Chapter Six
Preposterous
In the sediment flats north of Craig Grayfield’s jagged home, far from
the river or any source of moisture, there was little to be found for
anyone not in a geological trade. Craig knew the flats only
vaguely even though they were quite near his home, for his business
never took him there. The only thing that ever brought him there
was the ennui that is always prone to occasionally striking someone who
lives alone and has little contact with society. Craig had
wandered through that barren place in his darkest hours and also his
dreamiest. His major decisions, such as the decision to give up
the search for love for a while, and to take up astronomy, were made on
lonely sojourns through those flats. They meant contemplation to
him, and more fundamentally, they meant great change. They had
always been the quiet buffer between all the phases of his life—and
they were about to be such again.
Craig felt a heavy presence descending near him. It was flatter
than the flats and smooth like metal. He told himself to be calm
and found it frighteningly easy, because this felt like death. It
felt like a phalanx of angels was coming for him in silent formation,
here in this joining place for his life. He stood at attention
and awaited what would come with dignity.
The cube did not land as he had expected it to, however. It came
to a resting position in the air, a distance above the gravelly ground
equal to its formidible height. Craig advanced his legs and
lowered his torso. He found himself wondering what he was
supposed to do. Then he remembered the radio.
Craig opened the machine’s case, oriented it correctly, switched it on
with a pinch of his tail, and turned it to the appropriate
frequency. Immediately it began to receive messages. Craig
lay on the receptor pad and felt once again that bizarrely intelligible
but distorted message:
“—onto the ship. You are going to have to wear it once it is
ready. Why do you weigh so many units of Weight, sillyhead?
You are no good at climbing to look at you. Prywroth does Say
that his crew did have to Land to pick up your delegation on the Other
side of your Planet. I do Hope that is not Necessary because we
do not have very much Upper Lift fuel left and I do not Know what we
will Do if we do have to Land. All right, Balallip and Derrapp’n
have almost finished with the Harness. When we Drop it please put
it On you.”
Craig stood up and faced the cube, mystified. He could detect
nothing but the fact that it was still there, blocking the wind.
He knew, though, that his job was to wait patiently, so he did.
What he was waiting for was less obvious. He had his plan: he
would assume it was a noble purpose and act accordingly. With the
wonder of the Creation Pageant still in his system, Craig was more than
willing to face this momentous event that his humble foray into
astronomy had brought about.
The air scattered. Something was hanging from the bottom of the
ship, something dangly and swaying. Unafraid but a bit confused,
Craig made his way over. He lifted his tail to touch the
material. It was rope. He tugged gently at the rope in a
few places to gather its shape, for it was much more than a single
rope. Hoping that he had understood his directions correctly,
Craig lifted his legs one at a time and slipped them into two of the
loops. He lifted his tail off the ground, something he had more
trouble doing than he had in his youth, but was still able to manage
handily, and threaded it through a third loop. He then lay
himself down on the bed of ropes before him and knew that he had done
it correctly. If this was his first test, he had passed it.
Craig Grayfield was drawn up into the cubical vessel above him.
He recorded carefully the feeling of breeze on his skin as it passed
him, knowing that he might not feel it again for quite some time.
Then the breeze was gone. All was still. The air was filled
with a strange scent. There were no longer the sounds of the open
flats, but there were a new set of sounds that he had no familiarity
with. Some were raps on a surface, like a quick animal running
by. Others were simply alien.
He started moving laterally over a smooth surface. Feeling that
he had reached solid ground or something like it, Craig unhooked
himself from his harness. Relieved of his weight, he felt the
structure go limp. The door closed behind him and the last trace
of breeze was gone.
“Where am I?” he asked, not really expecting an answer. He didn’t
get one right away. There were a few moments wherein the noises
intensified in a particular direction. All of a sudden,
someone—or something—entered the room. It was shaped bizarrely
and gave off nothing—no smell, no humidity, and nearly no heat.
It was as if a shield were protecting it from the outside world.
It also seemed to be carrying something large, heavy, and rectangular.
Craig was terrified. While he hadn’t really, genuinely expected
angels, this was worlds removed from the bliss that receiving the
message had brought him. He felt his heart working hard within
him. His emotions raced and fell over one another. He
squatted and contracted his body defensively. He was without
recourse as simply as that.
