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plain beyond. All of them are covered with branching conduits, with different crops growing in different places depending on what temperature and flow speed they prefer.
    His own Sandyslope property is on the broad side of the mound where the cold current from the wilderness brings silt. The flavor of the water is comforting and familiar as he passes the marker stones. On his own property, Broadtail finally relaxes. Like all landowners he is only really comfortable within his own boundaries.
    As always, he rises up and gives a loud ping to check on the place. The house echoes back sturdy and—sadly—all too clean. The pipe network flows quietly, with no burbling leaks or churning at a blockage.
    Broadtail’s pipes are not like the others at Continuous Abundance. He recalls using mathematical models based on the proportions of blood vessels in large animals to adjust the diameter of the branches. His crop yields are bigger than anything anyone remembers Flatbody producing by nearly an eighth part, though that is still less than most of the other tracts at Continuous Abundance.
    The house is in the middle of the property, three long halls with vaulted stone roofs for protection. Pipes feed into the house, and downstream the waste-laden water supports a bloom of hardy fronds. Broadtail crosses his boundary, pinging for attention. He reaches the door and sets down his reels and supply bags, then calls again loudly for his apprentices. There is no reply.
    Typical. Doubtless they are off idling with other apprentices and tenants, instead of working. Broadtail crawls out of his house again and listens. There is a clamor of many voices coming from the commonhouse in the center of the village, just next to the dome over the vent itself. A meeting? Broadtail doesn’t want to go to a meeting now. But he is a landowner. It is not proper to stay home.
    The commonhouse is packed, people jammed in shell to shell. Talk and sonar clicks make it almost too noisy to move about. Broadtail squeezes into the back, working his way to his favorite spot over in the corner, where a slab of porous stone cuts down on some of the echoes. If only that lout Thicklegs 34 Sandybottom just in front of him would stop grinding his palps, Broadtail would be able to hear what the speaker is saying.
    Ridgeback 58 Hardshelf is on the lectern, gripping it with all eight legs as if he’s afraid of the audience trying to drag him out. They might actually try it if he keeps ranting on. Everyone is hungry and bored—the hecklers at the back have started pinging in unison, trying to set up a standing wave and drown him out.
    “Openwater is common to all! All precedents agree! Everything above the height of a person’s outstretched claws is common water. The catch in tall nets should not belong to the landowner but to the public jars.”
    “Nets don’t put themselves on poles!” someone shouts. “If the tall netcatch goes to the public jars there is no reason for us to waste time building tall nets!”
    “Then let the town buy some dragnets and put some children to work towing them!” Ridgeback answers. “Share out the catch among all, landowners and tenants.”
    That gets a loud response. About half the people in the commonhouse are tenants—netmakers, stonecutters, openwater fishers. The craftworkers love the idea of getting catch for free, so they support Ridgeback loudly. The fishers want the right to drag nets over private lands themselves, so they’re a bit more muted. The landowners hate the whole idea, and say so. The apprentices are just making noise for the sake of noise, hoping a fight breaks out.
    Broadtail hates the idea more than most. His Sandyslope property is off at the upstream end of town, exposed to the cold currents, and his pipeflow is cold and thin. His channels produce only slow-growing plants like ropevine and springbranch, and those can’t back many beads. Almost half his food is netcatch, and he has three expensive new tall nets