Fift felt a brief pinch of resentment, or jealousy. Ze masked it with a smile. “I had a hard time with somatic integration. I was a mess for years.”

“Yeah,” Chalia said. “That.” Ve grinned. “Tell me about the Sheltering!”

“Why don’t you come see for yourself?” Fift said.

Chalia’s eyes widened. “Oh, wow,” ve said. “You know I’d love to. But . . .”

“I know. You’d have to deal with them panicking about it.”

“Well, they’d never let me.”

Fift felt a bitter little burn in zir chest. “Yeah.” Ze took vir hand. “I might have disregarded that, but then, I am not exactly the best model for appropriate childing.”

“Oh, Fift, come on,” Chalia said, looking down. Ve leaned against zir, unselfconsciously laying vir head on zir shoulder. The burn dissipated, cooled by vir sweetness. “That was different. That was, like, a calling! It was, you know, the beginning of an Age! They don’t get it, but I do.”

“An Age, huh?” Fift said. Ze was going to ask what Age had begun, what they should call it, but Father Squell—perhaps not liking the direction the tête-à-tête was going?—came rushing in. Ve was singlebodied, hairless as always, still sporting those old-fashioned metallic spikes poking out of vir pale pink skin—though they’d grown in number, and ve’d added some kind of distracting zebra-striping on the back of vir neck and arms. Ve stopped, pressed vir hands to vir face, and then flung vir arms around Fift.

Squell’s cheek was slick with tears, pressed against one of Fift’s necks. Though zir bodies stood shoulder to shoulder, ze felt a spasm of emotional bodylag; in the body in Squell’s arms, ze felt like a tiny child again, yearning for protection, yearning to be consoled, and cuddled, and coaxed into a romp. But zir other body’s stomach clenched as ze saw Squell enveloping zir, vir gangly zebra-striped arms closing around Fift like a spider wrapping up a fly. The discontinuity made zir dizzy.

Ze chided zirself immediately; that was unfair. Squell meant no harm. Ve loved zir, and ze wished ze could hug vem back with the same abandon. As zir emotions synchronized, though, the unease won out, and ze stiffened.

Squell noticed and stepped away. “Chalia, dear,” ve said, not looking at zir, “whatever are you doing, keeping Fift all to yourself in the vestibule like this? Everyone is waiting!”

Chapter 25

4

“So,” Father Thrimon said, smoothing zir hands on zir legs, “lookup says you’re an industrial reactant, Fift? That’s nothing to be ashamed of, of course; you know, I spent some time in reactancies myself as a youth. It can be very . . . soothing, if that’s the right word. While you figure out, you know, what else you want to do . . .”