Fift’s hearts were pounding; ze exhaled all the air in zir lungs slowly, hissing it out between zir teeth until a yawn came, that welcome spasm forcing zir to open zir jaws wide and gulp down air. Zir hearts slowed a little. Ze didn’t look at zirself, but ze reached out and took zir own arm. As a young child, ze’d never liked to be with zirself; but these days, ze had begun to like the double feeling: in the muscles of zir arm, in the other body’s fingers clasped around them.

Until ze reached the edge of the Sheltering, ze wouldn’t know what zir wealth and reputation were in the world outside, or how the people ze knew out there were doing, or who expected what of zir. Though ze’d lived in the Sheltering for twelve years, and it had been fully feed-opaque for seven, that was still strange. Perhaps it would always be strange.

Ze wondered what it would be like for a child born in a Sheltering; whether, for such a child, it would seem natural and obvious to live in a small world. There would be children born in Shelterings, someday. Maybe—if a way around the Midwives’ boycott could be found, may Kumru wish it with us—sometime soon.

Every nook was occupied, and Fift didn’t want to squeeze zir way in among the bodies. Ze walked on. Soon ze could see the passage’s exit. The carpeted green platform, the docked robot bats, and the vast vault of Fullbelly beyond, its hundred thousand habitations a glittering riot of color and form. A moment of vertigo, and, mixed in with it, nostalgia, which made zir almost laugh aloud. Ze missed Fullbelly! To be able to miss Fullbelly even while technically living deep inside it . . . now, if that wasn’t a sign that the Shelterings were working—!

Now ze could feel the whisper of the world’s feed at the edge of zir perception. Ze awakened zir attention agents from their slumber; ze’d need them now. Another yawn worked its way through zir, first in one body, then the other. Ze let go of zir arm and stepped forward, singlebodied, into the range of the feed. In zir other body, ze cracked zir knuckles, pressed a fist into the smooth, soft puff-weave wall, and breathed.

It was an old reflex to check audience. 25,687 people had zir hot-bookmarked: history buffs, political-minutiae bookies, distant contacts from the old days, fans or opponents of the Sheltering movement; and, perhaps, enemies of Dobroc’s Long Conversation flexiblism . . .

But right now, no one was watching zir.

Fift Brulio of name registry Yellow Peninsula Sugarbubble 5, 3-bodied Staid, 46 years old (premature majority), industrial reactant, elderborn, no cohort. One public location.