“It’s hard to fight in silence.”
—Irfan Qasad
“Where the hell have you been?” Tan demanded as Kendi entered Salman’s living room. “I’ve got ten people out looking for you.”
“Where’s Ben?” Kendi interrupted. “Did he come back yet?”
“He went upstairs before we could finish bawling him out, love,” Salman said from her place on the couch. “I’ve been talking to Ched-Theree, and we have the military—what’s left of it—sweeping the system for that ship, but it’s like finding a single leaf on an entire talltree.”
“We’ve got barely two hours before that signal has to go out,” Tan growled, “and you and Ben decide to disappear for—”
But Kendi was already heading up the stairs. The door to his and Ben’s room was closed. Kendi stood outside for a long moment, then firmed his jaw and entered.
Ben sat in a chair by the window, caught in fading amber sunlight. Both Ara and Evan lay asleep in the exact center of the bed. The windows were all shut and the room felt stuffy. Kendi quietly shut the door.
“Let me tell you what you were thinking,” Ben said without looking at him. “You were thinking about how much I hate Sufur and how you found me in the ruins of the house not long before he was murdered. You were thinking that since I set up the cameras around Sufur’s house, I could easily take them off-line. You were thinking that I slipped out during Grandma’s party, broke into Sufur’s house, and killed him with Mom’s neuro-pistol. Or maybe I just killed him when I went to his house with Lucia. That would be why I told her to wait outside. You were thinking I’m one of the few people whose hands don’t shake after firing a neuro-pistol set to kill.” He finally turned and faced Kendi. “You were thinking I broke my promise and that I killed a slimy, disgusting creature who deserved to die.”
“Ben, I’m sorry,” Kendi said. “I’m so sorry. But I had to know if the pistol was still there, and—”
It was the wrong thing to say. Ben’s face set into a mask of stone and he walked out of the room. Kendi stood there, filled with wretched uncertainty. All the clues pointed in Ben’s direction, but Kendi didn’t want to believe that Ben would break a promise and lie to him. He caught up with Ben in their room and grabbed Ben’s hand.
“Tell me you didn’t kill Sufur and I’ll believe you,” he said.
“So you have to ask,” Ben said.
“Ben—”
“I. Didn’t. Kill. Him. Is that enough?”
Kendi nodded. “I believe you.”
“Fine.” But it clearly wasn’t.
Long pause. “They still have Gretchen and all those other people,” Kendi said. “We need to find that satellite and that ship.”
“Yeah?” The hostility in Ben’s voice remained. “How the hell are we going to do that?”
And Kendi lost it. All the weeks and months of being careful around Ben, of holding his tongue for fear of making Ben shut down, of being so careful and patient and understanding every moment—all of it smashed out into the open and rushed at Ben.
“You know what, Ben?” he snarled. “I’m really sick of this. I’m sick of the way you pick fights without picking fights, I’m sick of walking on eggshells around you, and I’m goddammed sick of solving all the problems around here.” His voice rose and he made no attempt to hold it down. “Who got our kids back? Me. Who figured out it who was trying to kill us? Me. Who caught on to Petrie’s plot? Me. Who negotiated the game contract? Me. So who has to find Gretchen before Sufur’s lackeys vacuum-dry her corpse? Apparently me. No one seems to have a fucking clue about what to do, but that’s okay—good old Kendi will pull a trick out of his ass, don’t you worry. Hell, no one even has to say thank you.” Kendi was shouting now, his face contorted. “I’m sick of playing hero and I’m sick of playing the detective and I’m sick of the people who are supposed to be helping me always needing me to help them. For months I’ve been watching what I say and what I do around you, and you still get pissed at me. So maybe I should stop watching what I say. Or maybe I should just—just—”
And there he stopped. Some things shouldn’t be said, even in the middle of white-hot anger. Ben’s face had turned to stone. Every muscle in his neck and jaw stood outlined in stark, pale flesh. Kendi spun around, gulping in great breaths and trying to regain control. He heard Evan crying in the nursery up the hall, but for once he ignored the sound. Harenn or Lucia could handle it.
After several moments, Kendi’s heart slowed and he no longer felt like he was going to explode. Behind him, Ben hadn’t said a word. Kendi turned around. He hadn’t stirred from the chair. Of course he hadn’t. Kendi fought the urge to grind his teeth.
