Meroc: How about your friend Morinti?

Zetich: Morinti . . . !

Meroc: Let’s ask zir. And I think there are others. You know, Thavé-watchers, Clown-followers—we can’t be the only ones who feel like this. We should start a club.

Zetich: A club.

Meroc: Yes, Zetich, a club. I can’t just sit here and do nothing!

Zetich: Well . . . maybe. But I do have to go soon, so . . .

Meroc: So connect me with Morinti. Send an introduction.

Zetich: An introduction? Now?

Meroc: Now.

Zetich: Well . . . okay. Sent. But I had no idea that you were even interested in . . . that the two of you . . .

Meroc: Thanks, Zet. I have to get back to the splage . . . right after I call Morinti.

Zetich: Oh, okay. Well . . . talk to you soon . . .

Chapter 18

18

Fift had been home in all three bodies for twenty-eight hours, while the world outside fell apart.

There was no way ze could sleep. Ze sat on the edge of zir bed, sat in the supper garden, sat at the breakfast room table with zir Fathers arguing around zir. No one was talking to zir.

Arevio had left the supper garden, wordlessly, as soon as Fift came in. Wiped vir shears, hung them on a hook, and walked out.

“Settling down?” Frill exclaimed, at the other end of the breakfast room table. “Settling down? No, things are not settling down! Do you know that the Peaceables are using unvowed militias in Spunwonder?”

Fift pressed zir fingers against zir eyes.

“You think I don’t know that?” Father Nupolo said. “One of little Chalia Rigorosa’s Fathers is a Peaceable serving in Wallacomp! Without the help of those militias—”

“Well, I frankly don’t see the point,” Frill said. Ve dismissed a globe of tease-tea, sending it flying back to the kitchen. It swerved around Fift’s head. “If they’re not vowed, not trained, not even publishing neural data . . . who is to say that they remain calm and . . . well . . . peaceful at all? This is no criticism of Chalia’s Father Ellix, mind you. It’s a criticism of the system—”

“Ellix—” Nupolo said.

“Ellix,” Frill said, “has years of preparation. But more to the point, ze’s vowed. Even if ze did get angry . . .”

In the large family meeting room on the first floor, Arevio and Smistria were already sitting at the table, waiting for what was coming. Neither spoke.

“Even if one of the rioters struck Ellix?” Frill said. “And Ellix had a moment of rage or—or hatred, or vengeance? Well, then, everyone would see it, wouldn’t they, and ze would be forced to retire to—”

“Ellix has never—” Nupolo’s velvet forehead squeezed into sharp, angry lines.

“That’s not the point, though. That’s not the point!” Frill threw up vir arms; a tinkling chorus of bells followed them. “Even if ze did, ze’d retire to contemplation until it was—”