Jupkur shrugged. "The only problem was, Tic had caught the paralysis like everybody else, and couldn’t hold a knife to slash his wrists. The disease clung on too — kept him immobile twice as long as anyone else. Psychosomatic, of course: guilt kept him numb months after the microbes were gone. So the emotional therapists went to work, and by the time he could move again, he was past the suicidal stage. Just not past the self-recrimination. If I were you, I wouldn’t mention the plague in casual discussion."

"Jupkur," I groaned, "I’m Henry Smallwood’s daughter. Ooloms still stop me on the street to shake my hand. The subject is going to come up."

"Don’t you bring it up," Jupkur said. "Tic might take it the wrong way. As if you’re boasting that your father had to clean up Tic’s mess."

"I never boast about my father," I told him. Which shouldn’t have been true, but was.

When I got to my office, Tic was there: standing by the window, solemnly pushing his hand into the clear membrane then pulling it back, listening to the sucking sound.

Ssss-pop. Ssss-pop. Sssssssssssss-pop.

His face had a look of fierce concentration, as if this was a momentous assignment demanding his full attention. No smile or frown: nothing but focus. He reminded me of Barrett’s favorite basset hound, an old frump of a dog who would stare worriedly at a rubber ball for hours, wondering if maybe — just maybe — the ball could be used as a toy.

"Hello," I said. "Can I help you?"

"No," he replied, "I’m doing excellently on my own."

Sssss-pop. Sssssssssss-pop. Ss-pop.

"What are you doing?" I finally asked.

"Playing with the nanites. Simple souls — they just love being teased. Can’t get enough of it."

My heart skipped a beat. No, no, no, I thought quick-hop, nanites don’t have souls. Every last one of the little buggers was dumb as earwax. Put a billion together and the most you got was an idiot savant window that could impersonate jelly. Nanites definitely did not have personalities or… or…

Some killjoy part of my brain wouldn’t repress what happened the night before — how the nanites on the chair whimpered and turned tail when I gave them a dirty look.

"You think the nanites enjoy what you’re doing?" I asked.

"They like the attention," Tic said. He threw me a glance over his shoulder. "Whenever I take a new post, I make sure to befriend the local nanites. They’re always so desperately lonely. Taken for granted. No one ever gives a thought for their feelings." Ssssss-pop. "You, for example. This is your office, and they tell me you haven’t even introduced yourself."

"I’m just new," I found myself saying. "I only got the office a few days ago, and I’ve been busy ever since."

"You aren’t busy now."

Tic gave a tiny jerk of his head toward the window — the sort of hinting gesture that people pretend is so subtle no one else will notice. Reluctant as a rabbit, I crossed the room. Tic bobbed his head at the rightmost window. "Those fellows have been asking especially about you." I thought, Maybe this is a Vigil initiation prank. A stunt to make the new kid embarrass herself. Jupkur sets me up to think Tic is a total loon, and Tic gets me to do something witless just to humor him. Soon, all the other proctors will jump out laughing. Or else Tic is a total loon. Or else… no, I didn’t want to think about that. Placing my hand against the glassy un-glass window, I said, "Hi, guys. I’m Faye. You’ll be seeing a lot of me now, sitting over in that desk."

The membrane yielded a titch under my palm, the solid surface going oozy. I expected that. I did not expect the gentle backsurge that came straightaway after… a cool jelly hand twining its fingers with mine. At the same instant, my brain bloomed up with a clear mental image of a million microscopic puppies licking my skin — an image superimposed over my real senses like a VR template.

"Jesus Christ!" I cried, yanking my hand back. It gave a thunderous pop as it came free.

"Good noise," Tic said. "Excellent volume. Can I hear it again?"

"No!" I snapped. "I thought… I thought I saw… I thought I felt…"

"Puppies?" Tic asked. "They wanted it to be a pleasant experience for you. You don’t like dogs?"

"That was…" I gasped. "You mean the nanites…"

"Projected the image to say hello. They meant well, Smallwood. Now they’re worried they’ve upset you."

"How could they project an image?"

Tic reached out a bony finger and tapped my forehead. "You’re wired in now. Linked to the digital oneness. Like the nanites."

"But they’re not intelligent!"

"Not very," Tic agreed. "But they’re connected. They asked the world-soul to greet you on their behalf; the world-soul was the one who came up with puppies."

I felt my gorge rise… whatever a gorge is. "The world-soul projected something into my brain? Without my permission?"

"In any sensible society, saying hello to people gives them permission to say hello back."

"They aren’t people, they’re nanites!"

"Yes… and soon they’ll be cranky little nanites if you don’t say how much you appreciate their greeting. Small brains. Short tempers. Easily hurt feelings." Tic gestured toward the window. "Go on. You don’t want to get on their bad side. Otherwise, the next time you run through a pane of glass, they’ll deliberately muss your hair."

I stared at him. Tic had such a bland deadpan expression — a perfect poker face. (If frumpy old basset hounds could play poker.) For all I could tell, there wasn’t an ounce of jokery in him.

Sigh.

Here’s the thing: I didn’t want to find out windows had easily hurt feelings. I preferred that my worldview didn’t include opinionated nanotech. But… link-seed, Vigil, blah-blah-blah. You know the song, sing along with the chorus — Faye can’t hide from the truth.

I reached toward the window again. Only one hand. The featheriest touch I could manage. A cool jelly palm made contact with mine, just as hesitant as me. Into my skull came the feeling of shyness — not my own, someone else’s, a million someone elses worried they’d made some social gaffe. It’s all right, I thought, projecting my words at the un-glass, I’m just jumpy is all. I forced my palm to linger an extra second, then pulled back, feeling the jelly hand slip away.

Ssssssss. A pop as soft as a soap bubble.

"An adequate start," Tic said. "Just don’t ignore them from now on."

"I never knew they… who programmed them for emotions?"

Tic leaned toward me and whispered, "Nanites only have two programmed emotions: boredom and involvement. A single bit-switch that tells them they enjoy doing their job. ‘Oh joy, we get to work for big people!’ " He smiled fondly. "But when the nanites communicate with you through the world-soul, the world-soul likes to add more emotional color. Truth is, getting to know your local nanites is mostly just a way to show the world-soul you’re machine-friendly. Like playing with a woman’s children to win the mother’s heart. You definitely want to stay on the world-soul’s good side — you’re a data-based organism now." He lowered his voice even more. "The world-soul likes to be called Xe."

I fair gulped at that one. Xe (pronounced Chay) was a female deity from the Ooloms’ ancient past, dating back millennia to the Divian homeworld… comparable in time and sentiment to the Greek goddess Gaia. The Earth Mother. As I’ve said I didn’t understand much about Oolom religions, but I was sure they all considered Xe mythical. A pretty legend, a gem of a metaphor, but definitely fictitious.

"Are you saying Xe is real?" I whispered.

Tic stared at me scornfully. "It’s the world-soul, Smallwood. An artificial intelligence distributed over a million different machines. It likes the name Xe, but even Xe knows it’s not Xe. Are all new proctors as gullible as you?"