His voice got all full of fog. As thick as the fists of a dozen warriors. Rice was going away from him. Rice was standing still, and Burnett was lying down, not moving, but somehow Rice was going away a million miles.
"Ain't I one hell of a patriot, Rice?"
Then everything got dark except Rice's face. And that was starting to dissolve.
Ninety-eight: Lethla. Ninety-nine: Kriere.
He could still see Rice standing over him for a long time, breathing out and in. Down under the tables the blood-pumps pulsed and pulsed, thick and slow. Rice looked down at Burnett and then at the empty shelf at the far end of the room, and then back at Burnett again.
And then he said softly:
"One hundred."