Regardless, this was a gift I really didn't want, even though it was already unwrapped. I told Hickory and Dickory to escort him out; Anil responded by screaming, jumping out my window and down off the roof, and then running all the way home naked. Which was a sight. I had his clothes delivered home the next day.

Poor Anil. He wasn't a bad person. Just deluded and hopeful.

"I will let you know if Enzo presents any problems," I said. "Until then, you leave him alone."

"As you wish," Hickory said. I could tell it was not entirely pleased about this.

"What was it you wanted to talk to me about?" I asked.

"We have news for you from the Obin government," Hickory said. "An invitation."

"An invitation for what?" I asked.

"An invitation to visit our homeworld, and to tour our planets and colonies," Hickory said. "You are now old enough to travel unaccompanied, and while all Obin have known of you since you were young, thanks to our recordings, there is a great desire among all Obin to meet you in person. Our government asks you if you will not accede to this request."

"When?" I asked.

"Immediately," Hickory said.

I looked at them both. "You're asking me this now?" I said. "We're less than two hours from departing to Roanoke."

"We have only just now received the invitation," Hickory said. "As soon as it was sent to us, we came to find you."

"It couldn't wait?" I asked.

"Our government wished to ask you before your journey to Roanoke began," Hickory said. "Once you had established yourself on Roanoke, you might be hesitant to leave for such a significant amount of time."

"How much time?" I asked.

"We have sent a proposed itinerary to your PDA," Hickory said.

"I'm asking you," I said.

"The entire tour would take thirteen of your standard months," Hickory said. "Although if you were amenable, it could be extended."

"So, to recap," I said. "You want me to decide in the next two hours whether or not to leave my family and friends for at least a year, maybe longer, to tour the Obin worlds by myself."

"Yes," Hickory said. "Although of course Dickory and I would accompany you."

"No other humans, though," I said.

"We could find some if you wanted," Hickory said.

"Would you?" I said. "That would be swell."

"Very well," Hickory said.

"I'm being sarcastic, Hickory," I said, irritated. "The answer is no. I mean, really, Hickory. You're asking me to make a life-changing decision on two hours' notice. That's completely ridiculous."

"We understand that the timing of this request is not optimal," Hickory said.

"I don't think you do," I said. "I think you know it's short notice, but I don't think you understand that it's offensive."

Hickory shrank back slightly. "We did not mean to offend," it said.

I was about to snap something off but I stopped and started counting in my head, because somewhere in there the rational part of my brain was letting me know I was heading into over-reaction territory. Hickory and Dickory's invitation was last-minute, but biting their heads off for it didn't make much sense. Something about the request was just rubbing me the wrong way.

It took me a minute to figure out why. Hickory and Dickory were asking me to leave behind everyone I knew, and everyone I had just met, for a year of being alone. I had already done that, long ago, when the Obin had taken me from Covell, in the time I had to wait before my father could find a way to reclaim me. It was a different time and with different circumstances, but I remember the loneliness and need for human contact. I loved Hickory and Dickory; they were family. But they couldn't offer me what I needed and could get from human contact.

And besides, I just said good-bye to a whole village of people I knew, and before that had said good-bye to family and friends, usually forever, a whole lot more than most people my age. Right now I had just found Gretchen, and Enzo was certainly looking interesting. I didn't want to say good-bye to them even before I properly got to know them.

I looked at Hickory and Dickory, who despite everything they knew about me couldn't have understood why what they were asking me would affect me like this. It's not their fault, said the rational part of my brain. And it was right. Which was why it was the rational part of my brain. I didn't always like that part, but it was usually on point for stuff like this.

"I'm sorry, Hickory," I said, finally. "I didn't mean to yell at you. Please accept my apology."

"Of course," Hickory said. It unshrunk itself.

"But even if I wanted to go, two hours is not nearly enough time to think this through," I said. "Have you spoken to John or Jane about this?"

"We felt it best to come to you," Hickory said. "Your desire to go would have influenced their decision to let you go."

I smiled. "Not as much as I think you think it would," I said. "You may think I'm old enough to spend a year off touring the Obin worlds, but I guarantee you Dad will have a different opinion about that. It took both Jane and Savitri a couple of days to convince him to let me have that good-bye party while they were away. You think he'd say 'yes' to having me go away for a year when there's a two-hour time limit attached? That's optimistic."

"It is very important to our government," Dickory said. Which was surprising. Dickory almost never spoke about anything, other than to make one of its monochromatic greetings. The fact Dickory felt compelled to pipe up spoke volumes in itself.

"I understand that," I said. "But it's still too sudden. I can't make a decision like this now. I just can't. Please tell your government I'm honored by the invitation, and that I want to make a tour of the Obin worlds one day. I really do. But I can't do it like this. And I want to go to Roanoke."

Hickory and Dickory were silent for a moment. "Perhaps if Major Perry and Lieutenant Sagan were to hear our invitation and agree, you might be persuaded," Hickory said.

Rankle, rankle. "What is that supposed to mean?" I asked. "First you say you wanted me to say yes because then they might agree, and now you want to work it the other way? You asked me, Hickory. My answer is no. If you think asking my parents is going to get me to change my mind, then you don't understand human teenagers, and you certainly don't understand me. Even if they said yes, which, believe me, they won't, since the first thing they will do is ask me what I think of the idea. And I'll tell them what I told you. And that I told you."

Another moment of silence. I watched the two of them very closely, looking for the trembles or twitches that sometimes followed when they were emotionally wrung out. The two of them were rock steady. "Very well," Hickory said. "We will inform our government of your decision."

"Tell them that I will consider it some other time. Maybe in a year," I said. Maybe by that time I could convince Gretchen to go with me. And Enzo. As long as we were daydreaming here.

"We will tell them," Hickory said, and then it and Dickory did a little head bow and departed.

I looked around. Some of the people in the common area were watching Hickory and Dickory leave; the others were looking at me with strange expressions. I guess they'd never seen a girl with her own pet aliens before.

I sighed. I pulled out my PDA to contact Gretchen but then stopped before I accessed her address. Because as much as I didn't want to be alone in the larger sense, at that moment, I needed a time out. Something was going on, and I needed to figure what it was. Because whatever it was, it was making me nervous.

I put the PDA back in my pocket, thought about what Hickory and Dickory just said to me, and worried.