"If there were some kind of assurance that those who'd disappeared had gone home, it would've been better if he hadn't come back, but..."

He trails off with a shrug. He's sure Daneel takes his point. Painful as it would have been to be without Charlie and be stuck in this place alone, if he had known that the vanished had been returned to their homes, he could find some kind of solace in it.

"I'm sorry about your friends."

And he is. He may not have made many friends here himself, but he can see from the way others have responded to disappearances that forming friendships here is the norm.