"When you're under attack. . .and all the things that you believed in, or wanted. . .and all your hopes, your reasons for continuing, seem to disappear. Or seem to be cut off behind you. And you're left out there. . . can't find any reason for the suffering, it makes no sense. It's impossible to remember the other parts of your existence: all you know is that. . .you're struggling, you're under attack. . .and there's not a damn thing you can do but to hold on. Try to deal with it. "Maybe I could write something out in the order of the day, if that wouldn't be resented. Go back to Chinese history, and show that their ancestors, when under attack or political repression. . .the thing they all had in common were the things I mentioned earlier. The struggle to endure without knowing why, and stubbornly. . .when the logical thing to do, would have been to despair. And somehow. You know, what Prince Andrei was going through: the way he. . .was just numbed and overpowered by it all. And he couldn't find any reason or meaning anywhere. How it went beyond words or thought so that, in his heart, in the very fiber of his being, he disbelieved in all semblance of hope. "Going through the motions. . .never believing that you really have a chance for life or happiness." He massaged his brow, the fingertips out of habit stroking the rough straggle of his eyebrows. That had been the one area where the plastic surgeons had been unable to restore living hair and skin---the forehead and cranial cap. The new stuff looked real enough, but felt, especially the hair, coarse and unnatural. Flashing back, he saw in memory the thick gut of blue flame rush toward him as the ship tore apart---closing his eyes in sudden, brittle shock, striking the flames from his forehead with wild slaps of his hands..... Not that such memories retained much terror for his waking mind. It was in sleep, in the subconscious worlds beyond his control, that such images were deadly. He remembered also the first grim reawakening, the grotesque nightmare of ruinous skin and flesh before the surgeons had begun their work. The days of fever, the endless crises. He had not, like Prince Andrei near death, felt a comforting presence calling his soul from this life..... Though now at these memories he felt it shrink back, yet again, from human existence. And seek escape in his work. "And the desire to strike back, too soon, that the younger commanders are always advocating. Urging attacks that can only end in ruin..... But the impulse. Haven't I felt it? Lying there in that bed."