have no desire to hand you over to the law enforcement of the Asari Republics. Or the Turian Hierarchy. There are no grounds for that. And there's no possibility—you're undergoing treatment. And it will be… quite long."
"So what happened?" The matriarch seriously intended to get an answer.
Chakwas sighed almost imperceptibly. She did not want to tell the matriarch at once what had happened on Eden Prime.
Benezia did not take her eyes off the doctor's face and understood that she was hesitating.
"I remember, Karin, we had to take the Beacon from the planet. That's what the ship's pilot wanted. And we… had to obey. We… witnessed how the ship traveled through the galaxy toward the planet. The pilot called the planet something—some kind of code or cipher. But… we had no real way to understand what planet it was or where it was located."
"It was Eden Prime. One of the first human colonies. An agricultural planet. With Prothean artifacts," Chakwas said honestly.
The asari went cold.
"We… ended up in territory under humanity's control?" she exhaled.
"You could put it that way," Chakwas confirmed. "Either together—or separately—you two couldn't have done anything anyway, as I understand it. Neither to oppose, nor to help. So consider that both of you were powerless, forced passengers of that ship. The pilot decided everything."
"But why… Why did we end up…" the asari struggled to form her question, and Chakwas did not hurry her. "Why did we suddenly end up…"
"The ship's pilot was collecting Prothean Beacons. Most likely across the galaxy. The Beacons contained a warning. About a great danger." Chakwas recalled the images transmitted to her by the frigate's electronic warfare section—the images the archaeologists and the marines guarding the scientists had already seen.
The doctor remembered her conviction that this was far from all the information contained in the Beacon. Perhaps more could be extracted—with time, of course.
"The ship's pilot didn't want that warning to be received and understood," Chakwas continued. "So he approached Eden Prime in secret. We managed to detect his movement through humanity's area of responsibility. We managed to note his approach to Eden Prime. And we managed to prevent the Beacon's removal."
Glancing at the patient and the overhead instrument display, Chakwas convinced herself that the asari—if not recovering astonishingly fast—was nevertheless returning to a significant norm, and continued.
"And…"
"We had to stop the ship's attempt to leave the planet. With shipboard—and not only shipboard—weapons. The result was the ship falling onto Eden's surface. Both of you were pulled out of the 'shrimp.'"
"The Reaper," the matriarch corrected.