After the adventure with the Time Matrix, Jake worried what would happen if he died. Would his friends he'd come to love endure without him? What about his family?
He shared his fears with Ax, more soldier than any of them.
«If you should fall,» Ax said, «I will carry your burden.»
"Which burden?" Jake had so many.
«I will do my utmost to free your brother, as you would have done for mine.»
Jake felt feather-light. The thought had weighed heavily on him. But he trusted Ax's slender shoulders to bear it, as much as anyone's in the universe.