Shria! Fift’s heart gave a pulse. It had been months, maybe a year, since ze’d seen vem. There had been a time—years ago—when they’d seen each other every week: in class, or meeting somewhere around Foo. Sometimes ve’d come over to the Iraxis cohort’s apartment; a few times, Fift had gone over to Fnax cohort’s. Fift’s parents liked vem. In class, the ten-year-old Shria had been guarded and sullen, but in the supper garden with Frill and Squell and Arevio, sheltered from the broad world’s feed by Iraxis cohort’s privacy regime, ve’d been self-confident, alert, funny.

The last few years it had gotten harder. There were fewer things Vails and Staids their age could do together. Less of their homework overlapped as their curricula diverged. Fift was spending more time on the Long Conversation, and that wasn’t something ze could talk to Shria about. And Shria was doing Vail things now. Ve had a gang of Vails who sparred together and swaggered around the byways, trying to find quarrels legitimate enough to justify a real fight on the mats. And there were other things—sexual escapades—that Fift wasn’t supposed to know about. Even if Shria had wanted to tell zir, it wasn’t like there was anywhere ve could; their parents could still read their send logs, and hear them over the house feed.

{The career of the client, Fift.} Pip sent. {Not of the client’s youngest apprentice, no matter how impressive vir debut.}

Get out of my head! Fift thought, but didn’t send. Ze hurriedly flipped away from the staff list to browse the annual growth of Stiffwaddle Somatic Fashions’ audience and ratings. There was an ache in zir chest when ze thought of Shria.

“Anyway,” Father Frill said, pacing across the garden, “unraveling can be so rewarding for those Staids who do allow themselves to collapse. I mean, part of the whole gift of a collapse is to let go of worrying about what other people think!”

Smistria snorted.

“Frill Evementis,” Father Arevio said, “could you pick up your gloves? They are lying on the gladblooms.”

They disembarked on the swaying lip of Politigus’s bauble. Fift admired the sparkling translucent blue of the surface beneath zir feet and concentrated on keeping zir balance as the bat shoved off; it would not do to stumble. When ze looked up, Shria was standing doublebodied in front of zir.

Ve’d grown. Ve was taller than Fift now, broad-shouldered, vir bright red hair styled back in looping curves, vir smokily translucent Stiffwaddle Somatic Fashions uniform stretched tight across a row of four small breasts.

Ve grinned. For an instant Fift had the startling sense that Shria was going to launch vemself onto zir in a ballistic embrace, right in front of Mother Pip. But they weren’t ten anymore. Instead, ve turned, saying nothing, and helped Pip from the robot bat.