"How'd you do that?" Mickey asked, and I had a feeling it wasn't just casual curiosity.

"Is all done with intelligence engines," Alexei said, as if that were explanation enough. If you have one, you can be a bank or any other kind of corporation. Or even a government. Mikhail,pay attention here—it doesn't matter how many stupid processors you put into render farm; you still need intelligence core. That needs quantum chips. If you have that, you can make money jump out of here and into there, without passing through intervening space. At least, that is how it is explained to me."

"A shower sure sounds good," I suggested, hoping to derail this particular conversation.

Mickey looked annoyed; I guess he wanted to hear the rest. But Alexei's hyperactive mind had already leapt on to the next thought. He was already pulling back a plastic divider. "Is good question, Charles. Over here is drying area, when you get out of shower. Is heat pump, like sauna. And you can stand under sunlight here. But do not stand too long. You will get badly sunburned." He pointed at my borrowed hair. "Be careful with wig, please. In case you might need it again. Or maybe you will want to wear it again just because it makes you look so pretty. Don't look to me like that, the nights are two weeks long here. Some Loonies like to play dress up, phone friends, play games. Now we must hurry and unload Mr. Beagle so I can take care of errands."

HIT THE SHOWERS

Alexei didn't leave immediately. He still had several hours more talking to do before taking his tongue in for its one-hundred-thousand-kilometer checkup. Fortunately, he didn't need to do it with us. He headed off to a space above the living quarters that was partitioned as an office; it had a ceiling and angled windows overlooking the living area. There he started making phone calls. Through the glass we could see him gesticulating wildly and hollering at his unseen victims. Occasionally, we could hear wild Russian phrases that defied translation, although at one point, it seemed as if Alexei was very upset about a lot of chyortand gohvno.He stamped back and forth through the office, waving his arms and shrieking in fury.

It was like when we were on Geostationary and he was talking on the phone to people all over everywhere, making all kinds of business arrangements. He said he'd made a lot of money off the information Mickey had given him—but for a rich man, he sure didn't act very rich. He acted like the guy who ran the comic-book store in El Paso. Like every comic was a million-dollar deal. Well, some of them were—like Mad#5—but not everyone.

So just what was Alexei screaming about? And to who?

Hell, if I had an ice mine on the moon and a rolling Beagle-truck, I wouldn't worry about anything. I'd hang speakers all over the shaft and play Dvorak's Symphony #9 "From the New World"as loud as I could. Dad had recorded it with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra once. I'd always liked that recording, it was one of my favorites. That, and his recordings of Beethoven's nine symphonies. Dad had used the Bàrenreiter edition of the score, and period instruments tuned to the traditional A at 415 hertz, not 440 as was done later on. And he'd accelerated both the tempo and the dynamic range of the orchestra. I liked Dad's interpretation—and not just because it was Dad—but because he made the music frisky and energetic, as well as thoughtful and elegant. He brought grace and dignity to the third movement of the Ninth, playfulness and spirit to the first movement of the Fourth.

The recordings had sold very well and Dad was invited to conduct all over the country. Newsleakeven called his set "the definitive Beethoven." I was very proud of him. So was Mom. Things were going well for us. And then Mom got pregnant with Stinky and everything changed. Mom and Dad started arguing over his career and all his traveling and his responsibilities—and then one night Dad got so angry, he asked her if the baby was even his—

And after that, it was never the same again. Some things can't be fixed.

And that only made me wonder all the more about Alexei. There was something very strange about the way he was super-polite to us, and then turned raging-belligerent to invisible people on the other end of the phone. What he was shouting looked an awful lot like the kind of stuff that couldn't be fixed—that the people on the other end wouldn't forgive.

So who was he yelling and screaming at—and why did they put up with it? What kind of relationship was it that they couldn't each go their separate way? Or was this the way Loonies behaved? Polite always in person, angry only when they couldn't be touched?

It didn't seem right to me. There was a lot that puzzled and annoyed and frustrated me about everything—and after Mom and Dad declared war on each other, I started speaking up too. I mean, why not? If everybody else was going to say what was wrong, I wanted to be heard too.

Except it doesn't matter how loud you complain, nobody listens—and nobody cares whether your complaint gets addressed or not. It's not theirproblem. Everybody only cares about their own problems, no one else's. A complaint is about as useful as a morning-after contraceptive pill for men.

Dad used to say that the only way to get anyone else involved in solving yourproblem is to make it theirproblem. But that didn't always work either—if their way of solving problems was to blame them on someone else. Like Mom and Dad always did.

But even though it didn't really work, speaking up was still better than keeping silent. Because if you're silent, they think you're agreeing. When you complain, when you speak up, when you argue, when you fight back—at least the blood on your hands isn't all your own.

Watching Alexei in his booth … it was like watching Mom and Dad.

'Chigger?"

"Huh?"

"Showers? Remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry. I was thinking."

"That's a nasty habit to get into," said Douglas. "You should only do it in private, and make sure you wash your hands afterward."

"I said thinking!"

"I heard you—"

I pulled off the wig, shrugged out of the dress, peeled out of the slip and panties. I felt weird doing it, like I wasn't just changing clothes as much as changing from one life into another. And Alexei had been right about the luxury of clean underwear.

The showers were wonderfully hot. Clouds of steam rose around us. It was delicious. This was the first real scrubbing we'd had since we'd left Earth over a week ago. Since before we took the elevator up the Line, since before the SuperTrain. Our last bath was at the motel in Mexico, after the night that Stinky scared himself by almost drowning in the Gulf of Baja. But even that shower hadn't been all that great. The water had been brown and there wasn't much pressure; it had smelled bad and felt worse. We ended up feeling dirtier than when we'd started.

This was better, much better, almost perfect. The water fell lazily around us in great fat drops, splattering everywhere in slow-motion bursts. It rolled slowly down our faces, down our chests and legs. It dripped like oil off our fingers and our noses and our dicks. Stinky laughed and pointed. Mickey held up his hand and angled a water spray so it arced high and slow across the shower space and splashed across Bobby's chest and face. Bobby yelped, but it didn't take him long to figure out how to splash back—and in no time at all, we were all aiming our respective torrents at each other, laughing wildly in a silly hysterical naked water fight. Everyone got doused in turn. Douglas and Mickey ganged up on me, then Bobby and I and Douglas plastered Mickey. And then Mickey and I and Bobby aimed everything at Douglas. We were making and breaking momentary alliances, one after the other, none of us were safe from betrayal. As soon as someone had been thoroughly splashed, we all turned on his most vigorous attacker and he became the new target of opportunity.