Fift was there, all right. Ze was there in all three bodies, though ze tried to keep each of zir bodies out of the others’ view. Ze didn’t want to look at zirself, particularly not here, and not—why in Kumru’s fertile womb had ze agreed to this?—with zir neural data currently viewable by zir parents.

“Can we talk about what happened on the byway, please?” Father Squell asked. “Because . . .”

“Yes! Pip Mirtumil, Smistria Ishteni, Grobbard Erevulios, I appeal to you: what does this mean for us?” Arevio asked. In vir other body, ve chewed at vir thumbnail. “After all, we allowed Fift to wander off and get into that; don’t you think it could affect our parental conscientiousness ratings?”

“Oh, please,” Thurm said again.

“Easy for you to say, Thurm!” Nupolo stood at one end of the table, singlebodied, dressed up for the occasion in ancient cobalt-blue military coveralls with sparkling bangles. Vir face—its skin soft as old velvet from so many decades of routine bodywork—was grim. “They don’t factor much into your reputation. And you don’t exactly depend on these apartments as a home, do you?”

Thurm crossed vir arms. The temperature in the room felt like it dropped a few degrees.

“There are five new bets at neighborhood bookies on the topic of this cohort, its parenting competence, and its compliance with consensus,” Father Grobbard said. Oddly, ze was here in all four bodies, all seated in a row, a tiny flicker of wryness passing through one of zir four blank expressions. “The odds tend to be in our favor. There are, so far, no bets offered on forced dissolution.” The other Fathers stiffened, and Fift felt a sharp stab of discomfort in zir stomach at the words, but Grobbard talked on as if unaware. “But the bookies have already estimated the odds on such bets. Low odds, to be sure. But it is notable that such estimates even exist, especially when we have thus far avoided any official rebuke or sanction. I will leave the precise probability landscape to those of you more versed in this kind of thing, but I note that there is ample anecdotal evidence of such a pattern of new betting activity presaging major shifts in aggregate approval ratings . . .”

“Now hold on,” Frill said, bouncing in vir own lap with impatience. Ve was sheathed in tiny glittering golden bells which tinkled as ve swayed; a second body, underneath, lounged languidly in the seating harness. “We’re talking like all this is purely a fumble that’s opened us up for the blade. But there’s some potential for advantage here too, don’t you think? What about the conversation with the artifact?”

“With the what?” Arevio asked, brows furrowed.

“With that Thavé thing,” Frill said. “It’s an artifact of the Ages Before the Ages, right?”