The creature halted only feet from him. To his astonishment, it
spoke to him. The words were delivered in a very strange voice,
probably though artificial means, and he had to stand back to catch the
unusual angle of the wordstream. But the words made sense: “HelLo
there, Creature! I am Jemmiut. How do you DO?”
Craig hesitated to get his bearing. One unexpected turn was
following another too quickly for him to keep up. Uncertainly, he
bowed slightly and responded. “I am scared. Please tell me
who you are.”
“I did just TELL you who am I, SILLY! My name is Jemmiut! I
am a Pommit!! I supPose maybe you did mean who am I in reLation
to You. Well that is more comPlex. I am one of a Team of
pommits who have come to Meet you. We do Want to be your
Friends!! You are now Riding on the Friendship. Welcome to
it.”
Craig folded over backwards. He backstepped two steps and halted
jerkily. “I think this is a mistake. Let me go!”
The voice was eerily without emotion. “Are you Sure you do wish
to go?? Because we really Do want only to Meet you and underStand
you. If we have made you aFraid then we are Sorry.”
“You have. I’m sorry myself, but you have. I didn’t expect
all this, all these walls, whatever you are. I can’t handle
it. I’m a simple soul.”
“You are two hundred ninety-three. You are of the Age of Wisdom.”
“What? Why is that the Age of Wisdom? I’ve never heard such
a thing. And how do you know my age? Even I’ve lost track
after all these years.”
“Well, do you Really think you could Still be Wise after turning two
hundred ninety-four? As for how did we Know, we simply did check
your Record at the Stellar Tower. They do Broadcast it to other
Towers, you know, and we simply did listen in.”
“Please. What are you? What does ‘pommit’ mean? Why
have you come for me?”
“To Answer your Three Questions,” said Jemmiut a little superciliously,
“I am a communiCations specialist, a Pommit is a beautiful creature
such as Me, and we have Come for You in Particular because you were
living aLone and had a radio to Talk to you through, and of course you
were at the Age of Wisdom. You are our First try, Craig from
Grayfield. I hope you do not refuse and leave us because that may
mean it will take a Dozen Tries to find someone willing to Talk to us
from your planet, just like it Did with Planet Earth of
Humankind. But because we cannot talk to you in Person but only
leave Messages, it will take far too Long. I think we will all
get Bored.”
“I...I’d hate for that to happen.” The word for boredom was
nearly the same as the word for angst.
“Well Good then. Then I hope you will Stay on our Ship and be our
Guest. As for why we have come for you your species in
General it is because you seem nice and Civilized enough from what we
can see and Also because you seem Funny-looking to us and we do Like
that. Why are you so Funny-Looking?”
“I assure you I have no idea,” answered Craig. He was feeling
just a little more at ease because of the creature’s own admissions of
weakness...but not much. “Will you let me go if I wish to?” he
asked faintly.
“Yes, of course we will Do that,” sighed Jemmiut. “That will mean
more Trouble for Me but yes we will let you go. Do you want to Go
alReady?”
Craig straightened himself and stilled his quivering sorza. “I
will answer your questions if you will answer mine.”
The shape jerked up slightly and came down again. “Good!
That is Quite fair I think. Would you like to come in further to
our Ship?”
Craig hesitated. “May I stay here for now?” He turned
around to get a feel for the room, which seemed to be rectangular and
filled with an assortment of unidentifiable things. This was as
good as anything likely to be found aboard an alien craft, he figured.
“You may stay here if it does Please you,” said Jemmiut. “The
rest of the ship has got a different kind of Air in it Anyway.
You would have to wear a Suit.”
“ A suit? What for?”
Jemmiut was turning away. “To protect you against the thinner
Air, silly.”
Craig was once again slipping into confusion. “Wh...why?
What’s the worst that could happen?” he asked, a little chilled.
The speaker’s voice grew in incredulity. “Sillyhead do you not
Breathe Air??”
The word for “breathe” was used a little out of place, leaving Craig in
doubt as to whether he understood. “Well...yes, of course.
The air nourishes me and builds up sorza in my body. I certainly
can do without it for a while.”
Jemmiut sounded confused when he spoke, and Craig was relieved to hear
the emotion, whatever its nature. “Well it does not matter,” he
said. “You are staying here for now. I shall now go and
rePort that you are safe to Balallip and Derrapp’n, who are holding the
Harness just past the Door. Then when we have talked for awhile
we will decide whether or not you do Need to wear a Suit, and then we
will escort you downramp to where you will meet our Other guest.”
