Jil gave Jayjay a quizzical look. She could tell he was acting, but she wasn’t sure why. There were so many levels of unreality here. Jil turned to Nektar. “We’ll be on our way,” said Jil. “I’m gonna borrow your Happy Shoon so I can integrate his body-memories into my breeding stock. Knead him in like sourdough starter. You’ve trained these shoons well, Nektar.”

“Can I take a shoon too?” asked Sonic.

“Sure,” said Nektar. Sonic stuffed the Jayjay-faced doughboy shoon into the pleated pocket of his leather jacket.

“Bye-bye,” said Jayjay, seizing the chance to touch Jil’s hand. She upped the ante and kissed his cheek. In the orphidnet, Jayjay saw Jil staring over at her husband to make sure he noticed. Craigor’s smile had gone stiff. Thuy, however, was obliv, or was at least presenting herself that way. Why did she have to be so stubborn? Just because Jayjay liked the Big Pig? Well, hell, if Thuy was going to be such a priss, maybe he should take his golden opportunity for a romance with the divine Jil.

“Come stay on the Merz Boat if you need a place to live,” Jil told Jayjay in a warm tone. “There’s plenty of room. All four of you would fit, actually.”

Jayjay knew from Founders that Jil and Craigor’s cuttlefishing boat was entirely crafted from computationally rich piezoplastic, which had become a fairly expensive and sought-after material. Although Craigor was still netting oversized Pharaoh cuttlefish from the Bay, much of the couple’s income came from selling off bits of the boat’s material in the form of Jil’s shoons and Craigor’s combines.

“Thanks, Jil,” said Jayjay, wondering how Craigor would take his incursion. “I might be there sooner than you think. But at least for today we’ll be kiqqin’ it in Nektar’s garage.”

Some stairs at the back of the garage led up to the room Nektar had mentioned, white-painted with a peaked ceiling. The front and rear walls held generous windows, one showing a palm tree and Dolores Park, the other looking onto the San Francisco hills with their little stucco houses. The room was furnished with rugs, chairs, a double bed, a fold-out couch, a sink, and a fridge. The tile bathroom was stocked with Stank personal grooming products.

“Fuckin’ A,” said Sonic, eyeing a framed Nantel award to Nektar’s absent husband. “Ond Lutter himself.” The box was a couple of inches deep, holding a preserved blue-green beetle as well as a paper with the award inscription.

“Maybe we should do some Big Pig,” said Thuy, flopping into an armchair. She didn’t actually mean this; she was following their preplanned script.

Jayjay would in fact have liked very much to do some Pig, but he stuck to the script too. “It’s time we all got clean,” he said.

“Yeah, brother,” said Sonic. “Getting down is coming old.”