In the breakfast room, Fift took a shuddering breath, pulled zir fists from zir face, and stirred zir soup with a trembling spoon.

Zir Fathers’ eyes were on zir. Ze imagined what they would say if only they could see where ze was; they would lose it. Ze tried to force a smile. “I wonder what Thavé thinks of this? If this is one of the dying-of-boredom cultures, I’d hate to see the exciting ones.”

“What are you talking about?” Father Nupolo said. Ve sat back down, stiff, scowling, at the table’s end. “Cultures? Thavé? Kumru’s eyes, Fift—I hope you’re not making void-blessed Long Conversation allusions in front of us!”

“No, no,” Fift said. The smile eluded zir. “I mean, from today. Didn’t you hear what Thavé said?”

“What who said?” Father Squell asked.

“The alien?” Grobbard said, raising an eyebrow.

One of the red anonybodies was lying next to Fift, knees to its forehead, holding its belly and weeping. The other body, on its knees, grabbed Fift by the shift and punched zir, once, hard, in the side of the head. Fift cried out in all zir bodies. Shria tackled the red nobody, knocking it to the ground.

“What was that?” Father Frill said. Ve stopped in a corridor, knives jingling from vir sash. Seeing Fift’s expression, ve took zir hand.

Father Smistria glared back at them. “Can we keep moving?”

“Somebody punched me,” Fift told Frill.

In the breakfast room, Squell leaned forward again. “Fift, what happened?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Fift said, holding the side of zir head. “I mean, weren’t you watching me in the pavilion with Shria? When we were talking to Thavé?”

“Fift, we don’t spend the whole void-spurned day following you on the feed,” Father Nupolo said.

“Fift, what happened?” Squell said. “Why are you holding your head?”

“We had a million viewers!” Fift said, and had to look away from Father Squell. Ze slurped zir frozen soup. Ze knew ze was being ridiculous. Ze’d lost Shria; ve was behind a wall of bodies. But after the constant pressure of worrying about what ze said or sent—what zir parents would hear or guess—to have it turn out they hadn’t even been watching, they’d just been ignoring—

Ze struggled through the legs of the anonybodies, trying to reach Shria. More of them were tripping and stumbling now, and a body fell in front of Fift. Ze tensed, and then wriggled over it, as quickly as ze could. Someone kicked zir in the leg. Above, from the puff-pillar, Panaximandra was roaring “Freedom! Valor! Conquest! Babies!” and the anonybodies began, awkwardly, to fall into the chant. Shria had a red body pinned, its wrists in vir hands. “Shria!” Fift shouted. Ze tried to send vem a note, but the send failed. The note cycled, waiting for a connection.

“Punched you?” Frill cried. “Literally? This isn’t a metaphor? Someone punched you?” Vir eyes widened, hands balled into fists. Smistria took Frill’s sleeve to pull vem down the corridor, but Frill shoved vem back, a straight-arm to vir chest. “Who punched you? Who?”