“Wait.”
“What for am I Waiting, Silly?”
“I’ll come with you. Now. Let’s get this out of the way,
whatever it is.”
“But you will not be Safe, Critter!”
“I’ll be fine. Lead the way.”
The creature paused in its tracks, mulling it over, before saying, “All
Right then. We will allow a test for you. If you are Not
doing well then please PLEASE pull on the rope from the Harness
here. Is that all Fine and Good?”
Craig blew an assertive puff at the pommit, who went over to the hatch
and closed it, and then to the door. Craig heard sounds coming
from its direction. He had no idea whether the pommit or some
machine of its was making them and what they were for. Moments
later the pommit no longer had a presence there. There was a
dispersing gust of air in the direction of the door. Craig knew
that the air he knew had flowed out the door when it was open,
occupying a less dense space. Despite his assurance of safety, he
had to wonder.
He remained perfectly still while the door was closed again and a vent
was opened over to his left and high on the wall. It was odorless
and made a loud hiss that reminded Craig of the sound of a helium
balloon being filled—or emptied. His instincts told him to
retreat to a corner, but this would be pointless, he knew. If
this experiment was the fail, better it would fail while there was
still some planetary air in the hold.
After thinking about it for a minute while he waited, Craig realized
that what the alien might not understand was that he could do perfectly
well without any air at all. As long as he didn’t go without for
years at a time, as some ancients had done to their dishonor, he would
be fine. To his mind the only question was whether this alien air
might cripple him somehow. If it acted in the reverse fashion of
normal air and ate away at his sorza, or worse, damaged his signae in
some way, he could well live to regret this decision deeply. He
still did not know what his purpose was aboard this alien ship; he was
still reeling from the knowledge that they existed at all. Yet
his life had held nothing of consequence for far too long.
Whatever the consequences of this bizarre occurrence, he would not
blame himself for allowing it to occur. Craig knew that right
then, his place was there, in that hold, getting a whiff of thin alien
air.
In truth, it didn’t feel half bad. It was a dry feeling, but
smooth. It made his body tingle under the surface, just a
little. While it certainly wasn’t going to do anything for his
sorza, Craig wasn’t afraid of this gaseous elixir from another
world. He stood erect and exulted in its pervasion of the hold.
Before he would have expected it, the alien Jemmiut was back. The
door closed with a clanking sound. Craig turned and laid himself
down facing Jemmiut, giving the alien a full measure of relaxed
attention.
“You are all Healthy?” asked the skeptical creature.
“I am,” said Craig.
“But are you SURE?”
“I am as sure as I need to be,” said Craig.
“Well, that is good enough for Gomeo. And what is good for Gomeo
is most probably good enough for Me. You may follow.”
Craig did so unquestioningly. He felt the last of the familiar,
overbearing air slip away and it felt to him almost as if he were
flying. The difference was palpable—not just to his signae, but
to his whole body. He moved more easily through the alien
spacecraft than he could remember ever moving through anything.
The presences were harder to detect, but they were there: more odd
creatures, with four legs instead of two, and wings like the fluid
creatures of the swamps that lived on tiny flying beasts. They
made sounds all the time and had a constant, unnerving smell. The
rooms went on; empty of air texture, and dry. It was as if Craig
were moving through a ghost ship. He wondered whether ghosts did
exist despite all his beliefs, and if they did, whether they were at
all likely to conquer space.
He went down a ramp that seemed vaguely rubbery. The room was
filled with large objects on the floor that deflected air without
blocking it, but Craig could not be certain as to their shape.
There was a new smell there, equally indescribable to that of the
pommits. He heard noises being exchanged above the level at which
they had been thus far; they most definitely were coming from his
hosts, which he was on the verge of conceiving as his captors.
He was not being addressed. Since he felt like waiting passively
would never provide him with the answers he needed, he followed the
unique scent. There was a large lump in the center of the room
and it had to be circumvented, but he did this without
resistance. The scent evidently belonged to a creature, because
it moved away from him. He faced it and spoke: “Do not be afraid
of me.” But he received no acknowledgement.
