Your friend the Turtle... He died a few years ago. The old idiot puked inside his shell and choked to death on a galaxy or two. Very sad, don't you think? But also quite bizarre.

Trashy people puke,” Tilly said. “Ladies are unwell.

Usually after a good puke you feel better right away. We hugged each other and then said good-bye and went off to opposite ends of the hall to lie down in our own rooms. There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.

APOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

The name never came up. It's bizarre...Is Shell going to compete with itself, or is this a way of not diluting its interest (with other investors)?

The crowd could not know that they were cheering but somehow they did, somehow they understood that the circle between death-worship and death-wish had been completed for another year and the crowd went completely loopy, convulsing itself in greater and greater paroxysms.