"Since the robot is made out of your feelings for people, when a part of the robot is destroyed, it damages your relationship with them. People get-- insecure, or angry, or easily irritated. They start thinking about all the other person's faults, or their bad memories, and don't think about their virtues or the good parts of the relationship. If you get injured in the dream world, it turns into emotional problems in our world-- depression, or hearing voices, or anger issues, or anxiety."

"And let me guess, if you die you die in real life?"

"Yep! And pilots bliss a lot."

"That's the falling asleep forever thing? That still happens?"

"Yeah. If you're not a pilot it happens sort of randomly, but it's more likely to happen if you sleep too much or too little. We think that if you're generally happy and not too stressed it's less likely to happen. But pilots bliss a lot. Pilots with more powerful animas tend to bliss more, and so do pilots who have had bad breakups. Anyone who tries to pilot over the age of 18 blisses."

"Child soldiers. Great."

"Of course not, we don't send in anyone younger than fifteen."

"I guess that's not that much younger than Deseret's age of majority."

"There are some people between the age of eleven and fifteen who train to defend Eros if it becomes necessary, but we don't think it will, and of course some of them are scavengers, which is very dangerous."

"Cause of the forklifts. Right." She looks down at Catherine. "Poor baby. Is there a way you could all just - come to my planet?"

"Not just the forklifts, there are lots of crews that will kill for food or because you trespassed on their territory, and there are cannibal crews."

"...yikes."

"If I could take my people to your planet I would."

"Will it help if I like... dream about it... or anything? Not that I know how but like I probably will since I lived there."

"Can't hurt."

"Guess I'll try to do that then."

"What else-- oh, if fish swim through the air near the lake that's normal and it doesn't mean you're seeing things. If you're ever trapped somewhere and need to escape, you'll always be able to find a way out, even if you've been there before and you know there's no way to escape. And strange cats are often powerful and will try to protect you from harm."

"How... will I know there's no way to escape... if there's always a way to escape?"

"I mean, if you've been in this room before and you know there's just a wall, and someone is threatening you and you need to get out, the wall will suddenly have a door in it."

"Oh, okay. Cool."

"It comes in handy."

"Yeah, it sounds useful." Sigh. "So like - you don't have money but do people have to work, here -"

"Yes, everyone has to work. Fifty hours a week is pretty normal. Of course, you'll have less, because you're a mother."

"Well, that's good. I assume I can't just... teach piano."

"We don't have a piano, and even if we did teaching it is not really very important for the survival of Eros. If you can sing or play an instrument we have or can get, you can play at night or while people work."