I told her of my fight in the Blind Pig, and of my conversation with the CC that led to the pseudo-experiences still so fresh in my mind.  I told her the CC had explained it as a cure for depression, which it was, in a way.  But I found it impossible to come right out and tell her that I'd tried to kill myself.  Is there a more embarrassing admission one can make?  Maybe some people would think nothing of it, would eagerly show off what the experts called hesitation marks-scars on the wrist, bullet holes in the ceiling; I'd been doing a little reading on the subject while sequestered in Texas.  If suicide really is a cry for help, it would seem reasonable to be open and honest in revealing that one had attempted it, in order to get some sympathy, some advice, some commiseration, maybe just a hug.

Or some pity.

Am I simply too proud?  I didn't think so.  I searched through my motives as well as I was able, and couldn't discern any need for pity, which is what I'd surely get from Callie.  Perhaps that meant my attempts had actually been motivated by depression, by a desire simply to live no longer.  And that was a depressing thought in itself.

I eventually wound down, leaving my story with a rather obvious lack of resolution.  I'm sure Callie spotted it right away, but she said nothing for a while.  I know the whole thing was almost as difficult for her as it was for me.  Intimacy didn't seem to run in the family.  I felt better about her than I had in years, just for having listened to me as long as she had.

She reached behind the cooler and brought out a can of something which she poured on the fire.  It flared up immediately.  She looked at me, and grinned.

"Rendered b-saur fat," she said.  "Great for barbecues; gets the fire blazing real quick.  I've used it on the meeting fires for eighty years.  One of these days when he provokes me enough, I'll tell David about it.  I'm sure he'll love me in spite of it.  Will you toss some more of those logs on the fire?  Right behind you, there's a pile of them."

I did, and we sat watching them blaze.

"You're not telling me something," she said, at last.  "If you don't want to, that's your business.  But you're the one who wanted to talk."

"I know, I know.  It's just very hard for me.  There have been a lot of things going on, a lot of new things I've learned."

"I didn't know about that memory-dump technique," she said.  "I wouldn't have thought the CC could do that without your permission."  She didn't sound alarmed about it.  Like practically all Lunarians, she viewed the CC as a useful and very intelligent slave.  She would concede, along with everyone else, that it was a being devoted to helping her in every possible way.  But that's where she parted company with her fellow citizens, who also thought of the CC as the least intrusive and most benevolent form of government ever devised.