Such as the death of his friends. Yeli Zudov this time, a member of the First Hundred he had never known well; nevertheless he went down to Odessa, and after a memorial service, a lugubrious affair during which Sax was frequently distracted by thoughts of Vlad, of Spencer, of Phyllis, and then of Ann— they returned to the Praxis building, and sat in Michel and Maya’s apartment. It was not the same apartment they had lived in before the second revolution, but Michel had taken pains to make it look much the same, as far as Sax could recall— something about Maya’s therapy, as she was having more and more mental trouble— Sax wasn’t sure what the latest was. He had never been able to deal with the more melodramatic aspects of Maya, and he hadn’t paid overmuch attention to Michel’s talk about her when the two of them last got together— it was always different, always the same.

Now, however, he took a cup of tea from Maya, and watched her go back into the kitchen, past the table on which Michel’s scrapbooks were spread. Face up was a photo of Frank that Maya had treasured long ago; she had had it taped to the kitchen cabinet by the sink, in the apartment down the hall— Sax remembered that most clearly, it was a kind of heraldic feature of those tense years: all of them struggling while the young Frank laughed at them.

Maya stopped and looked down at the photo, stared at it closely. Remembering their earlier dead, no doubt. Those who had gone before, so very long ago.

But she said, “What an interesting face.”

Sax felt a chill in the pit of his stomach. So distinct, the physiological manifestations of distress. To lose the substance of a speculative train of thought, a venture into the metaphysical— that was one thing. But this— her own past, their past— it was insupportable. Not to be abided. He would not abide it.

Maya saw they were shocked, though she did not know why. Nadia had tears in her eyes, not a common sight. Michel looked stricken. Maya, sensing something seriously wrong, fled the apartment. No one stopped her.

The others picked up the place. Nadia went to Michel.

“More and more like that,” Michel muttered, looking haunted. “More and more. I feel it myself. But for Maya. . . .” He shook his head, looking deeply discouraged. Even Michel could make nothing good of this, Michel who had worked his alchemy of optimism on all their previous reversals, making them part of his great story, the myth of Mars that he had somehow wrenched out of the daily morass. But this was the death of story. Thus hard to mythologize. No— living on after the memory died was mere farce, pointless and awful. Something was going to have to be done.

• • •