“Gretchen,” he said finally. “We have to find Gretchen. And I do have an idea.”
Ben’s only response was to relax his jaw. Kendi sat on the bed a fair distance away from him. “You said you called up both the logarithmic code and the coordinates for the ship and the satellite on Sufur’s computer, right?”
“Right,” Ben said shortly.
“That means you at least saw them, and that means the information is still somewhere in your head. All we have to do is find it.”
“And how will we do that?”
The tension between them was so thick, it was almost visible, like a dirty fog hanging in the air. Kendi plunged on.
“You’re not a Child of Irfan, so you didn’t get the full mnemonic training at the monastery, but you’ve had the basics,” he said. “Enough to do independent contract work. Your short-term recall is good enough to let you run letters and basic documents to other planets, but you’re not certified to handle complex stuff like bank transfers and computer codes.”
“Where is this going, Kendi?” Ben said impatiently. “I know what my limitations in the Dream are.”
“The point is that we have a basis for getting those codes back,” Kendi said. “For most Silent, including me, the information we transmit through the Dream fades within a day. We read it in the solid world, hit the Dream, relay it to another Silent, and forget it. If you were a fully-trained Child, you could simply recite what you saw on the screen because your short-term memory wouldn’t have let go yet. But you aren’t fully trained.”
“Meaning the information is gone.”
“Meaning we just have to dig for it. In the Dream.”
“It won’t work.”
“We have to try, Ben. Unless you have a better idea.”
Ben shot him a hard look, then shrugged. “All right. We can try. Meet me on my turf.” He produced a dermospray from the dresser and all but flung himself down on the bed. Kendi retrieved his spear and his own dermospray. Ben injected himself and shut his eyes without giving Kendi another glance. Kendi’s temper rose again and he found it hard to relax, even with the drug’s help. He lost track of time, and it was quite a while before he found himself gliding on falcon wings through hot desert air. Far below lay the Outback. Kendi caught an updraft and cast out his mind. It took only three seconds to find Ben, and one second to sense the anger in his mind. Kendi’s own temper rose in response. A dust devil whirled into existence beneath him, and Kendi beat his wings quickly to avoid it. Stupid. Thought became reality in the Dream, and unfocused anger took...unhealthy forms.
Outback sand butted up against a hard tile floor. Kendi glided along the boundary and reached out to Ben’s mind. ~May I approach?~
~You may.~ Ben’s mental voice was flat.
Kendi crossed the border and swooped downward. A ceiling faded into existence over him and he reflexively dropped lower still. Ben stood in the center of an enormous room filled with electronic equipment. Organic data processing units wound up toward the ceiling, twisting in green-blue spirals. Data scrolled across holographic displays arranged neatly on shiny steel counters. Magnetic fields pulsed, lights flashed, metal gleamed. Transmission lines and data portals gaped in all directions, transmitting and receiving data at impossible speeds. Kendi dropped to the floor next to him and took the shape of a kangaroo.
“Let’s get this started,” Ben said. “I checked the time and we have fifty-three minutes to transmit Sufur’s code.”
“Right.” Kendi leaned back on his tail. “I decided to try this here in the Dream because you’re already in a trance when you’re here. We just need to push you a little deeper and you should be able to come up with what we need.”
“Fine. What’s the first step?”
“I’m new to this, too,” Kendi said, trying to keep his temper from rising again. Ben wasn’t being helpful. It was almost as if he wanted to fail. “I think you should try sitting down.”
Ben raised a hand over the floor. The tiles softened and moved like warm clay, and a lounge chair rose out of them. It solidified with a noise like someone clenching a fistful of mud. Ben sat in the chair and it reclined back so he was looking up at the ceiling.
“Close your eyes and relax,” Kendi instructed. “Breathe deep and even...deep and even...your legs are relaxed...very relaxed...your torso is—”
“I don’t need a lesson in relaxation, Kendi,” Ben interrupted.
“All right,” Kendi said through clenched teeth. “Why don’t you relax yourself and then raise a hand when you’re ready.”
Ben didn’t answer. Kendi waited. The computer terminals around him flickered and flashed unintelligible code. The air was still and a little chilly, despite Kendi’s fur coat. He waited. His legs started to ache from lack of motion and he shifted position slightly. Ben’s eyes popped open.
