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doors closed around him, Karl spilled out the contents of his suitcase, found the robot, and adjusted the controls so that it walked with knees bent backward. “Poor bird,” he said. “He needs a few people like him.”
    Marianne said, “Maybe we could go to Earth for just a visit, not run Karriaagzh’s operation.”
    “You wanted us to take in the Sharwani family, now you want to go to Earth. First we’ve got to deal with the Sharwani,” I said, slipping out of my shoes and then heading for the back room. I needed at least one beer.
    Beer, in the Federation, came in squatty little cans that took up less space than any shape other than a sphere. Spheres rolled; squatty little cans stacked. I put twelve in the flash chiller.
    Marianne came in and rubbed my neck and shoulders. “ Did that bitch feed you guys ?” she asked in English, breasts pushing against my back.
    “ I could stand to eat ,” I said.
    Karl came in, his robot following him still walking like Karriaagzh. He said, “I’m hungry, too.” 
    Marianne said, “Let’s feed our prisoners first so I don’t feel guilty.” She looked through our foodcooler, a chest model with hand-revolved bins—energy efficient—and brought out Sharwani analogs to beans and carrots. The cut-up roots were almost beet red.
    The flash chiller beeped, and I took out a beer still tingling from the sonics that kept it from freezing around the edge of the can. While Marianne heated the Sharwani’s food, I popped the beer open and sipped. Warren said once that when you really want a beer, you’re generally so thirsty that cold piss would taste good. Warren wasn’t much on alcohol, I thought, hoping I wasn’t going to get depressed—from thinking about him again.
    My mind flashed letters: I OBLITERATE ALL YOU FUCKERS. Warren’s suicide note, big as a billboard on the wall over his body. I shuddered as I swallowed the beer. Neither my son nor my wife noticed. For half a second I was pissed that they hadn’t seen, then thought, just as well.
    “Do you really want to go back?” I said to Marianne.
    Karl said, “I want to meet more humans, too.”
    Marianne said, “Karl, you couldn’t go.”
    I said, “It wouldn’t be dangerous for him. He’s a minor.”
    Karl said, “Mother, you and Dad feed the people out there. I can fix our food.”
    Marianne said, “Great, Karl, you’re getting to be quite the adult,” as she put the Sharwani food on three plates. They used soft plastic wafers the size of tea saucers to eat with; I found a speck of dried food on one and scraped it off before folding them and sticking them into the food.
    When we got to the Sharwani room, the male was in the toilet and the female was pacing the floor, her fingers going through her head hair, picking at the fur over her cheekbones. The child began wailing when he saw us. I unlocked the small door and slid the plates in.
    The male came out of the toilet, both eyes bruised. The female shouted over her child’s wails, in Wrengu, “Divide us.”
    “Tonight, we can sedate you,” I shouted back. “Barrier tomorrow.”
    The two Sharwani looked at each other and made odd whistling sounds almost like warning cries—maybe their laughter, maybe not. Their child stopped wailing and began mouthing his wristbone, knobbier than the equivalent human bone. All three of them froze, looking like geometric sculptures, the male’s facial and head hair down, the female’s flaring, then the female kicked her plate across the floor. It clattered on the back wall.
    “We’re as much stuck with you as you are with us,” I said, wondering how much Wrengu she knew.
    The Sharwani woman sank to the floor, fingers over her eyes. Blood began to seep down below her palm.
    I sealed the food door and started to pull a lever to gas them unconscious, but she looked up at me and said,  “Veins break when upset.”
    The male pointed to his left eye and said, “Natural.” He said something to his mate, and she threw