Frank had been stabilized in Singapore, then variously reconstructed, in a surgical odyssey funded by the old man. Frank had seen arcane facilities in the United States, ghost wings of otherwise workaday military hospitals. In one of these, shattered bone had been replaced with custom segments of calcified rattan, fastened in place with ceramic screws whose main ingredient was the primary constituent of natural bone. The result, so far, was Frank, a patchwork thing, more stitches than skin. A taut and shining mosaic, reminding her of expensively mended china.