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him.
    â€œThere’s not enough electricity to do computronic work after dark,” she murmured absently, then looked up. “Stefan, sit before you fall down.” The words were sharp.
    â€œI’m fine, just low on energy.” But he sat, his body feeling as if it was held together by strings that could snap at any moment.
    Digging into his duffel, Tazia pulled out a pack of the high-density nutrition bars he’d brought. She peeled one open and pushed it at him. “Eat.” Watching him to make sure he obeyed the order, she found some water and gave that to him after dosing it with a vitamin and mineral powder. “There’s enough drinking water that we don’t have to ration it. Tankers will be here tomorrow.”
    He drank the water, ate another bar when she gave it to him. “Have you eaten?”
    A nod. “Some of the villagers managed to put together an outdoor oven, made flatbread. I had that. I think you need these bars more than I do.”
    â€œDid you have the vitamins?” She could easily fall victim to malnutrition.
    â€œYes.” Putting aside the component she’d been working on, she thrust her hands through her hair, then dropped both her hands and her gaze. “Sorry about breaking down like that.”
    â€œThere’s no need to be sorry. You are human. You feel.”
    Her eyes met his, so open and heavy with sorrow. “Do you remember feeling? As a child?”
    â€œYes.” He remembered screaming and clawing at the mountains of muddy rocks that covered his family, but the memories were distant, numbed by time and his conditioning under Silence. “You should sleep.”
    â€œSo should you.” She lay down in her sleeping bag but didn’t switch off the lantern until he’d finished his meal. “Good night.”
    â€œGood night,” he said, and it was the first time he’d said that to anyone as an adult. In the barracks where he’d been trained before it was decided he was too psychologically fractured to make a good soldier, they hadn’t spoken beyond that which was needed for training.
    And after that, he’d always been alone.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Tazia woke suddenly. A glance at the face of her watch, the softly glowing numerals visible in the dark, told her only two hours had passed since she went to sleep. About to close her eyes, she heard it again, the sound that had wakened her . . . No, it was a
lack
of sound. Stefan wasn’t breathing.
    Scrambling up, she fumbled for the lantern, flicked it on. When she turned the beam toward Stefan, she saw he was rigid, his hands fisted by his sides and his neck stiff. Not needing to see anything further, she dropped the lantern, causing it to blink out, and put her hands on his shoulders in an attempt to shake him free from the nightmare. “Stefan!”
    It should’ve been impossible, how fast he moved. One instant, she was crouching worried over him, and the next, she was flat on her back with him over her, one of his hands at her throat. Heart thudding, she kept her hands where they’d fallen when he flipped her. “Stefan, it’s me, Tazia.”
    His face was shadowed, but she saw him shake his head. “Tazia?”
    â€œYes.” Moving very carefully, she lifted a hand to his wrist, tugged, deliberately using his name again as she said, “Let go of my throat, Stefan.”
    A jerk and he was gone, back on his side of the tent. “I hurt you?”
    â€œNo.” Sitting up, she tried to catch her breath. “You just surprised me.”
    â€œI apologize. I should’ve warned you not to touch me in sleep.”
    â€œYou weren’t breathing.”
    â€œIt’s temporary. My brain wakes me up when my CO 2 levels get too high.”
    Such scientific words to describe the raw pain she’d seen in him—as if he were caught in the throes of a horror so terrible, it