Good, she's taking it from him without a fight. Gene really hadn't wanted to press it on her, but he knew that just one slip from him could have been disastrous. It was going to be an uphill battle every day for the rest of his life back home. It didn't need to be that way here, too.

He'd wanted to try and bring Tony back, but what had stopped him from trying was running into the possibility that it might not work at all, and he'd be truly helpless, hopeless.

"I don't know," he says. "It feels safer to be alone." He knows that's a holdover from their time back on Earth, where he's the subject of an international manhunt. "It usually does."

Then he sighs. "I'll think about it. I don't want to be in the way." There's a long silence, and then: "I think I want everyone to just forget about me."