“But why would they do that?” Fift asked.

“Because,” Smistria snapped, “they thought they could coerce the rest of Slow-as-Molasses and every parent-monitoring reactant in Fullbelly!” Ve drew vemself up in vir seating harness, still chewing vigorously with vir other mouth. “They were so arrogant, they didn’t even invite adjudication!” Smistria was a well-rated adjudication reactant.

“They would have lost adjudication,” Frill said.

“Exactly!” Smistria said through a mouthful of broibel, forgetting vemself.

Umlish, Kimi, and Puson trailed behind Shria like a parade. Their eyes darted back and forth—you could tell from their small, prim grins that they were amused by the messages they were sending one another. Puson started chuckling, but Umlish frowned at zir and ze composed zir face more sedately.

“And think of the poor older siblings,” Frill said. “Especially your classmate. From latterborn to middleborn to latterborn again in three weeks!”

“Well,” said Grobbard quietly, “at least ve was briefly middleborn.” Grobbard was, it occurred to Fift, also an Only Child. It wasn’t something ze talked about, but you could see it right there in lookup: Grobbard Erevulios Iraxis of name registry Amenable Perambulation 2, 4-bodied Staid, 230 years old, education topology mediator, Only Child.

It wasn’t a great thing to be an Only Child. It kind of meant you were less of a person. Maybe Grobbard had always dreamed about being middleborn, too.

“Briefly middleborn! But come on, Grobby,” said Frill (who was latterborn). “Not like that.”

Umlish looked up the trail and saw Fift standing there, as if frozen. Umlish’s eyes narrowed. {Oh, hello Fift.} ze sent. {Are you finding what you need? Don’t you think you have enough sticks?} Zir eyes flicked to the left, feed-searching. {Oh my. Look at you dragging that thing.} Ze had found Fift’s other body, hauling the log. Zir eyes shifted back to Fift’s. {That’s so . . . robust of you. “Mighty was Threnis in zir time,” eh?}

Fift flushed. Umlish was farther along in the Long Conversation than ze was—already learning the sixth mode. Was Threnis mentioned in the third corpus? Ze couldn’t remember, and Pip and Grobbard never let zir use search agents for the Conversation. (“It’s a corrupting habit, Fift,” Grobbard had said, with starker disapproval than Fift had ever seen on zir solemn face. “Once you begin using them, you’ll never stop. You must know the Conversation yourself. Unaided.”)

Umlish’s eyes widened in triumph; ze could tell that Fift had no idea who Threnis was.

Shria looked up nervously, saw Fift, and frowned. The tips of vir ears were bluish with cold. Vir mouth was trembling, but vir jaw was clamped tight, almost as if ve was trying not to cry—like Fift when ze was six or seven, when ze’d begun doing zir horrible somatic integration exercises in front of the whole world. It had taken all zir strength not to humiliate zirself by bursting into tears.