Patricia felt icy cold inside. She stared through the transparency in the side of Olmy's craft, watching the even tan and pale gray landscape passing below. Two personalities conflicted within; her; one, by far the stronger, forbade any motion or outward reaction. The second was a normal, fascinated, even slightly amused Patricia. If she spoke, she knew the second Patricia—the distant, uninvolved one—would try to be funny and make light of what was happening. But the first had grown to a position of control and she did not speak. She did not even move her head. She simply stared at the walls of the corridor turning and passing behind them.

"Are you hungry or thirsty?" Olmy asked. She did not answer. "Are you tired, do you need to sleep?"

Nothing.

"We'll be some time. Several days. The Axis City is a million kilometers along the Way—the corridor—now. Please let us know if you're in need. . . .”

He glanced back at the Frant but received only an outward-turning of one eye, indicating nothing to suggest.

Patricia could feel it all coming apart; all the tight-wound ambition and hope could not hold back this inevitable shattering. Her shoulders began to shake. She looked around at Olmy and quickly turned away. Her eyes seemed to float; tears gathered and broke away when she shook her head, drifting around her. She slowly raised her hands and held them before her face; the teardrops touched and spread on her fingers and palms.

All going now, all the glue going—

Her chest heaved. "Please," she whispered.

They're dead. Really gone. You didn't save them.

"Please."

"Miss Vasquez—" Olmy reached across to touch her, then drew his hand back as she flinched away.

"Ah, Jesus y Maria." Her body jerked and her legs shook with the force of her sobs. Each tore something out of her chest and pierced the dark behind her eyelids with jagged red. She clutched her shoulders with her hands and rocked back and forth in the couch, back arched, teeth clenched and lips drawn back.

Her spine reversed of its own will and she curled her chest and knees together. Is this a fit?

This is grief.

This is loss. This is awareness. This is not fooling yourself.

Olmy did not try to restrain her. He watched the woman weeping for a world lost—to his kind—for thirteen centuries. Ancient woman, ancient agony.

Patricia Luisa Vasquez grieved for dead billions and ways of living unknown to him.

"She is an open wound," the Frant said, moving forward to crouch by Olmy's shoulder. "I wish to help, but I can't."