Now there was a few minutes’ lull during which Olivia tried to review in her mind all that had happened today. Perhaps this was a mistake. She suspected that men like Sokolov did not devote much time to this sort of introspection. It seemed, though, to be part of her academic/analytical programming, which was all that she really had to offer to this ad hoc partnership. Sokolov’s talents and abilities had been on conspicuous display during the last half hour and had made Olivia feel, from time to time, like a side of beef that he was obligated to carry around with him as part of a hazing ritual (though she had saved his life by hiring the water taxi and then talking its driver into driving it to a place where Sokolov could jump on board, and she wondered whether Sokolov understood that fact). There was a temptation to just dissolve her will into his and look on while he did stuff. But the kinds of things Sokolov was extremely good at were useful in specific, limited circumstances that, in normal life, simply didn’t arise that often. A time was coming when he would be as helpless and as dependent on her as she had been on him during the escape from the mysterious assailants on Gulangyu.