Then suddenly there was a cold feeling on his forward signae, a nearly
flat, oddly shaped surface against his own that did not make any effort
toward communication. He stilled himself. Not rejecting the
touch or moving into it, Craig knew that this was an alien body.
He could vaguely discern its shape, more narrow and upright than the
others. He stood while the touch abruptly backed away from his body,
but remained there only inches away. Even in the thin air he
could easily detect the shape and distance of the part that had touched
him. It had prongs on it and one of these bent forth and extended
toward him again. It gave him a rounded touch somewhat lower than
before. Impulsively, he gave the spot at which it touched a
constant, steady warmth. The rounded implement drew away.
A voice suddenly hit him from behind. He had been preoccupied
enough with the creature before him that he had not even noticed the
approach from behind of two of the horizontal aliens. “You have
met Eva Durrant,” said the voice. “Please come and rest on one of
the eating mounds.” They signaled a desire that he follow and
faded away behind him.
Craig went to one of the mounds. He gathered that he was expected
to lie against it much as they seemed to be doing at their own mounds,
but of course he refused. He would not block off sensation from
one side of his body with that smooth, dead, metallic coolness,
especially not with his senses already registering so faintly.
The creatures did not seem to mind unduly. With the hubbub he was
finding typical of them, they arranged themselves around the room at
various and grew still.
One, a large specimen, remained by the central unit which was the focal
point of the room. Craig was able to detect some of its
motion. It seemed to him that the creature, which was tailless,
was instead using its front pair of legs to open a compartment in the
great mound and extract something. Indeed, it extracted a great
many things. Craig felt a burst of cold air when the compartment
was opened, and a dulling of that feeling when it was closed again.
It had become more or less silent. He waited without comment or
motion while the alien being walked around to all its fellows, a big
basket of these objects around its shoulders, and transferred one or
two things to each of them. When it came to the unusual one,
there was a pause. Some sounds transpired. Craig was
beginning to formulate a hypothesis about these sounds—that they were
being used somehow for communication. He didn’t have the luxury
of contemplating it in any depth, however, with so much to hold his
attention.
The pommit which spoke to him was back. “Craig from Grayfield, we
are asSembled here to Speak to you. However we cannot understand
the way that you do Speak.”
Craig answered back impatiently. “You understand me well enough.”
“That is because I have Studied your language for Quite some
Time. But even So, I cannot underStand you when you do Blow on me
through your silly Blowhole except when I have got on my Carapacian
reCeptor Panel. I have got on a pair of Earphones now that are
conNected to it, but I shall now REconnect it to a Speaker
machine. It will then speak to All of us.”
“What—what is your language? I mean, why is mine silly? Are
you—speaking through sounds?” A bit flustered, Craig had been put
in an extremely awkward spot.
“Yes of Course we are speaking through Sounds, Silly,” said the
pommit. “I am switching on the machine Now.” From behind
him, the pommit set down the heavy rectangular shape it was
carrying. “Please speak toward the Panel,” it explained.
Craig turned and did so, tentatively. “I am speaking,” he
said. His words gave immediate rise to a cowing release of noise
from the center of the large mound. This was echoed chillingly by
babbling responses from the creatures encircling the large mound at
their own individual stations. Craig sank low. He was
frightened and didn’t hide it.
“There, That is Better!” exclaimed the pommit, Jemmiut. “Now we
All can understand you.”
Craig didn’t know how that could be a good thing.
“I beg you,” he said. “Why did you call to me? What is the
purpose of bringing me to this council? When may I go home?”
“You did Choose to join us,” said Jemmiut. “You did not Have to
come.”
Craig answered with a placating radiation. “I came because you
are ambassadors! I had heard the tale of six people being whisked
away into the sky in Heskatat, but I reasoned it was just a local
hoax. Everyone did. They’ll say anything to get attention
there, and it’s the other side of the world! Stories get
corrupted over that distance.” He paused, sheepish. “I
came...I came to where you told me. How could I not? What
kind of a coward could get a message from the sky, a message in the
form of light!—and not respond? I have answered, strangers.
I am here. What do you want from me?”
The odd creature out stood up. Craig was surpirsed; he’d thought
it was standing already. It said something, and Jemmiut passed
along the message.
“Eva Durrant says that she is relieved to know her reaction was not out
of Place in the Universe.”
Craig smelled it—her—again. That was one smell he would not be
soon forgetting. Was this a member of ruling race, the vertical
commander of the horizontal peons? “Who—who is she?”
