Nell should have been tongue-tied and paralyzed with astonishment, but she 
was not; for the first time in her life she understood why she'd been put on 
the earth and felt comfortable with her position. One moment, her life had been 
a meaningless abortion, and the next it all made glorious sense. She began to 
speak, the words rushing from her mouth as easily as if she had been reading 
them from the pages of the Primer. She accepted the allegiance of the Mouse 
Army, complimented them on their great deeds, and swept her arm across the 
plaza, over the heads of her little sisters, toward the thousands upon 
thousands of stranded sojourners from New Atlantis, Nippon, Israel, and all of 
the other Outer Tribes. "Our first duty is to protect these," she said. 
"Show me the condition of the city and all those in it."