'Someone has to stay here,' she said. 'Make sure that Birds Home really can repair itself.'
'I'll do that,' Rashid answered immediately. 'I owe you that much, considering I was the one who brought Steck here. And there's so much I can learn in a place like this. I want to understand the cloning process… the exact way thoughts are transferred…'
'While you're doing that,' Cappie said, 'could you use a second pair of hands?'
'Probably,' Rashid nodded. 'It so happens I have an immediate opening for a new Bozzle… and there's a precedent of filling the position with a person of dual gendership.'
Cappie glared at him with steely eyes. 'If you think you're going to start up with me the way you were with Steck…'
'No!' Rashid said sharply. It was the first time his self-control had broken since he found Steck dead: the first time he sounded like a man instead of a Spark Lord. 'I'm standing here with a corpse at my feet — her corpse! Do you think I'm so inhuman I can just…' His voice choked off. 'No,' he said with a catch in his throat, 'I'm really just looking for an assistant, Cappie: a second pair of hands, as you put it. It'll be a long time before I… never mind. You help me here in Birds Home, and after that, I'll see you get back to Tober Cove. If that's what you want.'
She looked at him for a moment more, then nodded. 'It's a deal.' Cappie turned back to my sister self. 'Can you take care of Pona for a while?'
'Of course.'
'I'll be back when I'm ready,' Cappie added hurriedly. 'I promise. It's just… I knew who I was when I was male and when I was female. Now that I'm neither one…' She shrugged.
'So you're trying to find yourself,' I said. 'But why can't you do that in Tober Cove? We need you there.'
'Why? So you Fullins can fight over me?'
'We won't fight over you,' I protested.
'In a few weeks, you might be fighting over who gets stuck with me. I know,' she said quickly, 'that's unfair. But it was just a few hours ago that you couldn't give yourself to me; not the way I needed. Has anything changed? Have you suddenly fallen in love with me because I'm a Neut? Not likely.' She gave us the ghost of a smile, trying to take the sting from her words. 'You may feel fond and sentimental about me right now, but that's not enough. There's too much pity in it — pity because I'm not male or female, and you think that's a tragic loss. Maybe it is, I don't know. But I need time to decide for myself.'
'Then take the time,' Female-Me told her. 'Pona will be all right. And when you're ready to come back, I guarantee Tober Cove won't have a law about banishing Neuts.'
'To make changes like that, you'll need help.' Cappie smiled. 'You'll need help from the Patriarch's Man.'
She turned to me. 'How about it? Will you say yes to Hakoore? For the good of the cove?'
'Patriarch's Man?' When I said it, the title sounded so sadly pompous — a relic of some long-dead tyrant, one more thing that should have gone on that junk heap in Mayoralty House. The Patriarch's Man was a self-deceiving fool with a book of laws and a machine that looked like a severed hand. 'I don't know if I believe in the position,' I said. 'After everything that's happened in Birds Home…'
'You mean you've lost your faith in the gods?' Rashid asked. 'This is so typical. I've bent over backward not to utter a word against your faith, but you're going to say I raised doubts—'
'I still believe in the gods,' I answered quietly. 'But not the Patriarch's Law.'
'Then change it,' Cappie said. 'The Patriarch has been an ugly sore, festering on the face of the cove for a hundred and fifty years. Get rid of him.'
'By becoming Hakoore's 'disciple'?'
'Yes… if that's what it takes to make things right.'
A fire burned in her eyes. It felt strange to have someone believe in me.
'Do you agree?' I asked my other self. 'If Hakoore puts the squeeze on me with that damned Patriarch's Hand…'
'I'll support you,' she said. 'Make sure your head stays straight.' She laid her fingers lightly on my arm and smiled. 'Two weasels together can beat a snake.'
I smiled back. 'All right — I'll do it. Patriarch's Man.'
My commitment.
'Of course, you remember,' Female-Me added, 'there's a special
I raised my eyebrows. She was looking at me with cool appraisal. I returned her gaze evenly.
'This could get interesting,' Cappie murmured.
'What?' Rashid asked. 'What's this special arrangement?'
'Tell you later,' she answered.
'And in the meantime,' I said to Rashid, 'can you do something about this radio in my head? I refuse to match wits with someone who can hear everything I think.'
'Yes,' my sister agreed, 'please stop him transmitting. It's so embarrassing to know the second he gets horny for me.'
