Awkward to explain, yes, I know that very well. But yours sounds worse by far - I can't imagine...

[how it happened, what it must have been like, though he trusts that he isn't being lied to - not when he thinks of Sand's earlier explanations. Not when he remembers how many people are sleeping in tubes high above the planet.

A brief touch to the man's hand - fleeting, he tries not to linger too much in case he seems uncomfortable with it]

And after those years? Or before them...?