With an amazing speed, he whipped the other rock out from his palm, but this one didn't skip. Instead, it went straight into the water like a thunderclap, burying itself into the silt at the bottom.

"Don't tempt them," he said tightly, "I don't need to see how far that particular strain of imagination goes."

Had he been able to see outside himself, in that moment, perhaps he would have noticed Maxwell's discomfort, but he was so deep into his own self-pity that there was nothing outside it.

"I'd rather they went back to blowing us up, if it is all the same to them."