Daeman could see a dead mouse almost buried in the humus on the opposite side of the glade, little more than hair and bones now, but still a beacon of red-light energy as the bacteria feasted and the fly eggs incubated into maggots in the afternoon sunlight and the slow unraveling of complex protein molecules continued on the molecular level, and . . .

Gasping, almost gagging, Daeman whirled away, trying to shut off this vision, but everywhere was the complexity—the tagged and streaming ebb and flow of energy being passed, nutrients being absorbed, cells being fed, molecules dancing in the transparent trees, and breathing soil and sky ablaze with its rain and surge of sunlight and radio messages from the stars.

Daeman clasped his hands over his eyes, but too late; he’d looked at Savi—the old woman, but also a galaxy of life. Life nested in the flashing neurons of her brain behind that grinning skull and firing like lightning on the string of shocks along her retinal nerve and in the billions upon billions of living forms in her gut, busy and indifferent all, and—trying to look away, Daeman made the mistake of looking down at himself, into himself, past himself at his connection to the air and ground and sky . . .

“Off!” said Savi; Daeman’s mind echoed the command.

The brilliant midday sunlight bouncing off the trees and needle-strewn soil suddenly seemed as dark as midnight to Daeman. His legs ceased to work. Gasping, Daeman slid along the edge of the sonie and collapsed on the ground, rolling onto his stomach, arms extended, palms pushed flat, face pressed against pine needles.

Savi crouched next to him and patted his shoulder. “It’ll go away in a minute,” she said softly. “You rest here. I’ll go find the others.”

Ada had been hesitant to go when Harman suggested they take a walk—she was afraid that Savi would be angry or alarmed at everyone’s absence when she returned to the glade—but Hannah had already run off in search of Odysseus, and Ada didn’t want to stay there by the sonie alone with Daeman. Besides, she didn’t know if she’d have another chance to speak in private with her new lover before she returned to Ardis and he went flying off to the Mediterwhatsis Basin with Savi.

They walked up a hill, then followed a stream down the other side. The forest was alive with birdsong, but they saw no animals larger than a squirrel. Harman seemed preoccupied, lost in thought, and the only time he touched Ada was when he extended his hand to help her across the stream just above a ten-foot waterfall. She wondered if their night together had been a mistake, a miscalculation on her part, but when they stopped to rest at the base of the waterfall, she saw his eyes focus on her, saw the affection and tenderness in his gaze, and was glad they’d become lovers.

“Ada,” he said, “do you know your father?”

She had to blink at this. The question was not quite shocking—people knew they had fathers, of course, theoretically—but such a thing was rarely asked. “Do you mean know who he was?” she asked.

Harman shook his head. “I mean know him. Have you met him?”

“No,” she said. “My mother told me his name at one point, but I believe he . . . reached his Fifth Twenty some years ago.” She had almost said Ascended to the rings, the most common euphemism for passing on bodily into the heaven of the post-humans. Her heart pounded when she wondered why Harman was asking her this odd question. Did he think there was a chance that he had been her father? It happened, of course. Young women made love with older men who could be their anonymous sperm-fathers—there was no taboo on incest, since there was no chance that a child could be born from such a union, and there were no brothers or sisters since every woman could reproduce only once—but it was strangely disturbing to think about it.

“I didn’t know who my father was,” said Harman. “Savi said that at one point in time—even after the Lost Age—fathers were almost as important to children as mothers are now.”

“That’s hard to imagine,” said Ada, still confused. What was he trying to tell her? That he was too old for her? That was nonsense.

“If I’m ever a father,” said Harman, “I want the child to know me. I want to be with the child as he or she grows up . . . just as a mother would.”

Ada was too shocked to speak.

He began walking again and she followed him in under the trees. It was cooler in the shade, but the air was thicker there. The waterfall made a soft noise behind them. Suddenly Ada looked around, alarmed.

“Did you hear something?” asked Harman, stopping next to her.

“No. It’s just . . . something’s wrong.”

“No servitors,” said Harman. “No voynix.”

That was it, realized Ada. They were alone. For the last two days, the absence of omnipresent servitors and voynix had been like a missing background noise, but it was more apparent now that they were alone, just the two of them.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, she shivered. “Can you find the way back to the sonie?”

Harman nodded. “I’ve been making notes on the terrain and watching the sun.” He pointed with the branch he was using as a walking stick. “The glade is just over that hill.”

Ada smiled, but she wasn’t totally convinced. She checked her palm-finder, but it was as blank as it had been since they’d left the Antarctic domi. She’d been in the woods before—usually on her Ardis estate—but never without a servitor floating nearby to show the way home or without a voynix for protection. But this was just background tension to the central anxiety about Harman’s odd question and comment.

“Why are you talking about fathers?” she asked.

He looked at her as they strolled farther down the hill, deeper into the sequoia forest. The shade was almost gloomy here, although shafts of light slanted down here and there through the cathedral hush. “Something Savi said to me this morning,” he said. “Something about me being old enough to be your grandfather. About me going after this quest to find the firmary—and getting involved with you—as a sort of denial of my Final Twenty.”

Ada’s first response was anger, followed immediately by a stab of jealousy. The anger was at Savi’s stupid remark—it was none of the old woman’s business who Ada slept with or how old he was; the jealousy came from the fact that Harman had left their bed that morning at sunrise to go down and talk to Savi. Ada had simply kissed him good-bye when he’d slipped out of bed, soniced and dressed that morning, feeling some disappointment that her new lover did not want to spend another hour with her before they all had to rise for breakfast, but respecting his choice, imagining that he was just an early riser from old habit.

But what was so important that he had to leave her at dawn to go talk to Savi? Wasn’t he planning to spend the next several days with Savi in his stupid quest for a spaceship? In fact, realized Ada, Savi was taking her place in that quest.

She studied Harman’s face—so much younger looking than Odysseus’ shocking crow’s feet and gray hair—and saw that he hadn’t noticed her flash of anger and jealousy. Harman was still preoccupied, obviously mulling over his own thoughts, and Ada wondered if his attention and sensitivity to her the last few days—culminating in their wonderful lovemaking last night—were aberrations, just part of a prelude to sex, and not his usual demeanor. She didn’t think so, but she didn’t know. Was all this closeness she’d been feeling with Harman an illusion, something she’d generated out of her infatuation with him?

“Do you know how you choose to get pregnant?” asked Harman, still poking the ground distractedly with his walking stick.

Ada stopped in shock. That question was . . . astounding.

Harman stopped and looked at her as if he had said nothing unusual. “I mean, do you know how the mechanism works?” he said, still seemingly oblivious to how inappropriate his question was. Men and women simply did not discuss such things.