Time to op zone is now 1:38:07. "Identify signal GERALDO RIVERA," Di Manes audibilizes.

"Incorrect Specification," Ms. Jordan's voice tells him. "'Geraldo Rivera' is nominative descriptor, subject of sentence."

"Oh," says Di Manes, beginning to figure it out. "You mean that Geraldo Rivera could abort the mission?" Like all Q-pilots, his deductive abilities are well above the norms for his profession. They don't take just anyone.

Time to op zone 1:35:42.

Saul does not stop there.

He unzips her skin and flings it aside. Astonished, she makes to speak, but he is unhitching all of her exterior muscles, throwing them in a heap upon the floor. It tickles.

Soon her internal organs and nervous system lie piled, and her bleached white skeleton stands awkwardly, eyes aflame, gazing in amazement as he kneels at her feet, untying tendons. His fury is over and he sits back, exhausted. She -- her skeleton: it, maybe -- appears perturbed.

Saul realizes that he has gone too far, that this just isn't right, that stripping a woman down to the bare bones is not the way to love her. Or even to lust her.