Sentence:  Mike stopped to cherish all his brother selves , the many threes-fulfilled on Mars , corporate and discorporate , the precious <WSD>few</WSD> on Earth - the unknown powers of three on Earth that would be his to merge with and cherish now that at last long waiting he grokked and cherished himself . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by `a'; a small but indefinite number