Lanier followed Mirsky into the suite’s small informal sitting room. The Russian tried out a stylish and neutral chair—neutral in that it did not possess traction cushions or any other field effect. He bounced on the centuries-old cushions, still pliant, and shook his head with mock sadness. “I was such a mess when I left this place, this starship,” he said. “I had lost much of my personality, or so I thought…very confused. I remember one thing clearly, however.”

Lanier cleared his throat. Mirsky’s long stare was unnerving.

“My admiration for you. I found you an incredible force. You faced all from the beginning, and did not…crack?”

Lanier shook his head slowly, not quite denying that he had kept his sanity. “Those were hard times.”

“The worst. I can hardly believe what I am now came out of those times, those circumstances. But this evening, I feel this urge to talk, and I want to talk more with you. You and I are not much alike, most would say, but I see similarities.”

“Even now?”

Mirsky’s face became bland. “You are not enthusiastic. I fear you have come to the end of your rope.”

Lanier barked a laugh. “Yes,” he said. “How true.” Softly.

“You know, a man reaches the end of his rope, he falls off.”

“Hangs himself, actually,” Lanier said. “That’s the clichè.”

“But a dog, he reaches the end, bites the rope…he’s free.”

“Old Russian wisdom?”

“Hardly,” Mirsky said, still bland. He did not quite look at Lanier, not quite away from him. He seemed a kind of pudding into which one could comfortably fall, to live a life of vanilla and sleep. The itch to confess flared.

Lanier sat opposite him, trying to revivify that fluid body motion of his youth, just to compete with this avatar. Competition not being practical, but—

“All right,” he said. “I’m tired. I’ve lived too long. You’ve lived out a universe and you’re not bored or tired.”

“Yes, but I have been bored and tired in ways I cannot see clearly now. Exhausted by failure. We who went down the Way failed miserably, and it cost us in ways…well, it cost dearly. We were scarred. We suffered what I can only call an ego-loss, and that alone was almost enough to bring us to self-extinction. When you exist in a nullity, ego-loss is like loss of blood. We nearly sapped ourselves away.” Mirsky rested his hands on his thighs and splayed his fingers, examining them as if looking for dirt or hangnails. Almost shyly, he asked, “Are you curious about me, what I am now?”

“We’re all curious,” Lanier said, again softly, gently, as if not to disturb Mirsky’s enchanting blandness.

“I am back to my old self, mostly. Sometimes I do not control my capabilities, and that is when what I must do exceeds the comprehension of my old self.”