The human heart was a strange thing.
When you knew you would be trapped somewhere for hundreds of years, you might feel sorrow and uncertainty.
But if someone told you that you had a year left to live at most, you might stop thinking altogether.
There was no greater sorrow than a heart that had given up.
Those whose hearts had given up feared nothing.
"We'll fix the ship within a year, then head for the Warp Tunnel fifty light-years away." Silver Wolf spread her hands. "It's our only option now. We can't count on those guys at the Corporation to resolve the crisis within a year."
"Can we repair it with technology this primitive?" Chu Mu asked.
After all, Kafka had said this place was still in the steam age, even further behind than Belobog!
Putting a steam engine in a spaceship was like driving a steam train into the Sea of Stars! Both were pure flights of fancy.
Did that make any sense?
"That's why we need to wait a while." Silver Wolf shrugged. "Parts will keep falling from the sky, and the locals are bound to salvage them. We can just buy them when the time comes."
Kafka nodded at that.
"If we can piece together a warp engine, all the better."
Those words instantly filled Chu Mu with hope.
Of course, he also understood that Kafka was dangling another empty promise before him. By now, he had collected a whole pile of them.
But it was just like what Natasha had told him back in the Underworld:
You always had to have hope.
Then Silver Wolf asked:
"Chu Mu, want to play games this afternoon?"
Before Chu Mu could answer, Kafka turned her down for him.
"No. A-Mu has to come shopping with me this afternoon."