They made him want to scream, almost to weep; and yet it wasn't the arms, or the quick, too-many hands. He had almost reached Hydroponics before he was able to analyze his intense unease. It was their faces that bothered him so, Leo realized. They were the faces of children. . . .

A door marked 'Hydroponics D' slid aside to reveal an antechamber and a large airy end chamber extending some fifteen meters beyond. Filtered windows on the sun side, and an array of mirrors on the dark side, filled the volume with brilliant light, softened by green plants that grew from a carefully-arranged set of grow tubes. The air was pungent with chemicals and vegetation.

A pair of the four-armed young women, both in blue, were at work in the antechamber. A plexiplastic grow tube three meters long was braced in place. They floated along its length carefully transplanting tiny seedlings from a germination box into a spiral series of holes along the tube, one plant per hole, fixing them in place with flexible sealant around each tender stalk. The roots would grow inward, becoming a tangled mat to absorb the nutritive hydroponic mist pumped through the tube, and the leaves and stems would bush out in the sunlight and eventually bear whatever fruit was their genetic destiny. In this place, probably apples with antlers, thought Leo in mild hysteria, or potatoes with eyes that really winked at you.

The dark-haired girl paused to adjust a bundle under her arm. . . . Leo's mind ground to a complete halt. The bundle was a baby.

A live baby—of course it was alive, what did he expect? Leo gibbered inwardly. It peered around its—mother's?—torso to glower suspiciously at Leo-the-stranger, and tightened its four-handed clutch on home base, taking a squishy defensive grip on one of the girl's breasts as if in fear of competition. "Ackle," it remarked aggressively.

"Ow!" The dark-haired girl laughed and spared a lower hand to pry the little fat fingers loose, without missing a beat of her upper hands patting sealant in place around a stem. She finished with a quick squirt of fixative from a tube floating conveniently beside her, just out of the infant's reach.

The girl was slim, and elfin, and wonderfully weird to Leo's unaccustomed eyes. Her short, fine hair clung close to her head, framing her face, shaped to a point at the nape of her neck. It was so thick it reminded Leo of cat fur; one might stroke it, and be soothed.

The other girl was blonde, and babyless. She looked up first, and smiled. "Company, Claire."

The dark-haired girl's face lit with pleasure. Leo flushed in the heat of it. "Tony!" she cried happily, and Leo realized he had merely received an accidental dose, as it were, of that beam of delight, as it swept over him to its true target.