Dextera flicks his gaze from the person to Emet-Selch—a few times, actually, the resurfacing of a nervous tic. Luckily, his necessitated silence means that it’s not immediately obvious if he’s obscuring information or just thinking of a way to express it.

He was told not to touch the infected individuals and so he instead tries to play a morbid game of charades. He motions for Emet-Selch to look, to listen, indicating the slowing heartbeat. He mimics a beating heart in his hand, until he stops twitching his fingers entirely.

Dextera can’t explain it, for obvious reasons, but they were all in that cave together. These people are really and truly dying, but what the Aions went through under similarly dire circumstances never led any of them to the end of their lives.