Fift closed all zir eyes and rummaged around among zir agents. The feed-navigational one could help zir find the main anteroom . . . and there it was. Ze could see it.

Miskisk had fallen to vir knees. “You are crushing my heart,” ve said, tears dripping from vir chin. “I have no voice here at all. It’s all zir cold dominion . . .” Ve gestured at Mother Pip.

“If I may,” Pip said, in a voice like ice.

“I cannot do this anymore,” Miskisk roared. “I cannot—”

“We have a pledge,” Nupolo said, in horror.

And then Frill and Squell and Fift were out of the apartment, through the front door, and up onto the surface of Foo. The inside of the house was swallowed into its privacy area, and Fift couldn’t see it anymore. Frill put Fift down, but Squell, doublebodied, held onto zir.

Above them was the glistening underside of Sisterine habitation: docking-spires and garden globes and flow-sluices arcing away. In front of them was the edge of Foo. Their neighborhood, Slow-as-Molasses, was at the end of one spoke of Foo’s great, slowly rotating wheel, and beyond it, this time of year, was a great empty vault of air . . . and then fluffy Ozinth and the below and beyond strewn with glittering bauble-habitations . . . and beyond that, habitation after habitation, bright and dim, smooth and spiky, shifting and still, all stretching away toward the curve of Fullbelly’s ceiling.

Father Grobbard was waiting for them on the path ahead where it meandered past a flowgarden.

{What’s a pledge?} Fift asked zir agents.

{A pledge is a promise that people make.} began the context advisory agent.

{But what do they mean?} Fift sent. {What pledge did my parents make?}

There was a lag, and when the context advisory agent replied, it sounded almost reluctant. {Your parents pledged to stay together for all twenty-two years of your First Childhood. To all sleep in the same apartment, once a month at the least; to attend family meetings; various such requirements. They had to. The neighborhood approval ratings for your birth weren’t high enough otherwise.}

{But this is not at all unusual.} the social nuance agent sent. {You shouldn’t worry.}

“Let’s get started walking, shall we?” Grobbard said. “You have a big day ahead; we might as well be early. The others will catch up.”

“But what about Father Miskisk?” Fift said. “Father Miskisk is sad—”

Grobbard laid a gentle hand on Fift’s shoulder, and Fift remembered that outside their apartment, they weren’t on the house feed. They were on the world’s feed, and anyone in the world could see and hear them.

“They’ll catch up, Fift,” Father Grobbard said again. “Clear your mind, please, and get ready.” They started walking, following the path among the gardens and gazebos of Slow-as-Molasses: Frill striding ahead, Grobbard looking off into the vault of Fullbelly, and Squell, doublebodied, holding hands with all three of Fift’s bodies.