Far down the gallery, Ann was standing before another window: spellbound, or else too exhausted to move. Or part of her did want to talk.

Sax stopped before her.

“I want to get your impressions of it,” he said. “Your suggestions for what we might do next. And I have some, some, some areological questions. Of course it could be that strictly scientific questions aren’t of interest to you anymore—”

She took a step toward him and struck him on the side of the face. He found himself slumped against the gallery wall, sitting on his butt. Ann was nowhere to be seen. He was being helped to his feet by the two young women, who clearly didn’t know whether to cheer or groan. His whole body hurt, more even than his face, and his eyes were very hot, stinging slightly. It seemed he might cry before these two young idiots, who by trailing him were complicating everything enormously; with them around he could not yell or plead, he could not go on his knees and say Ann, please, forgive me. He couldn’t.

“Where did she go?” he managed to say.

“She really, really doesn’t want to talk to you,” the tall one declared.

“Maybe you should wait and try later,” the other advised.

“Oh shut up!” Sax said, suddenly feeling an irritation so vehement that it was like rage. “I suppose you would just let her stop taking the treatment and kill herself!”

“It’s her right,” the tall one pontificated.

“Of course it is. I wasn’t speaking of rights. I was speaking of how a friend should behave when someone is suicidal. Not a subject you are likely to know anything about. Now help me find her.”

“You’re no friend of hers.”

“I most certainly am.” He was on his feet. He staggered a little as he tried to walk in the direction he thought she had gone. One of the young women tried to take his elbow. He avoided the help and went on. There Ann was, in the distance, collapsed in a chair, in some kind of dining chamber, it seemed. He approached her, slowing like Apollo in Zeno’s paradox.

She swiveled and glared at him.

“It’s you who abandoned science, right from the start,” she snarled. “So don’t you give me that shit about not being interested in science!”

“True,” Sax said. “It’s true.” He held out both hands. “But now I need advice. Scientific advice. I want to learn. And I want to show you some things as well.”

But after a moment’s consideration she was up and off again, right past him, so that he flinched despite himself. He hurried after her; her gait was much longer than his, and she was moving fast, so that he had to almost jog. His bones hurt.

“Perhaps we could go out here,” Sax suggested. “It doesn’t matter where we go out.”