"I'm not sure I have a soul," Re-l said. "Maybe our universes differ on that point. I certainly have a will, but it's an embodied one. I'm my body, my body is me." She considered trying to explain the cogito to him, or Swan, or Doppelganger, or even Amnesia, but then decided it was all futile. There was no way for her to put across those experiences in words.

The trek did not get any easier, even when they rejoined the trail, and they were still several hours, at best, behind the main group. Re-l let herself fall once more into the half-dazed rhythm of walking, her thoughts blurring into the horizon itself. The wind echoed around her, making its own kind of silence.