“Can I try?” Leo asked, pointing to the mound of clay by the child’s hairy feet.

The little Orin seemed to understand, tearing off a hunk—less than a third, as if Leo had to prove to her that he knew what he was doing if he wanted more. He began to work the stuff into a familiar form. The clay was soft and supple; no wonder the Orin used it for so much. Leo pinched and pressed and smoothed it until he had the basic shape he was looking for, the square bottom with the triangular top. Then, with the edge of his filthy fingernail, he etched in two windows and a door and placed his creation on the floor between them, pressing it down so that it would stay upright. It looked nothing like the round stone building they were currently sheltered in. It didn’t even look all that much like the two-story colonial Leo had left behind. But it was as close as he could get with what he had to work with.

“It’s a house,” he said. “I made it for you.”

The child bared her teeth and made the same grunting sound as the ones who were still climbing all over Boo. She looked down at the clay creation, up at Leo, back at the house.

Then with two hands she mashed it into the floor.

“Guess I should have seen that coming,” he whispered. The child giggled to herself.

“We have an announcement.”

Leo turned to see Skits squeezing herself through the door, Number Nine following behind. “Did you make contact with Baz?” he asked.

“Still trying,” Skits said. “The storm is clearly messing with my coms. But that’s not what this is about. I wanted to let you all know that Nine and I have interfaced extensively over the matter, and we’ve decided to be mutually exclusive . . . with Zirkus Crayt’s override, of course.”

“My protocols prohibit me from forming artificial emotional attachments that could possibly interfere with my ability to serve my creator,” Nine explained. “But I think he will understand.”

“Of course he’ll understand. I’m a freaking catch,” Skits concluded. “Anyways, I just thought you all should know so you can be happy for us. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have some code to swap.”

Leo shuddered. “Okay, but don’t forget about Baz,” he said. “Let us know as soon as you reach him.”

“Jeez, Leo, can’t you just let me have a moment here?” Skits turned to her new beau as they went back through the door. “I swear, humans don’t know the first thing about relationships.”

Leo glanced at Boo, who shrugged.

The robots were soon followed out by most of the adult Orin, each of them taking a heavy sack from a hook on the wall. Shree and Rint were among them. Rint stopped in front of Leo and set a paw on top of his head. The string of speech that followed eluded all efforts of Leo’s translator, but Leo guessed it had something to do with the newly repaired cistern. Or perhaps with what had happened in the storm. The Orin sounded appreciative, at least.