“How can I relax when you keep making all that noise?” he said.
“Ben, I was only—”
“Why don’t you turn into a...a blackfly or something? Then maybe I can—”
The anger roared over Kendi again, and this time he gave in. He reached out with his mind and shoved. Ben’s turf vanished with a thunderclap, replaced by the featureless plain. Ben’s chair disappeared as well and Ben landed flat on his back. Kendi shoved again and the Outback exploded into being around them. Thunder rumbled in the distance and uncharacteristic clouds blackened the sky.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ben shouted.
“I’ve had it with you,” Kendi yelled back. The wind rose. “If you want a fight, you’ve got one!”
A dust devil sprang out of the ground and rushed at Ben. Ben’s hand snapped up in a defensive gesture and a rocky wall shot upward in front of him. The dust devil dashed itself to pieces against the stones. Kendi stamped a powerful hind leg and the earth rumbled beneath him. Cracks sprouted and spread over the wall until it crumbled to rubble. Ben snatched at empty air, and a giant rocky hand formed out of the ground under Kendi’s feet. It grabbed for him. Kendi sprang into the air, but the hand caught his tail with a jerk that wrenched his spine. Kendi’s form blurred and he became a falcon. He left two tail feathers in the stony grasp behind him as he clawed for altitude. The hand grew an arm that grew upward right behind Kendi. He stole a glance behind him and saw the rocky fingers grasping for him. Kendi changed direction, fled sideways. The arm lengthened and hand followed him, leaving him no time to breathe or think. When had Ben learned this kind of control?
Kendi dove back toward the ground. The hand followed, its arm making a U-shape behind him. Kendi pulled in his wings and increased the speed of his dive as he headed straight for Ben. Only then did Ben realize what was happening. Kendi pulled out of his dive and shot to the left in a maneuver that left his wing muscles sore. The hand crashed into the ground where Ben was standing. A cloud of dust rose, then cleared, revealing that the fingers had spread open, forming a five-barred cage that surrounded Ben instead of crushing him. Ben gestured and the hand crumbled to dust, but Kendi’s mind was already moving. The skies opened up, releasing a torrential rainstorm. Water gushed across the rocky ground, creating a flash flood. Kendi landed on a house-sized boulder, his feathers soaked through. The raging water rushed toward Ben. Ben snapped a motion at the ground, his red hair plastered to his skull. The earth around him rumbled open and dropped away, leaving Ben standing on an island in the middle of a great sinkhole. The flood waters rushed into the pit and swirled around Ben’s island, leaving him untouched. Then Ben raised a fist in a gesture Kendi recognized as one Ara used to make. He leaped away from the boulder just in time to avoid the lightning bolt that crashed into the rock behind him. Bits of hot stone stung him, and the thunderclap sent him tumbling forward, his wet falcon feathers unable to get a good hold on the air. Desperately he changed shape again, becoming a wood duck. Was Ben really trying to kill him? He didn’t believe it.
Another lightning bolt blasted down from the sky, sizzling the air only a winglength away. Another crash of thunder boomed against Kendi’s bones, knocking him nearly senseless. He was falling. In a haze of semi-consciousness, he angled himself toward Ben’s island. With one final burst of strength, he crashed-landed on the stony ground at Ben’s feet.
Now use the lightning, he thought, staring up at a giant-sized Ben.
Ben hesitated, looking down at Kendi. Rain poured down around them and the water swirled angrily in the sinkhole. In a flash of inspiration, Kendi changed shape one more time. Abruptly Ben was standing over an enormous leathery crocodile. Ben started to react, but then there was a flash of movement from the crocodile and he froze. The scene remained a motionless tableau—man, rain, crocodile. The crocodile’s head was tilted upward, its jaws not quite closed.
“You wouldn’t,” Ben said.
“Guh wuh,” Kendi said.
There was a pause. “What?” Ben said.
“Guh. Wuh.”
“Give up?” Ben made a choking sound Kendi couldn’t identify. “Didn’t...didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full?”
A laugh rose in Kendi’s belly and he snorted hard in an attempt to keep it in. If he laughed now Ben would lose his—
The choking sound from Ben intensified. Kendi could feel him quivering at the end of his snout. Ben was laughing, too.
