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What did you do to your hand? We should get you back to Sarah. She can fix that, you know.” Sam insisted.
    The larger boy gazed at both his hands nonchalantly, and then realized exactly what it was that Sam was referring to. He looked at the cut and frowned.
    “ When did I do that?” he muttered, more so to himself than to Sam. The smaller boy regarded him with bewilderment.
    “ I can’t feel it,” Nathan explained. “Just like this one.” He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a blistered burn on his forearm that was oozing a clear liquid. “Or this one.” He rolled up his other sleeve to expose a deep gash lined with a newly forming layer of pus. “I tried to get a hover going, and I almost had it, too. Then it started to overheat, and, well…”
    Sam contemplated the situation as he led his newest companion back to Sarah and Francis. He was sure that it was not just a coincidence – there was a pattern. Sarah was missing her sight, Sam his hearing, and it was clear now that what Nathan had lost was his sense of touch. As they reached the other members of their “house-family” as Francis had put it, and Sarah began to fix Nathan. Sam eyed the Teller warily.
    “ So what are you missing then? Taste or smell? You have it pretty easy, don’t you, compared to us. What, did they decide that a Teller was too valuable to lose a sense that really mattered?” Sam pushed accusingly. “ Why did they do this to us? You know, don’t you?”
    “ Smell , ” Francis admitted, his eyes downcast, and his thoughts and expression filled with that customary melancholy . “But it’s not what you think. You have it backwards. I don’t need to be as strong as you do. Neither does Fiona.” He braced himself mentally, shaking off the guilt that Sam had thrown his way and refocused his attention to the things he was supposed to be dealing with at the moment. “Nathan will be fine. You’ve only accomplished half of what you need to do here. Go find Fiona.”
    Sam gritted his teeth and wished that he were the same size as the blond boy so that he could slug him at that moment, without fear of repercussion, but he doubted he could resist the urge to look for the older girl long enough to make physical contact anyway. His mind immediately returned to the clustering of thoughts within the Hub.
    Sam was beginning to understand why it had been simple to find Sarah at the start, and why Nathan had been easiest to find of the two that he had been searching for there at the Hub. The Bigs had weaker links to the connection, with Nathan being the strongest so far. Having that in mind, the small boy directed his thoughts towards something vaguer, something flimsier than what he had found when his mind touched on his other companions.
    “ Fiona!” he called through the connection, but this time he was hunting for something much different, and having a better idea of what it was that he was looking for made his task that much easier. Unlike Nathan’s presence, which had been almost as solid as Sam’s own, Fiona’s was more like a shadow in the mix, weaker and less substantial. She did not reach out for him in return until he was almost on top of her.
    “ I’m here,” she finally responded, as Sam clambered his way through the obstacle course of gathered minds. He prodded at the faint link that he found there and then latched on to it with equal enthusiasm as he had to Nathan. She was not working her way through the crowd the way the broadly-built boy had been, and Sam had the better sense to skirt the shifting throng this time, not wanting to face the danger of being trampled again.
    Once they had made that connection, Sam felt a little more desperate to physically find the older girl than he had Sarah or Nathan. Fiona was not just sad or fearful – she was absolutely heart-sick, like someone had stolen everything from her and had given her very little in return. He had a feeling that she had been rather affixed to the life that she