"I know. We'll have to be."
"I'm glad I found you. I lost my wife to the patrol some time back."
"I've never been anyone's wife before. There was Frank, but I was never really what you could call his wife, exactly."
"Many people ever stay with your folks?"
"Not many. Frank only stayed a few days. I liked him. I wanted to go with him."
"Why didn't you?"
She broke off a blade of grass and slowly began tearing it into strips, intently gazing at it. "He just left suddenly without taking me. I guess he thought I was just a stupid brat. That was maybe two or three years ago." Her voice sounded as if she were smiling a little. Nelson thought that strange.
"You ever think much about the sleepers?" he asked suddenly.
"Sometimes. I wonder what it's like in their dreams."
"They like it in their dreams. Those dreams are built for them. They get along happily in their world, grateful for it. That's the word, grateful." He listened for a moment to nightsounds. "But they're helpless. If anything happens, they're asleep and unable to act. If they wake up, they're in a world they don't know how to live in."