“All right, you win,” he gasped. “Now let go of my...just let go.”
Kendi released his hold. Still laughing, Ben stepped back and adjusted his trousers. There was a small tear just below the belt line.
Kendi smacked his lips together. “Mmmmm. Tastes just like ch—”
“Hey!” Ben interrupted, and then started laughing again. Kendi started to make another remark and ended up bursting into a laughter of his own. The noise mixed with the sounds of pouring rain and swirling brown water.
“I can’t...can’t...” Ben gasped, and sat down hard as yet more laughter overtook him. Kendi’s form blurred and shifted until a koala bear lay giggling on the wet, slippery stone. The sight made Ben laugh all the harder. Kendi felt the tension that had been growing between them melt like ice in hot chocolate.
“Can you...at least...shut off...the rain?” Ben asked between laughs.
Kendi blew up at the sky. The rain stopped and the clouds whisked themselves away, revealing a perfect azure sky. A bright, golden sun shone over them, and the flood water drained away. Ben finally quieted. He scooted next to Kendi and put a hand on the damp brown fur covering his head.
“I’m sorry, Ken,” he said. “I guess I’ve been acting like a prima donna lately.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Kendi said. “I should have known you wouldn’t break your promise.”
“I wish...” Ben trailed off.
“You wish what?”
“I wish you could be human in the Dream. It’d be weird to kiss a koala bear.”
Kendi laughed again. “We’re good for hugging, though. Even with these claws.”
And Ben hugged him. It was decidedly odd. From Kendi’s perspective, Ben was as tall as a tree, his arms as thick as branches. He smelled like rainwater and sunshine. Kendi burrowed close to Ben’s chest and let Ben’s arms surround him. For a long moment he had no worries and everything was as it should be. He never wanted to move again. At last Ben set him down.
“Let’s try those codes again,” he said.
They banished the Outback and called up the computer lab. Ben lay in the lounge chair, closed his eyes, and relaxed. It was almost ridiculously easy. Koala-Kendi spoke softly, putting Ben into a deep trance. He took Ben back to the night he and Lucia had broken into Sufur’s house.
“And now you’re standing in front of Sufur’s desk,” Kendi said. “The computer is on, the data display hovering over the pad. The logarithm program activates and it generates a code. You can see the code. What is it?”
Ben rattled off a series of letters and numbers. Kendi’s own trained memory caught and held them.
“And now the computer displays the coordinates of the satellite. What are they?”
More numbers.
“And now the computer displays the coordinates of the ship. What are they?”
Still more numbers.
“And now the computer displays the communication codes Sufur transmitted to the ship. What are they?”
Ben’s brow furrowed. Kendi waited, then repeated the command. Ben didn’t respond for several heartbeats. Then he abruptly opened his eyes and sat up.
“The computer never displayed that code,” Ben said. “I never saw it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Shit,” Kendi said. “Meet you out there.” He shut his eyes. If it be in my best interest and in the best interest of all life everywhere, let me leave the Dream.
Kendi felt the butt of his spear pressing into his knee. He opened his eyes. Ben was already sitting up.
“How much time do we have?” he asked.
Kendi checked his fingernail and swore again. “They’re going to space Gretchen in less than half an hour.”
oOo
“Wake up.”
A stinging slap cracked across Gretchen’s face. She shuddered and opened her eyes. The blond man was looking down at her. The lip she had split for him was almost completely healed. He slapped her twice more.
Gretchen was cold again. She managed to turn her head and discovered she was lying in the cryo-unit. Again. Her body ached from the hit with the gravity beam. How long ago had that been? She didn’t know. Her sluggish mind wasn’t working right.
The blond man grabbed her by the arm and hauled her out of the cryo-unit. Her legs were shaky and wouldn’t support her. She slumped to the ground and sprawled there. It was warmer out here. She drank in the heat and let herself shiver to warm herself up further.
“We didn’t get the signal,” the blond man said. “That means we get to space you and all the other Silent freaks. Then we’re going to slip it all the way back to SA.”
“Boomer,” said the dark-haired woman. She was standing a few paces away. “This is a bad idea. You’ve seen how dangerous she can be.”
“Shut up, Peg,” Boomer shot back. “The bitch clocked me fucking twice. So now she’s gonna pay for it.”
“You got nothing to complain about,” Gretchen managed. “Improved your looks.”