'Me? Horny for you?'
'Silence, peasants!' Rashid commanded with mock severity. 'Whatever you're arguing about, I don't care — I've had my fill of cultural observation for one day. Let's find the damned lab so I can get back to the hard sciences. I'm longing for things that make sense.'
The lab was gigantic — far larger than all three coffin chambers put together. The front part held five large glass windows, showing words and numbers and graphs painted in colored light. There was also a corridor slanting upward, no doubt leading to Master Crow's nest. But what caught my interest most was the rear part of the room: a single wide aisle down the middle with banks of arcane machinery on either side. Even the height of OldTech culture couldn't have created such equipment. Glistening steel vats with pipes sprouting out in all directions. A tall pillar from floor to ceiling, with an exterior of black matte plastic and an interior of who knew what. Gray metal boxes that breathed out warm air through grilles, and faceless things with inhuman arms, delicately jiggling test tubes of red fluid.
'Glory be!' Rashid cried with delight. 'Home at last!'
'This looks like your home?' I asked dubiously.
He ignored me, moving to a nearby window-glass and punching at a row of buttons beneath it. Immediately, the picture in the window changed to a list of names — all the children of Tober Cove.
'Amazing,' Rashid said. 'How could they find out your names? Unless they can analyze the thought transmissions as they're coming through and extract specific information. But that would mean they understand the actual encryption of mental data in the brain…'
'Can you turn off the transmitter or not?' I asked.
'Hard to say,' Rashid answered. 'If I find a nice simple data screen with a button that says, CLICK HERE TO RUN OFF FULLIN'S TRANSMITTER, then we're fine. Otherwise, it may take months to figure out the trick. This setup is far more complicated than I expected, and I don't want to monkey with things I don't understand.'
Footsteps sounded from the up-slanting corridor. A moment later, the bird-servants appeared: all five walking in lock step, their arms empty. They paid no attention to us as they proceeded on toward the Neut chamber.
My sister self gave me a look. 'We'd better get up to Master Crow's nest before the children start waking.'
I nodded, then turned to Cappie. 'Are you going to be all right?'
'Helping a Spark Lord in the home of the gods? You can't get safer than that.' She stepped forward quickly and gave me a hug. 'Don't worry about me.' She gave another squeeze and turned to my female half. 'I'll be back for Pona, trust me.'
'Sure.' My sister self closed her eyes as Cappie embraced her. 'I'll miss you,' she whispered.
Cappie gave her a light kiss on the nose. 'You'll have each other,' she said with a laugh. 'I'll come back to the cove just to see how that works out.' She grabbed my sister and me by the arm and gave us a slight shove toward the door. 'Now get out of here. You both have work to do.'
We nodded. My sister had already turned toward the door when I stopped. 'One last thing.' I reached behind my back and pulled out the gun; sometime after Steck's death, I had shoved it into my belt again without thinking. 'This stays here,' I said, checking the safety before I laid the pistol on the floor. 'And Rashid… next time you bring presents to Tober Cove, try a fruit basket. Something harmless.'
'Next time I come to Tober Cove,' Rashid answered, 'I'll bring Cappie. Is she harmless?'
My sister laughed… then slipped her arm into mine, as if she were taking possession of me. I didn't push her away.
As we began the climb up the slope to the hangar, Rashid cried, 'Aha! Just what we were looking for. We look under Fullin's name, cross-match his personal transmission frequency, type in the numbers under DEACTIVATE, and…'
Everything suddenly went black.
'Fullin… Fullin…'
Someone was patting my face. I turned my head away.
'Come on, Fullin, wake up. Come on.'
I opened my eyes. Cappie, the Neut Cappie, stared down at me.
'What?'
'Wake up, sleepyhead.'
Groggily, I rolled up onto one elbow. I felt the weight of breasts on my chest as they shifted position. Was I the Female-Me? But I could feel… down at my crotch…
'Oh gods,' I groaned, looking at myself. 'I'm the Neut.'
I let myself slump backward. I was lying inside a glass coffin.
Cappie stroked my cheek soothingly. 'It's a shock, isn't it?'
'All this time I thought I was the male version… no, he was transmitting and I was just receiving.' Suddenly I sat up. 'Steck said the Neut Fullin was dead. Burned black as toast.'
'And you believed her?' Cappie said. 'Steck had better control of the armor than that. When your male self started shooting and your female self ran to Steck for
