“I can't sleep. Too many thoughts running through my useless head.”

“lying awake beside you, these thoughts run through my head.”

“Why can’t I quiet the thoughts running through my head?Put down the penand climbsnuglyinto bed?”

“We are searching for the same thing,” Stripey said.“How do you know?” Janco asked.“I read his mind.” The Sitian pointed to Ari. “Yours was too…chaotic. Too many useless thoughts to wade through.”A compliment or an insult? Janco guessed compliment and preened.”

“I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?”

“So many thoughts ran through my head. Most of them contained the same, simply three words so often strung together that it was too much a classic cheese or cliche to say it, but they still had meaning, no matter how many times they had been repeated.”