"Me? Thirty-four. I'm an old man." Bariyan laughed to himself. "I'll be dropping dead any moment now."

Thirty-four... thirty-four was a good time to die, perhaps. Better than sixteen, better than fourteen or fifteen or however old Martin was. Thirty-four was long enough to have made mistakes and learned from them, and if you hadn't -- well, then. Then you wound up where Bariyan was.