“Oh, she is just a Guest like yourself. She will talk to you in
fact. I will give to her my talking machine and you can have a
nice private talk later. But for now we are having our Welcoming
Lunch!”
Craig was a bit confused by this announcement. Lunch? That
was a metaphorical translation of some sort. He wasn’t expected
to understand it, was he? “What do you mean by ‘lunch?’”
“Oh that is when in the Middle of the Day you do...you do...”
Jemmiut startled Craig by giving a little leap, displacing a scattered
plane of air. “Oh, I did forget. I am Sorry. You do
not Even Ever Eat, Do you?”
Craig answered numbly in the negative. The word the pommit had
used—“eat”—meant “subsume,” a term he was sure carried more weight than
it seemed to.
“Well WE do! And we do LOVE to eat!!” Indeed, several of
the pommits changed position over their packets. Their localized
scents grew slightly more urgent—Craig couldn’t begin to guess why.
“What—please, stop! Tell me what you are talking about.
What is ‘eating’?”
Jemmiut assumed a calm posture as Craig rose to face him. “It is
when you do take Food into your own body,” he explained simply.
“Ah! And what is food?”
This comment evoked a murmur. Several of the pommits shifted
their positions ominously. Craig wondered if he was about to fail
a crucial interstellar test.
“It is usually a Edible Item that you do place in your Mouth and Chew.
You do then Swallow this chewed food and your Stomach does then break
it Down into little comPonents that your body can Use.”
“That's downright bizarre.”
The pommit’s scent changed and it shifted its weight forward.
“Well exCUSE me! I supPose then my entire Planet is bizarre then
Too!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any offense by it.” Craig
trembled, curiosity and a sense of responsibility for learning about
this alien concept welling up. “Is it addictive?”
“Well not exActly, silly. It is a requirement.”
“How... how often do you do this?”
“We do do it every day.”
“And...what happens if you don't?”
“If I Do not Eat at all ever, eVentually I will become very
MalNourished. I will not any longer produce the Energy that my
body does need in order to Operate, and I will Wither and Die.”
Craig was stunned by what he was hearing. “Say that again?”
In his slightly impatient way, Jemmiut repeated himself. Craig
could not contain his amazement.
“You...you mean to say your kind can die just by doing nothing??
All you have to do is sit back and—and not do this weird inbibing
ritual? And yet, you voluntarily "eat" things, and thus—keep your
body from dying, every single day of your lives??”
Now it was silent. “Yes of course we do,” said an amazed Jemmiut.
Craig’s sorza trembled throughout. “But...that’s sick!!” he
exclaimed.
The tall, frail creature made what could only be a statement—perhaps an
order. Craig found himself half hoping it was an order to toss
him back to firm land. He wondered how high the ship was by now,
or if it had moved at all, and really he didn’t care. He just
wanted to be away from here, from this astonishingly topsy-turvy place
where he could do no possible good.
It was half a minute before Jemmiut once again addressed him.
“Creature, do you then think that we Ought to die??”
Craig made it a policy from here on to answer honestly. “Yes, of
course, if you have the chance.”
“Why Is That, SILLY?”
“Be—because.” Craig wished the alien would stop shouting at him,
and didn’t know what else he could say. “That’s what life is all
about. Working toward death. They’re an inextricable pair
of concepts!”
There were two others creeping toward him now. Craig had to
bolster his strength just to stay where he was and not bolt. They
were many times quicker than him in any case.
“You mean you do not Want to stay aLive??”
“You mean you do?”
“Course I do! It is fun to be ALIVE!”
Craig’s signae bristled in apprehension. “I’m sorry...I try to
keep an open mind about other cultures, but this is just too much.”
Here the unique creature spoke. For the first time Craig fully
understood the sounds it made as speech. Its words clearly
commanded respect, for the room’s company fell silent and those pommits
approaching sat still. When the creature had finished, Jemmiut
hesitantly translated through his machine.
“Eva Durrant says...‘It's perfectly all right. I think you
wanting to die is just as twisted. ...Now can we dispense with
the judgemental attitudes and begin the work of sorting this out?’”
Craig bowed his body.
“I think she is Right, you know. I hope you are Willing to talk
to us.” A sharp cry from the narrowest of the pommits prompted
Jemmiut to add quietly, “Teriyum has pointed out that this does exPlain
why the group we did take aboard in Heskatat all did kill themselves.”
