He listens, giving her a sympathetic nod when she finishes. "I can imagine it must be, yeah. When something's a part of your life for so long, not having it feels weird, no matter what it is."

That is one of the terrible things about this place, the way it tears people from their lives and everything they were. He supposes it's a leveling of the playing field, too, but the way it throws everyone off their game has to be an advantage for the city.

"I'm from Earth, too," he offers, "even the United States of America. I'm from Iowa--a town called Riverside that you've probably never heard of unless you're from my Earth in my time and you know where starships are built. I enlisted in Starfleet--that's the peacekeeping and exploratory arm of the United Federation of Planets--and I just became a ship's captain about six months before I got to the city."