Boomer grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back. The room spun crazily. It wasn’t the same cargo bay as before. This place was at least three times bigger, and the walls were painted an ugly lime green. Over two dozen cryo-units made a line of coffins across the floor in front of a cargo door big enough to drive a loader through. Gretchen’s captors must have shoved her back into cryo-sleep and transferred her over here. Wherever “here” was. Gretchen looked defiantly up into Boomer’s eyes.
“I get it,” she said. “Power trip. You’re supposed to space the hostages, but you want me to be awake for it so I can suffer, that it?”
Boomer yanked Gretchen’s hair hard enough to make her eyes tear up. “We crack open the door and I get to watch your blood boil. Should be a fun fifteen seconds.”
“What about them?” Gretchen asked. Her mind was waking up now, and although it felt as if knives were driving through her every muscle, she could move them. “The cryo-units are tight. They’ll survive in space just fine. Or are you going to wake them up, too?”
Boomer released his hold on Gretchen’s hair so fast, she dropped to the deck plates again. Her muscles screamed pain at her.
“Gonna crack ‘em open,” Boomer said. “They won’t feel it when the vacuum hits. But you will.”
Gretchen’s eyes darted around the cargo bay. There had to be a weapon, a tool, something she could use. Her gaze fell on the gravity beam holstered on Peg’s hip. Peg, however, was too far away for a surprise grab. Boomer seemed to be unarmed. Gretchen lay on the floor, feigning greater weakness than she felt.
“What’s in it for you, anyway?” she gasped, trying to keep him talking. “Why space all these innocent people?”
“Mr. Sufur’s orders,” Boomer said. “We didn’t get the signal, which means the jig is up. Sufur is either dead or arrested, and the Corridor is done for. He still wants as many of you Silent freaks as dead as he can arrange, so we get to kill you.”
“Boomer,” Peg warned. “We have shit to do.”
“I’m not Silent,” Gretchen said, getting to her knees and gasping with exaggerated effort. “I’m Silenced.”
“Silent or Silenced. Who cares?” Boomer said. “You’re still a freak.”
Gretchen got to her feet, swaying like a drunken sapling in a stiff breeze. Over Boomer’s shoulder she saw Peg tense. “You’re a shit,” she said. “No balls, either. I should know—I kicked you in them hard enough to—”
She lunged. Boomer was caught completely off-guard, and she plowed straight into him. Her momentum carried them both straight toward Peg. Her gravity beam was already in her hand, but she couldn’t hit Gretchen with Boomer in the way. She aimed for a fruitless moment, then tried to leap aside, but it was too late. Boomer smashed into her with Gretchen right behind. Peg flew backward and hit the floor with a grunt in the open doorway. Her gravity beam skittered across the tiles. Gretchen landed on top of Boomer. She kneed him in the stomach and the air whooshed out of him. Peg scrambled to her feet and ducked into the corridor outside the cargo bay. Gretchen rolled away from Boomer and her grasping fingers found the gravity beam. Boomer got his breath back and leaped at Gretchen with a snarl. Gretchen fired. The orange beam caught him square in the chest. With a scream Boomer flew backward, crashed into the wall, and slid to the floor. He landed near one of the cryo-units.
Gretchen whirled and ran for the exit, but the door slammed shut. Peg looked through the thick, round window. Her jaw was set hard as she reached down toward controls Gretchen couldn’t see. “n alarm blared, and the loader door began to grind upward.
“Peg!” Boomer screamed. “No!”
A cold breeze rose around Gretchen. Peg shrugged and spread her hands with mock sorrow. The loader door opened far enough to reveal black space, and the breeze became a wind. Gretchen’s ears popped. She raised the gravity beam and fired orange at the window. It didn’t seem to have any effect. On the other side of the window, Peg laughed.
The wind howled with hurricane force, dragging Gretchen backward. Grimly she increased the power and continued to fire. The cargo door grumbled steadily upward, and the four cryo-units closest to it were sucked out into the vacuum beyond. Boomer was screaming something incoherent. The window cracked into a spiderweb, and Peg ducked away. Gretchen fired. She couldn’t draw air into her lungs. The wind howled in her ears, but she kept firing. Her entire world shrank to keeping her balance and aiming the gravity beam. The energy indicator said the power cell was almost drained. Boomer was on his feet, staggering against the wind and moving toward her. Two more cryo-units vanished through the widening opening into space. Boomer leaped.
