"Don't speak to me like that, you bitch." She had pressed her face close to Judy's. "I hate that attitude! I hate the way people like you do that!" The calm part of her was looking at that smooth white face, those black, black eyes. "You teachers and social workers who take on the suffering of their clients for your own. I'm the one who was locked up in a torture chamber! Me! Don't make out that you have a better understanding than I do about the way the world works! You, you... virgin!" She was spitting. Judy stared at her, tiny drops of Helen's saliva rolling from her impassive white face, her black hair shimmering softly in the dim light.

The baby chuckled and went back to biting at the fur collar. Justinian pulled the collar away and blew a raspberry on his son's fat little cheek. The material in his passive suit bunched up around his right arm as he did so.

Helen looked at the second figure now, hiding behind the first. She might once have been a chocolate woman, but now she was nothing more than a formless lump. "She can't speak," said Ella. "Her mouth was licked away."

Justinian never doubted the rumors that the EA could influence your actions without you knowing it; that all free will died when the AIs assumed power after the Transition. How could he doubt it, when he himself was part of that process, working as he did for Social Care? Still, he liked to retain the defining human belief that he was the master of his own destiny. So the gradually creeping realization that Leslie had manipulated him into making a detour during his spontaneous journey to catch the shuttle off planet came as a real blow to his ego. Here he was taking his child into further danger when he should be wasting no time in leaving this planet. What buttons had Leslie successfully pressed in order to persue him to make this unnecessary landing? But maybe the landing wasn't unnecessary; maybe there would be a clue...

Newton's Law: action and reaction. Everyone knew that if you were sinking in mud, you should relax. Don't fight it, just relax and wait for the natural buoyancy of your body to float you up. But that was easlily said when you were sitting safe on firm ground. Not so easy to imagine when you could feel yourself slipping deeper and deeper down. Feel the mud pressing up on your breasts, each precious breath filled with that rich earthy smell. Still, relax, lay your arms out on the mud and relax...