Squell put vir elbows on the table and leaned in, vir forehead next to Fift’s. “Fift,” ve said gently, forcing confidence into vir voice. “You have to concentrate. Use your words. Fift, nothing is so bad that it can’t be addressed. But you have to explain what’s going on.”

“They’re jumping around and shouting and talking about . . . some kind of war, I guess? It’s like something out of . . .” Fift flushed. It was like the Anger of the Thirty Thousand Scorned Data-Hatchers in the narrative eighth subsection of Melihor’s fourth metacommentary, but of course ze couldn’t say that. “. . . out of history.”

“But we need the Midwives,” someone shouted. “You said yourself! Ungendered babies—”

“Oh, Midwives are precious!” Panaximandra said. “But these Midwives of ours have overreached themselves. They call themselves the parents of society . . . but that is a lie. They cannot guide us. They cannot make us strong. A Midwife is like a placenta: holy, vital, at first you cannot do without it. But to grow strong, you cannot depend on it too long. You must cut it away.”

“War?” Nupolo leaned forward. “What are you talking about, Fift? Is this another performance? More Clowns . . . ?”

“It’s not the Clowns,” Squell said, leaning back, vir voice tight.

Amid the deserted courtyards of Slow-as-Molasses, Fift hurried to keep up with Father Frill and Father Smistria.

“Quit shoving!” someone shouted in the crowd behind Fift; then ze was knocked into Shria. They fell, and Fift snatched at something that looked like a rope. Zir hand closed on rubbery flesh—it was an umbilical cord connecting two of the rent-a-bodies, belly to uterus. The bodies—both red—screamed and fell on top of Fift and Shria.

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.