And then the entire door gave way with a shriek of tortured metal. It burst into the cargo bay on a fresh blast of air. Gretchen flung herself to the floor. The door sailed over her head and caught Boomer in mid-air. The wind whipped away the cloud of blood and sound of Boomer’s final scream as the door flung his half-crushed body across the bay and out the loader doors.
Gretchen tried to crawl forward against the rushing air, but her strength was giving out. It was all she could do to keep herself from being swept backward to join Boomer and the lost cryo-units. Desperately she checked the gravity beam. A tiny spark of energy was all that was left. With a flick of her thumb, she set the beam on reverse, raised a shaky hand, and fired into the hallway beyond. A green light shot from the beamer and hit the corridor wall. Nothing happened for a moment, then Gretchen felt herself being dragged forward by the beam. A cramp spasmed her hand, but she grimly kept her grip. The beam pulled her out of the cargo bay and into the corridor. Then it sputtered and died.
Gretchen rolled to her left, away from the open doorway. Peg was nowhere to be seen. The wind, focused by the tight confines of the hallway, shoved at Gretchen like a living hand. She managed to crawl to the control panel next to the door and slap the emergency close. The loader door, which was halfway open, ground back down again, more quickly than it had gone up. In a few moments, it boomed shut and the horrible wind stopped.
Gretchen lay panting in the corridor, her lungs filling with sweet, still air. She felt as if every inch of skin were bruised, and when she rubbed a hand over her face, her palm came away smeared with blood from dozens of tiny cuts and scrapes caused by flying debris. In that moment, the only thing she wanted was the chance to collapse like a rag doll.
Grimacing, Gretchen forced herself to her feet. There was no time to rest. Peg had no doubt already alerted the rest of the crew, and Gretchen wasn’t going to fool herself into thinking that Peg was the only other person the ship. Even a skeleton crew would consist of at least four people. Gretchen staggered down the lime-green corridor, clutching the empty gravity beam. As she saw it, Gretchen had two options—try to hide or try to take over the ship. Although hiding had the advantage of giving her a chance to rest, it had the disadvantage of requiring her to know the layout of the ship. Trying a takeover in her current condition—wounded and unarmed—had its own set of difficulties. Dammit, why was everything in her life so hard? She wanted to howl and beat something—preferably Peg. Or Sufur.
Okay, get a grip, she told herself. You have to keep moving so the crew can’t find you. They’re probably already on their way down here. Maybe you can bluff them with the gravity beam. They won’t know it’s empty.
Gretchen reached an intersection and cautiously peered around the corner. Another empty hallway stretched ahead of her. Where the hell was everyone? She couldn’t believe Peg and the as-yet-unseen crew were willing to let her wander around the ship. So why weren’t they down here looking for her?
Hard tension stole down Gretchen’s spine. “No!” she whispered, and forced her screaming body into a run. Her heart pounded. There had to be a staircase or an elevator someplace. She had to find the bridge before—
“Attention! Attention!” said a computer voice. “The ship will enter slipspace in thirty seconds.”
“Shit!” Once the ship entered slip, it would be untraceable, destroying any hope of rescue. Peg and her crew knew that full well, which was why they were readying the ship for the jump into slipspace instead of trying to catch Gretchen. She found an elevator and slapped the control. No response. Peg must have locked her out.
Overhead, an intercom speaker chimed to life. “So there you are,” said Peg’s voice. “Don’t worry, Gretchen—we’ll come down to get you soon. Don’t bother fighting. There are eight of us up here and we’re all armed.”
Gretchen remained silent, unwilling to give Peg the satisfaction of an answer.
“Get ready,” Peg said. “We’re entering slip in five...four...three...two...”
The floor lurched, flinging Gretchen to her already bruised knees. Thunder rumbled over the ship, vibrating the plates beneath Gretchen’s body.
“What the hell?” Peg said, apparently forgetting the intercom was still open.
“Attention alien vessel,” interpolated a new voice. “This is the Bellerophon military ship Irfan’s Pride. We have you in our gravity beam and you are hereby ordered to stand down.”
“Aw, shit,” Peg said, and Gretchen began to laugh.