“I just don’t understand. You work to sustain yourself through
food...is there anything else you creatures do to stay alive?”
“Of course. We do keep ourselves in good health through Chemicals
and Exercise, and of course we must take Care when handling Heavy
eQuipment in case we do Hurt ourselves.”
“Hurt yourselves?”
“Yes silly, not everyone does have skin as inCredibly tough as
You.” The creature’s foreleg moved and snapped at itself somehow,
though Craig couldn’t perceive the purpose of the gesture, unless it
was meant somehow to demonstrate...vulnerability.
“I’m afraid I just don’t understand...I don’t understand how creatures
like you could possibly evolve! I mean...shouldn’t have you died
out long ago?”
Craig found the silence that resulted for a moment unnerving, another
sign that he was beginning to understand the mindset of speech through
sound. At least not everything about these creatures was
difficult to grasp.
What followed was a new kind of noise from the beasts; not the babbling
that he had taken to characterize speech, but a high, vibrating
hum. They moved about. Some flapped their wings.
Jemmiut explained it all: “That is most hiLarious. You do think
WE are unlikely to evolve. You do not Think perhaps it is the
other way aRouund??”
“What—no. Look at the animals! Do you have other species—on
your home planet—that also act the way you do?” The thought was
almost laughable to Craig. Intelligent beings were known for
doing and believing the oddest of things, judging solely by the one
species he knew—but mere animals would never be so crazy as to desire
their own continued existence.
“Yes they most Definitely Doo,” sang Jemmiut. “That is the
Natural Way all over the Universe, most Silly Beast. As far as we
do Know anyhow.”
“How can that be? It’s preposterous!”
“I think that You are prePosterous, sillyhead.” Jemmiut now
flapped his wings slightly, and Craig wondered if that was part of his
speech as well. “Why would you ever want to Die when there is so
much that Life has to Offer You! There is So many challenges and
obstacles to enjoy and Overcome! There is Interesting People to
meet, and Goals to Achieve, and lots of Wonders and Beauty to
see! Why should you Possibly wish to Die?”
Craig was ever more humbled by the enormity of the line of
questioning. “If I don't die, what is the point of overcoming all
those obstacles and meeting all those people and goals? I'm
afraid I don't understand you.”
“What do you Mean if you do not die? Death is a solid unavoidable
fact for life. I have seen it happen Even to Your people on Your
planet when they are old enough. It will happen eVentually in ANY
case! Obviously, the point of all that would be to proLong your
life so that you could feel you have acComplished something WorthWhile
in living.”
“Of course I want to accomplish something! But why prolong life
and dilute the beauty of my accomplishments?”
“DILUTE? That is a funny question. But does not more Time
give you more Chance to do what you Want in life? How can you
Ever say that you are Done living? And that you want Nothing more
to do with Anything?”
Was it really necessary for him to answer that? “When I have
found true love,” Craig whispered. “Then I am done.”
Jemmiut paused and prepared to ask another question. He was
interrupted, however, and much to Craig’s relief, by another one of the
pommits, who left his mound and communicated to Jemmiut and the others
in grand gestures and sounds. Craig huddled into himself.
He was now scared not only of the striking novelty of the experience,
and not just of the unbelievable questions about the basic nature of
life and death which had been put to him so bluntly, but also of the
way in which he had answered those questions. He had been forced,
at cruel alien fingers, to come to terms with the fact that he, Craig,
had all but given up on the primary and only way a person could justly
hope to end his life. Craig had cited “true love” without
hesitation, although it had not been without pain. If it was so
obvious, even to him, that that was how life must end, how could he
continue to live alone, simply waiting? By spinning his wheels in
the crags, was he forsaking wisdom that every schoolchild knew?
Craig was not asked any more questions. He would not have
answered them if he had been. The pommit who had interrupted the
proceedings led him back up the rubbery ramp and then another, and then
into a room that was completely inert, devoid of sound, scent, or
airflow. Craig did not attend to his surroundings along the
way. Once there, he was touched on the brow in a manner he could
only guess was meant to be empathetic, by three hard claws...and then
he was left alone. As the door closed behind him, leaving him in
the empty room, he reflected that there was no place in the world at
this moment he would rather be.
Chapter 7
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