"You would have stopped me." They both know that's true. "You wouldn't have left without the others and you wouldn't have backed down from going on that expedition. I was... I tried to find another way. For weeks. I should have taken you away before the PINpoints stopped working but I ran out of time."

He swallows. "We couldn't take the others. It doesn't work that way. It's not like your science. I was lucky I had anything to bargain for this much."