"That's still not clear. Evidently the brother does have a history of violence; he was on probation for assaulting his mother. They've taken him in for questioning… but it could all come to nothing. If the victim's short-term memories were lost, he could have pieced together a false reconstruction of the stabbing, using the first person who came to mind as being capable of the act. And when he changed his story he might not have been covering up at all; he might simply have realized that he was amnesic."

Gina said, "And even if the brother did kill him… no jury is going to accept a couple of words, instantly retracted, as any kind of proof. If there's a conviction, it will have nothing to do with the revival."

It was difficult to argue the point; I had to struggle to regain some perspective.

"Not in this case, no. But there have been times when it's made all the difference. The victim's word alone might never stand up in court— but there've been people tried for murder who would never have been suspected otherwise. Cases when the evidence which actually convicted them was only pieced together because the revival testimony put the investigation on the right track."

Gina was dismissive. "That may have happened once or twice—but it's still not worth it. They should ban the whole procedure, it's obscene." She hesitated. "But you're not going to use that footage, are you?"

"Of course I'm going to use it."

"You're going to show a man dying in agony on an operating table—captured in the act of realizing that everything which brought him back to life is guaranteed to kill him?" She spoke calmly; she sounded more incredulous than outraged.

I said, "What do you want me to use instead? A dramatization, where everything goes according to plan?"

"No. But why not a dramatization where everything goes wrong, in exactly the way it did last night?"