“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?”

“Frill!” Smistria snapped, grabbing vir arm again. “Come on, let’s move, let’s get to zir.” Slowly, Frill allowed vemself to be dragged.

In the breakfast room, Father Grobbard, eyes closed, said, “Here it is, the record of your talk with the alien. Yes, you did have quite a spike, didn’t you?”

“Fift, please,” Squell said, vir voice trembling. Ve laid vir hand softly on Fift’s shoulder. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s all right,” Fift said. “I . . . stumbled into something.”

Squell’s face fell. Ve didn’t believe zir. “Oh, Kumru!” ve said. “You’re terrifying me. If only we could see—I can’t even see Frill and Smi—I see nothing! And where is Pip, why isn’t ze answering me?”

“Freedom! Valor! Conquest! Babies!”