"I do not understand," Hiro muttered, his confusion causing his glasses to slip down the bridge of his nose. "This power..."
"It's not exactly a lark, is it?" the stranger said rapidly. "The things you see, they can change you. Make you hard, like stone, unfeeling. Here." He placed his palm against Hiro's chest. "Unwilling to feel, more like."
"So, you have others? Friends?"
"They climb aboard, we swan about for a bit, and then they leave. That, or I do."
"Why bring them, if they abandon you?"
"To remind myself," the man answered, "how not to be like stone."