"I said one or both," Byerly protests. "I might be mad and dreaming you up. It's not hard to imagine. Madness is nearly as common in my family as brown eyes. I could name you three cousins currently living who are confined to their homes for madness." Not, alas, an exaggeration or a joke. He wonders for a moment if that's what this is. His mental break, come at last. If he's broken down and raving about girls from planets with living dead men, locked in some room in some Vorrutyer manse. Or wandering the streets while raving, perhaps? Heaven forfend, what a dreadful thought. But his parents wouldn't bother to pluck him off the streets to protect him from disgrace...Dono would, though. Solid, reliable, honorable Dono would make sure that if his mental breakdown ever came, he at least wouldn't humiliate himself in public.

Oh, stop it. Not even worth thinking about further. If he is mad and hallucinating, might as well embrace it. That's wisdom gleaned from copious drug use: when you're in a hallucination, just go with it. Far more fun than sitting around pouting and doubting. And you're just making yourself depressed.

"And it's not like something being screwed up makes it any less plausible. If anything, it makes it a bit more plausible. The human race is nothing if not a bit sadistic." Ah, but you're letting your cynic show, By. Best to stop that, given the present company. "But truthfully? I haven't the faintest idea whether it's possible. Nothing like that has ever been shown to exist in all the years that we've been venturing into space and pushing the frontiers ever further. But it's hubris of the first order to presume that we know all there is to know."