“Very real,” Veena said. “But since I was saved, I thought the gods were satisfied. But I felt badly and continued to feel badly and tried to get them to stop. Then, when I was confronted with you and realized they were probably going to get rid of you, it was too much. These people have no morality. They don’t kill people themselves but think nothing of having others do it for them. All they think about is achieving their success.”

“Since you have told me your secret, I’m going to tell you mine,” Jennifer said suddenly. “I, too, was abused by my father. It started at age six. I found it very confusing.”

“I was the same,” Veena said. “It’s always made me feel guilty. Sometimes I used to think I’d brought it on myself.”

“Me too,” Jennifer agreed. “But then around the time I was nine I suddenly knew it was all wrong, and I cut my father out of my life. I guess I was lucky. I didn’t have any cultural pressures telling me I had to respect him no matter what. Of course, I didn’t have any sisters to worry about, either. I can’t imagine your situation. It must have been awful. Worse than awful. I cannot even conceive of it.”

“It was terrible,” Veena agreed. “And as a teenager I tried suicide, but it was definitely more a gesture then. I was trying to get attention, but it didn’t work.”

“You poor thing,” Jennifer said sincerely. “I used to feel sorry for myself because I thought my father had ruined me and no one would want me, but I never even thought about suicide.”

A bit more than an hour later it began to get light in the eastern sky, but Jennifer and Veena were unaware until the sun actually rose. All of a sudden they realized they could clearly see each other. They had been talking nonstop for two hours.

Emerging from the lean-to, they looked at each other’s faces and, despite the continued threat from Cal et al., they laughed. They were both a mess, with their hair in tangles and actual dirt smeared on their faces, as though they were commandos. “You look like you’ve been through a battle,” Jennifer commented, especially since Veena’s garments were as dirty as her face. Jennifer reached back into the lean-to and pulled out the bathrobe. When she shook it out, it looked every bit as bad as Veena’s clothing.

As they walked back through the colony, other people were just emerging from the rickety, impermanent shelters. There were mothers with infants, fathers with toddlers, children, and old people.

“When you see this, doesn’t it make you sad?” Jennifer questioned.

“No,” Veena said. “It’s their karma.”

Jennifer nodded as if she understood, but she didn’t.