His head swiveled toward her, and he launched himself away from Mama Nilla with frantic swimming motions, only to fetch up at the end of his tether and rebound back to the crèche mother's side. At this point he began screaming in true earnest. As if by resonance, the bleeding boy started crying harder too.

Claire braked by the wall and closed in on them.

"Claire, honey, I'm sorry," said Mama Nilla, twitching her hips around to eclipse Andy, "but I can't let you have him. Mr. Van Atta said he'd fire me on the spot, twenty years or no twenty years—and God knows who they'd get then—there's so few I can really trust to have their heads screwed on right—" Andy interrupted her by launching himself again; he batted the proffered bottle violently out of her hand and it spun away, a few drops of formula adding tangentially to the general environmental degradation. Claire's hands reached for him.

"—I can't, I really can't—oh, hell, take him!" It was the first time Claire had ever heard Mama Nilla swear. She unhooked the tether, and her freed left side was instantly set upon by the waiting five-year-olds.

Andy's screams faded at once to a muffled weeping, as his little hands clamped her fiercely. Claire folded him to her with all four arms no less fiercely. He rooted in her shirt—uselessly, she realized. Just holding him might be enough for her, but the reverse was not necessarily true. She nuzzled in his scant hair, delighting in the clean baby smell of him, tender sculptured ears, translucent skin, fine eyelashes, every part of his wriggling body. She wiped his nose happily with the edge of her blue shirt.

"It's Claire," she overheard one of the five-year-olds explaining knowledgeably to another. "She's a real mommy." She glanced up to catch them gravely inspecting her; they giggled. She grinned back. A seven-year-old from an adjoining group had retrieved the bottle, and hung about watching Andy with interest.

The cut on the little quaddie's forehead having clotted enough, Mama Nilla was at last able to carry on a conversation. "You don't happen to know where Mr. Van Atta is, do you?" she asked Claire in worry.

"Gone," said Claire joyously, "gone forever! We're taking over."

Mama Nilla blinked. "Claire, they won't let you . . ."

"We have help." She nodded across the gym, where Leo in his red coveralls caught her eye—he must have just arrived. With him was another legged figure in white coveralls. What was Dr. Minchenko still doing here? A sudden fear twinged through her. Had they failed to clear the Habitat of downsiders after all? For the first time it occurred to her to question Mama Nilla's presence. "Why didn't you go to your safe zone?" Claire asked her.

"Don't be silly, dear. Oh, Dr. Minchenko!" Mama Nilla waved to him. "Over here!"