Geo shook his head. "I hear the sheets rustle," the woman said, smiling, "which means you either shook or nodded your head. I know from my study of the old customs that one means 'yes' and the other 'no.' But you must have patience with us who cannot see. We are not used to your people. Do you wish to talk?" she repeated. "Oh," said Geo. "No. No, I don't." "Very well," the woman said. She rose, still smiling. "I will return later." She walked to a wall in which a door slipped open, and then it closed again, behind her. He lay still on the bed for a long time. Then he turned over on his stomach. Once he brought the stump under his chest and held the clean bandages in his other hand. Very quickly he let go, and stretched the limb sideways, as far as possible away from him. That didn't work either, so he moved it back down to his side, and let it lay by him under the white sheet. After a long while, he got up, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked around the room. It was completely bare, with neither windows nor visible doors. He went to the spot through which she had exited, but could find not seam or crack. His tunic, he saw, had been washed, pressed, and laid on the foot of the bed. He slipped it over his head, fumbling with only one arm. Getting the belt together started out to be a problem, but he hooked the buckle around one finger and maneuvered the strap through with the other. He adjusted his leather purse, now empty, on his side. Then he saw that the sword was gone. An unreal feeling, white like the walls of the room, was beginning to fill him up like a pale mixture of milk and water. He walked around the edge of the room once more, looking for some break. There was a sound behind him and the tiny-eyed woman in her white robe stood in a triangular doorway. "You're dressed," she smiled. "Good. Are you too tired to come with me? You will eat and see your friends if you feel well enough. Or, I can have the food brought." "I'll come," Geo said. She turned, and he followed her into a hall of the same luminous substance. Her heels touched the back of her white robe with each step, but she was silent. His own bare feet on the cool stones seemed louder than those of the blind woman before him. Suddenly he was in a larger room, with benches. It was a chapel, obviously of Argo because of the altar at the far end, but its detail was strange. Everything was arranged with the white simplicity that one would expect of a people to whom visual adornment meant nothing. He sat down on a bench as the woman said, "Wait here." She disappeared down another hall. Suddenly the woman returned from the other hallway, followed by Snake. Geo and the four-armed boy looked at each other, silently, as the woman disappeared again. A wish, like a living thing, suddenly writhed into a knot in Geo's stomach, that the boy would say something. He himself could not.