scientists' POV - Grendel and Holden
com·pas·sion (kəm-pāsh'ən)
n. Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. See synonyms: pity.
She read the definition once that week. Twice. A third time. It didn't make any sense, but she kept reading it. She watched him work, too, with silence, eyes fixed on one point.
Always the same. And yet...
"Is it right?"
He didn't look up. He simply asked in response, without skipping a beat, "Having second thoughts?" Her lips curled into a smile, but it was cold.
"Is this just a game, to you?" He chuckled.
"Isn't it always?"
Questions again. It was her nature, as always; the need to know why, to understand. The same questions continually returned, now. Why? What for? What was it they sought? Did she seek, or did she only follow?
To ask, for the sake of asking. Knowing.
Deep awareness of the suffering of another. The smile faded. Too much knowledge -- was there such a thing?
The room had gone silent. When she glanced back, his eyes were on her.
"Giving up so easily? How unlike you." She didn't respond. His words rang in her ears, morphing, changing, deteriorating. Strange; no echo but in her mind. Is it right?
"I read it," she said, after a while. "A fascinating story. In the end, he's in an asylum."
"Namesakes. It always comes back to that." Her eyebrows lifted. His eyes were no longer on hers; they were focused on the same work that she could no longer concentrate on. "Yours dies, you know."