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Tozik is going to meet final death here. It is a statement of fact, a fact he had known since he learned of his contact affliction. It is a fact he had known since the beginning. There are things that must be done and qou who must survive. And there are ones that must not. He knows this. The qou with him, all the qou still in the Embassy, they must survive. And so he must not. It is not an exchange, not in the traditional sense. He is not making it out, he has no life to give in exchange for another's.
But still. He will die now, now and not later. Though the time does not matter. Bozko will survive this. Even though he had sworn to come back for Tozik, he would make it out. Tozik would ensure it. Akizet, Gakvu, Cavik, they will escape. He can only hope they will not die once out of his sight. He supposes that now, in the face of final death, it should not really matter to him whether or not his friends survive. (It does and they will and they must)
Everything comes in bursts now—thought, movement, noise.
He wonders, briefly, if he will feel the pain, or if it will be lost in the haze of his affliction. He hopes it will hurt. Akizet may consider his allowance of true pain odd, but the sensations ground him, in a way. A feeling associated with the damage. An ache to mark that time, that version of himself. That was the appeal. It just makes sense.
They are worth the pain.
His body is already starting to fail him, something rotting him from the inside out. But he can still force his limbs to move.
They are worth it.
He is terrified of dying. It is a familiar fear, one of the many things he could not leave behind with his larval life. He knows it will not help him, fear has never saved anyone, but it is his, and he carries it. It coils in him now. But he accepts it. Lets it settle into the empty spaces left by everything else he has already surrendered.
He will not stop now.
But he has already taken enough valuable blinks to reflect. It is time.
He has a broadcast to make.