Fift nervously examined zir own emotional balance. As usual it was a volatile, unresolved mess, even more so than a sixteen-year-old child’s should be. When ze focused on Shria’s mischievous smile, though, zir balance strengthened, burrowing from a periphery of uncertain despair towards a center of excitement and wonder. They had Tickets. Shria was holding zir hand, they were together, and they had Tickets.

“We have Tickets,” Shria said to the sluice operator.

Here was the kernel of the thing, the moment on which the whole world’s economy rested: Who would supplant whom? Whose desires would prevail? Thesid’s eyes narrowed.

Ve was tasked with maintaining the energy balance of this region, so ve didn’t want to let two vagabond kids on vir sluice. But energy balances were humdrum and boring in the eyes of the world, and the Cirque was exciting and electrifying. If Thesid turned them away, some people would commend vem as a responsible guardian; others would condemn vem as a spoilsport arrogant enough to put zir humble sluice above the Clown’s great work of art and the innocent enthusiasm of two children invited to it.

No doubt Thesid’s agents were arguing the point back and forth, tallying the ratings, making bets on the best course.

But Thesid did this all day. Even an apprentice banker-historian could sense that the sluice operator didn’t pay much attention to vir agents’ reports and tallies: ve went with vir gut.

Ve narrowed vir eyes and stared at Fift and Shria, as if to see if they would flinch, or plead, or bluster. Fift squeezed Shria’s hand, and the two of them beamed. And Thesid grunted—whether in grudging approval, or simply resignation, Fift couldn’t tell—and let them through.

The mangareme fluffies were delicious. They sipped them, swinging in seating harnesses at a table in the middle of the pavilion.

“Where else are you?” Fift asked.

“Hanging out with Bluey and Vvonda at the South Foo spring-buckle—they are totally jealous of us. I’m doublebodied there. You?”

Fift’s heart pulsed. Was Shria still . . . carried along in Vvonda’s wake? “Sleeping and studying.”

“You’re pretty much always lonebodied, aren’t you?”

Ze flushed and looked down at zir fluffy and the red-and-white-flecked table. It seemed like an impolite thing to say. Of course, zir Vail Fathers said things like that all the time, stupid tactless observations of things everyone could see, and no one ought to mention. But Shria didn’t always act that way.

Now, for instance, ve seemed to get that ve had intruded. Ve scanned the faces around the pavilion. “Hey!” ve said, grabbing zir arm so that their seating harnesses swung together. “Look!”

“Is it the Cirque?” ze asked.

“No. Or I don’t know, who knows? But it’s that alien.”

“What?” Fift dragged a foot, slowing the swinging of zir harness, and sat up straighter to see.