Three slobie addicts wander by.

A male gamma with face streaked by red and blue paint pauses to sing, perhaps to us:

He kneels and gags. Thin blue fluid pours from his lips, almost to our feet.

We move on. We hear an echoing cry:

Al — pha!Al — pha!Al — pha!Al — pha!

Two gammas couple in an alcove. Their bodies are sweat-shiny and lean. Despite myself I watch the plunging hips and listen to the slap of flesh against flesh. The girl pounds the flats of her hands steadily against her partner’s back. Is she protesting a rape, or displaying ecstasy? I never find out, because a slobie stumbles out of the shadows and falls on them, tumbling in a turmoil of intertwined limbs. Lilith draws me away. I am suddenly heavy with desire for her. I think of the firm breasts beneath her wrap; I think of the bare moist slit. Shall we find an alcove of our own, and couple among the gammas? I put my hand on her buttocks, which are taut as she walks. Lilith wriggles her hips. Not here, she says. Not here. We have social distances to keep too.

A dazzle of light cascades from the tunnel’s roof. Pink bubbles appear and burst, releasing sour smells. A dozen gammas gallop out of a side-passage, halt in shock as they realize they have nearly collided with two visiting alphas, make signs of respect, and rush onward, shouting, laughing, singing.

They seem happy, I say.

Lilith nods. They’re soaped to the whiskers, she says. On their way to a radiation orgy, I bet.

A what?

A puddle of yellow fluid slides out from under a closed door. Acrid fumes rise. Gamma urine? The door bursts open. Wild-eyed female gamma, luminescent breasts, livid scar on belly, giggles at us. She executes a respectable curtsey. Milady. Milord. Will you clot with me? Giggles. Squats. Lurches around, heels against rump, in a dizzy dance. Arches her back, slaps breasts, spreads legs. Green and gold lights blaze in the room from which she has emerged. A figure appears.

What is it, Lilith?

Normal height, but twice the width of a gamma, and covered with thick coarse fur. An ape? The face is human. It lifts its hands. Short blunt fingers; webs between them! Drags the girl back inside. Door closes.

A reject, Lilith says. There are lots of them here.

Reject from what?

Substandard android. Genetic flaws; impurities in the vat, perhaps. Sometimes they have no arms, sometimes no legs, no heads, no digestive tracts, no this, no that.

Aren’t they automatically destroyed at the factory?

Lilith smiles. They aren’t destroyed. Those that aren’t viable die anyway, fast enough. The others are smuggled out when the supervisors aren’t looking and sent to one of the undercities. Mainly here. We can’t put our idiot brethren to death, Manuel!

Leviticus, I say. Alpha Leviticus Leaper.

Yes. Look, there’s another.

A nightmare figure rollicks through the corridor. Like something that has been placed in an oven until its flesh began to flow and run: the basic outlines are human, but the contours are not. The nose is a trunk, the lips are saucers, the arms of unequal length, the fingers are tentacles. The genitals are monstrous: horse-penis, bull-balls.

Better off dead, I say to Lilith.

No. No. Our brother. Our pitiful brother whom we cherish.

The monstrosity halts a dozen meters from us. Its ropy arms go through the movements of the one-two-three.

Speaking perfectly clearly it says to us, The peace of Krug upon you, alphas. Go with Krug. Go with Krug. Go with Krug.

Krug be with you, Lilith replies.

The monstrosity shambles onward, murmuring happily.

The peace of Krug? Go with Krug? Krug be with you? Lilith, what does all that mean?

Common courtesy, she says. A friendly greeting.

Krug?

Krug made us all, did he not? she says.

I remember things that were said when I was in the shunt room with my friends. You know all the androids are in love with your father? Yes. Sometimes I think it must be almost like a religion to them. The religion of Krug. Well it makes a sort of sense to worship your creator. Don’t laugh.

The peace of Krug. Go with Krug. Krug be with you.

Lilith, do androids think my father is God?

Lilith evades the question. We can talk about that some other time, she says. People have ears here. There are some things we can’t discuss.

But.

Some other time!

I drop it. The tunnel now widens into a considerable room, well-lit, crowded. A marketplace? Shops, booths, gammas everywhere. We are stared at. There are numerous rejects in the room, each a little more horrid than the last. It is hard to see how creatures so maimed and mismade can survive.

Do they ever go to the surface?

Never. They might be seen by humans.

In Gamma Town?

They take no chances. They’d all be obliterated if.

In the crush of the crowded room, the androids jostle and shove, bicker, snap. Somehow they maintain an area of open space around the intrusive alphas, but not a very great one. Two knife-duels are going on; no one pays attention. There is much public lasciviousness. The smell of the place is rank and foul. A wild-eyed girl rushes up to me and whispers, Krug bless! Krug bless! She pushes something into my hand and runs off.

A gift.

A small cool cube with beveled edges, like the toy at the New Orleans shunt room. Does it send messages? Yes. I see words forming and flowing and vanishing in its milky core:

All nonsense. Lilith, can you figure this stuff?

Some of it. The gammas have their own slang, you know. But look here, where it says—

A male gamma with cratered purple skin slaps the cube from our hands. It skitters along the floor; he dives for it in a knot of feet. There is a general uproar. People tangle and twine. The thief breaks from the mass and speeds away into a corridor. The gammas still wrestle confusedly. A girl rises to the top of the heap; she has lost her few scraps of clothing in the melee, and there are bloody gouges on her breasts and thighs. In her hand she holds the cube. I recognize her as the girl who gave it to me in the first place. Now she makes a demonic face at me, baring her teeth. She brandishes the cube and clamps it between her legs. A burly reject pounces on her and hauls her away; he has only one arm, but it is as thick as a tree. Grig! she screams. Prot! Gliss! They vanish.

The crowd is muttering in an ugly way.

I picture them turning on us, ripping at our clothing, revealing the hairy human body beneath my false alpha costume. The social distances may not protect us then.

Come, I say to Lilith. I think I’ve had enough.

Wait.

She turns to the gammas. She holds up her hands, palms facing, about half a meter apart, as though indicating the length of a fish she has caught. Then she wriggles in a peculiar sinuous maneuver, twisting her body so she describes a kind of spiraling curve. The gesture quiets the crowd instantly. The gammas step aside, heads bowed humbly, as we go past. All is well.