‘Oh.’ Agata wasn’t sure if she should say something congratulatory; Medoro hadn’t told her anything about these plans.

‘Daughter now, then son after a year,’ Serena enthused. ‘Over and done with before Medoro gets too old.’ She glanced at Gineto. ‘He’ll thank me later – won’t he, Uncle?’

Gineto was bemused. ‘You think I was too old? I didn’t have an uncle of my own to help me, and I still ran rings around both of you.’

‘Do you want to raise these two as well, then?’ Serena joked.

‘I’m not going to intrude into Medoro’s life,’ Gineto replied. ‘But I’ll give him advice if he wants it.’

Agata struggled to animate the fixed expression she could feel on her face. ‘It’s very quick now, isn’t it? The recovery?’

‘I’ll be mobile in a day, they said,’ Serena replied. ‘It’s not just better drugs and better signal delivery; they really stress the target mass now.’ She started on a third loaf.

Vala turned to Agata. ‘I suppose you’ve been busy with the referendum?’

‘I sat in on three of the debates, after my own,’ Agata said. ‘I couldn’t make it to the others.’ In truth, she’d found it too frustrating to keep attending; as a former participant she wasn’t allowed to interject. ‘There were good speakers on both sides. No one can claim that all the arguments haven’t been aired.’

‘I wish they’d show them on the network,’ Vala complained. ‘Not everyone wants to be packed into a crowd like that.’

Serena said, ‘I think the traditionalists are afraid that if we start broadcasting the debates, they’ll turn into two people taking turns addressing an empty room. But maybe the Council will change the rules next time.’

Agata looked up at the news screen. The vote had crossed one sixth of the roll, and her side was still behind.

Medoro approached, catching her in the act. ‘Does it bother anyone else that a sharp-eyed observer might see which way you voted by watching those things?’

Agata said, ‘The scale’s never finer than a dozen people per pixel.’

Medoro was undeterred. ‘What if I already know how eleven of those people will be voting?’

The five of them spent the next half-bell arguing about the safeguards in the voting system. With Serena’s help they managed to empty both baskets of loaves before midday; Agata had eaten her fill, but she felt like a break so she volunteered to fetch some more.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Medoro offered.

‘How will you work on the camera now?’ Agata asked him as they left the voting precinct.

‘Serena told you about the children?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s going to help look after them,’ Medoro said. ‘She and Gineto. I’ll still have time to work.’

‘You’d trust her with the job?’

Medoro buzzed, affronted. ‘I can’t believe you’d say that! You were raised by a woman single-handed, and you turned out all right.’

‘Did I?’

‘Better than the woman who raised you.’ He caught himself. ‘I shouldn’t criticise Cira; that whole generation was confused. And it’s hardly her fault that it took so long for the biologists to learn how to shed men.’