Given that, he thought to himself, you might have been a little quicker opening the lock.

Looking at her he felt something between scorn and pity. This woman had been old already in the before time. Now she was content to live like a like vermin. Sneaking out of her burrow at night to live off the garbage of the people who were before.

And yet she survived. With all his headstrong pride, his dreams, his ambitions — would he survive? Could he have done what she did, well into adulthood, forsake everything she knew, her life and loved ones and crawl into a hole, just to survive? Was living for its own sake worth that?

As he repackaged and stowed the suit, she eyed him coolly. He was a danger to all of them. Certainly in his own mind he was their greatest hope for salvation, yet every one of his daytime excursions endangered him. Endangered them all. She knew why he did it, but she just wondered, with all she had lost already, if it was still worth it.