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How would M'Aneg find him to draw his soul homeward to the godpool? His shoulders started to slouch under the weight of his mind and his constantly upright body.

He had soon crossed three intersections, ducking between debris crevices whenever there were thoroughfare people about, and travelling as swiftly as he could. In the fourth block a man caught his attention. He was just another of the denizens here, not dressed better or less stooped, but he looked a bit like one of the priests. He was younger than the others, maybe just a little older than Dancer himself, although he must have been a guardian to have such a haggard look to him. Despite his scars, he looked kind. He responded to Dancer's hopeful eyes with a welcoming gesture of his arm, making room on the box he sat on across the alley. He took off his long brown coat and offered it as a shelter from the exposure that was now clearly unacceptable.

What the man said with his deep voice was not understood at all. His soft tone was what drew Dancer across the few feet that separated them. He swayed a little as his extended arm wrapped dirty cloth around Dancer's shoulders. Up close he had a blend of odors that was different and just as rank as the smell of the gas around them.

He spoke again. He seemed to have a thickness of his tongue that made his voice thick and his words laboured.

"I don't understand you," Dancer replied in the language of the great ones. He had already guessed his native Torretanese would not be understood. But the man looked surprised and confused by the old tongue, too. "I'm sorry." He placed his palm on the man's arm. "I wish I knew what was happening."

There was still confusion on his new friend's face, but also a certain understanding. They were sharing a moment, Dancer thought, that transcended language. Two people, each walled by their languages, able to offer nothing but kindness and shelter and a commonness of their species. They were human together. At least they were that.

The man began to squirm a little in his clothing. He released his hold on Dancer's now covered shoulder and began to fumble with the clasp at the front of his midsection. Dancer could only watch this behaviour in confusion. Was his companion uncomfortable? Was the clasp an instrument? a communication device? He could only wait and see.

The thick fingers managed to undo the simple mechanism only after some time (and a pause for him to pick up a bottle from behind himself on the box for a drink of its dark liquid). In the end, he had to get up from his seat to stand uncertainly on his feet and yank at the leather strapping attached to the device, then the complicated layers of clothing beneath it.

What he succeeded in doing through these actions was to shed the lower part of his garments and leave himself nearly as skin-sleek as Dancer, hobbled at his feet by the fallen material. Was this a gesture of solidarity? Was his new friend trying to offer more of his clothing?

His friend's penis – surrounded, astoundingly enough, by coarse dark hair – hung flaccidly in front of his groin.