“That’s okay,” Sully assured. “I had savings when I died, and no heirs but a brother, who insisted I take it with me. Fat lot of good it’ll do me soon. So use this.” She held out a purse. I heard clattering nonmetallic coins. “Anyway, you must do the buying for us.”

“Why’s that?”

She pointed. A man wearing a stained apron stood in the doorway, glowering at our little group. To his right, set prominently in the window, stood a sign which nanos in my eyes set to work translating, overlaying the alien typescript with demmie letters, that seemed to hang ghostly in space, before me—

NO SHOES? NO SHIRT? NO PULSE?

NO SERVICE!

LYCANS SERVED UNTIL NOON ONLY.

(NO EATING, DRINKING, OR HOWLING ON PREMISES.)

NOMORTS STRICTLY CASH.

Underneath, a second, smaller sign bore a caricature of a zombie with one eyeball hanging out of a socket and both disjointed arms outstretched before it. Jagged slash marks across the figure translated as FORBIDDEN, while a slogan advertised—

THIS ESTABLISHMENT PROTECTED AND SANITIZED BY ACE CREMATION SERVICE.

Sully must have sensed my outrage. She put a hand on my sleeve, speaking in a low voice.

“Don’t make a fuss.”

“But it’s…”

I kind of strangled in my search for the right words. Not “racist” or “sexist,” certainly… or even “speciesist.”

Life-Chauvinism, was all that came to mind. An irrational and bigoted preference for the animate over the rotting-deceased. How unevolved.

“Never mind,” she urged, slipping me a tattered sheet of paper. “Just get the things on this list, will you? We’ll wait around the corner, in that alley over there.” She gave me a pretty smile (that must have been lethal, when she was alive) and Moulder stuck up his remaining thumb in a friendly gesture, as they both turned to go.

The proprietor sent me a sour look as I entered the store with list in hand. I felt certain there must be a word in their language for my kind – the sort who fraternizes with pariahs – and I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. In both Earth and Demmie history, there were plenty of shameful periods when fear conjured odious, illogical prejudices. Level Eighteen worlds often had plenty.

In the overall context of time, it could be viewed as just another, natural phase along this planet’s hard road to maturation. Indeed, the “Standards” had some genuine reason for their fearful prejudices.

Natural or not, I hated it.

I mentioned that the clothing fashion among Standards ran toward bulky, pseudo-Victorian attire, with high necklines for both men and women. The store offered an assortment of what at I took for pet collars – studded with sharp spikes – till I saw a sign: “FOR A RESTFUL NIGHT’S SLEEP”. It made me wonder what they used as pillows here.