Toby chuckled. “Prob’ly don’t know what fun is, right?”

Not precisely, no. It has to do with your downtime processing mechanism, of that I am sure. You accumulate your curious dynamic tensions through conscious operations. Some of these discharge during your downtime processing, your sleep. (Unintelligible.) Others escape with the venting of the reflexive sounds—

“Laughin’?” Toby asked in disbelief.

Yes. There are also accumulations of identity-signifiers. You must continually maintain your self-knowledge, your interior image of your essence, in order to keep your subprograms working property. We have similar systems, of course. Yours, though, appear to be keyed to your sexual identity. Internal questionings accumulate. Only by reaffirming your sexual self, by uniting with an opposite member, can you resolve and discharge these accumulated signifier problems—tensions, I suppose you would call them. Curiously, this can occur with only a small sample of the available candidates, often merely one candidate. For example, your father has, once I released him of some crude internal programming, formed with Shibo a—

Killeen said sharply, “Don’t go talking dumb ’bout things you don’t know.”

I see. Yes, I take your point.

A fitful tang pervaded Killeen’s sensorium. He had the distinct impression that the Mantis was politely backing away from the subject. Killeen felt a mild outrage at a mech intruding into things so fragilely human, talking to a boy about his own father’s sex life. He said, “You mechs got no balls.”

Not in the sense you mean.

Toby laughed. “What’s that mean?”

I will not discuss the implications of our lives, for you are a lower thing. Do not mistake your value as a phylum for more than it is. We have studied others of your sort, elsewhere in the Galactic Center.

“Where?” Killeen asked intently.

Do not think you can easily deceive me about your intention to find your father. I understand these primitive motivations.

“Dammit, I want know where other humans are.”

The original ones, the builders of the Taj Mahal—I do not know. But the later group, from which you descend—they are spread in several spots. I enjoin you, however. I have adjusted the Argo. (Unintelligible.) It cannot sail inward toward the Eater. We will not tolerate lesser forms interfering there. You must chart outward. There you may find humans. There are other forms in that region, as well.

“Sure you don’t want come along?” Toby asked, suspicion tightening his mouth.

I wish the laughing, dreaming vertebrates to retain some freedom. Otherwise they will not remain in the wild state. As curator of such forms I shall preserve them.

“We’re gettin’ away,” Toby countered.

You will remain within reach of the Center. The Argo cannot voyage far. It can reach at most a few hundred stars in the Center. If I wish more specimens of you in the natural state, I can come and harvest some. To leave you here, wild, would be to see you become extinct.

“Don’t look like you could catch anythin’,” Toby said with thin bravado. Killeen gave him a warning glance.

You do not know of what you speak. I require from you, however, a pledge that you will not seek the one who spoke to you through the magnetic creature.

Killeen looked back to where the Argo lay in a glare of working lamps. What strange code made the Mantis believe he would honor a promise to a mech?

“Sure, I pledge,” he lied.

He and Shibo took their food to eat down by the stream. It splashed over ebony rocks and Killeen hoped that this murmur would make them hard for the mechs to overhear.

“Good food,” he said. “Never ate such.”

“Soft,” she answered. They smacked their lips with relish, eating with their hands the first product of the Argo’s automatic kitchen. The ship converted raw materials into warm, spicy, aromatic wonders of layered and moist richness. The tastes kindled in Killeen old memories of his mother’s cooking.

“Tonight we bed early,” she added, looking at him with a distant mirth. He saw that she intended to have some fun with their talk.

“Yeasay. Tomorrow night we either sleep among the stars or we sleep forever.”

“Tonight I get on top.”

“Taking over already?”

“Ground rocky.”

“Ah. You were always on top with the other men?”

“Which?”

“You must’ve had some.”

“None.”

“Sounds like you’re lying.”

“Yeasay.” Her slight smile brimmed.

“Keep right on lying. I want it that way. Fill me with lies. Yeasay. Were they all Knights?”

“Never had any, on top or on bottom.”

“I understand. Were they ugly, like me?”

“Never had any. I was ugly, too.”

“We were made for each other. Uglies attract uglies. How many?”

“How many what?”

“Knights you had.”

“There weren’t any and I didn’t count.”

“Yeasay. Do Knights take their boots off first?” She laughed. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I heard Knights were always run-ready.”

“One on top keeps boots on.”

“Why?”

“Might need run fast.”

He looked shocked. “Even inside shelter?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m always on march.”

“On the march nobody’s inside.”

“Not inside me anyway.” She grinned.

“With all those big Knights around? You must be fast.”

“I fast all right.”

“Hafta be.” He looked at her steadily and tipped his head slightly toward the big floodlit work zone where the Mantis moved among its mech army. “Big problems take quick reflexes.”

“Little ones too.”

Killeen glanced toward the Argo. “I count plenty little problems.”

“Have to be fast, is all.”

“No rush, I guess. Can take care little problems later.”

She nodded. “Everybody knows that.”

“Yeasay, even the manmech.”

She nodded again. “Want be on top, be fast, wear boots.”

“You’re learning.”

“Good teacher.”

“Seems like you learned somewhere before.”

She gave him a silky, sideways glance. “Never learned your moves, naysay.”

“I like that. Keep lying and I’ll keep liking it.” He finished his food and licked his hands and the plate.

“I’ll try.”

“Yeasay. Tonight you can get on top.” He grinned.

“Not sure I want.”

“Why not?”

“Have wear boots.”

“You get the point.”

“That’s what I want.”

TWO

In the long stretching moment before the Argo lifted off Killeen felt a dim red pressure.

It was the mass of humanity at his back, on decks below. Their sensoria linked and intermingled like sliding soft fluids. Never had he felt them this way. Skittering tension shot through them but there was a calm smooth undercurrent too.

The long years on the march had hardened them. They could wait, knowing that their lives depended on their speed, and yet not permit this knowledge to tighten or distract them. Those who had not learned this had fallen somewhere back along the bleak and desolating train the Families had now left behind. So the Mantis, who had surekilled so many in that panicked state, would not sense in the sensorium today a premonition of what was to come.

Good. He nodded to Shibo. “Yeasay.”

“Ummm. I like being on top.”

He laughed. She began the launch.

The couch enveloped her. This was a last precaution against mech control. The laminated layers of the couch responded only to human inputs. Shibo worked within it, arms extended to the canted surfaces before her. Her hands moved in an exacting blur. Her exskell hummed and buzzed like an earnest animal.