It was amusing, that a man who had been at the forefront of so much violence could feel the social impingement of delicacy when faced with its aftermath.

"Forgive my absence, comrade."

Time, after death... a river in a dream, out of sight and at the edge of hearing, a babbled whisper that the mind's base fibers dismissed as of no consequence... Was there any way to describe it?

Perhaps only that one was careless with any quanitity that was no longer in limited supply.

"The future has never been my domain." The Sorrow smiled. "I could only make an educated guess."

He remembered the cosmonaut's face, livid with fresh burns and terrible, perhaps. The Sorrow had no basis for such judgements. They had caught eyes, at that time, and known that they had seen the same landscape.

They had had something of an understanding, after that.

"A mission?" The Sorrow tilted his head slightly, and smiled. "Do tell me what you have in mind..."