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“Jonamon, that’s the third time this week you’ve quoted the Gadarene swine at me.”
    â€œKrishna don’t love demons neither,” the old man snapped. He flipped the book over, red side up, and thrust it at Rebel. “Swear on the Gita you ain’t been reprogrammed. That’ll be good enough for me.”
    â€œMaybe I’d better tell my story first,” Rebel said. “Then I’ll swear it’s true afterward. That way you’ll know what I’m swearing to.” She shifted to a more central spot, sitting cross-legged in the air, the rope gripped in one foot. Then she wrapped her cloak in storytelling folds (inwardly marveling at her own dexterity) so that one arm and breast were covered and the other arm and breast free. Seeing her thus, people came out from their shanties or shifted places on the ropes so they could hear.
    She began:
    â€œI was dead—but they wouldn’t tell me that. I was lying in a hospital bed, paralyzed; unable to remember a thing. And they wouldn’t tell me why. All I knew was that something was wrong, and nobody would answer any of my questions.…”
    When she was done, Jonamon took her oath on his book and shook his head. “Well, I’ll be fucked if that don’t beat anything I ever heard.”
    â€œMmmm.” Wyeth’s face was grim and stony, lost in thought. It had a humorless, almost brutal set to it. He looked up suddenly and glared around at the listeners. “What are you staring at? Show’s over. Go away!” They scattered.
    Rebel shivered. He looked an entirely different man now—a thug, all suspicion and potential violence.
    Jonamon laid a hand on her knee and said, “You watch yourself, young lady. Deutsche Nakasone is a nasty bunch, they’ll do what they want with you. They just don’t give a fuck.” She drew away from him.
    â€œThat’s every gesellschaft, old man,” Wyeth said. “That’s inherent in the corporate structure.”
    â€œYou think so, eh? Let me show you something.” Jonamon huried off to his shack and returned with a cloth-wrapped package. “Maybe I’m just another old man with calcium depletion now.” He began slowly unfolding the cloth. “I’m stuck here nowadays, my bones would snap like breaksticks if I set foot in full gravity anymore. But I wasn’t always like this. I used to own my own corporation. Hell, I used to be my own corporation.”
    The ropehangers had come edging back to listen. One of them, a lean young man with rude boy paint, caught Rebel’s eye and flashed a smile. Cute little thing. He laughed, and Jonamon glared at him. “Laugh if you want. Individuals could incorporate back then. You can’t imagine how it felt, having all the legal protection of a corporation to yourself. It was like being a little tin god.” He sighed. “I was one of the last, wiped out by the Corporate Reform Act. I was a rock miner, maybe Wyeth here mentioned that to you. A prospector. When the Act came along, I had claims on a few hundred rocks, a real valuable inventory, worth a fortune back then, and even more now. But with the reforms, I had to liquidate. I entered into negotiations with a number of concerns, finally signed a preliminary letter of intent with Deutsche Nakasone. Look.” He held up the unwrapped package. It was a formal holographic portrait of a line of corporate functionaries looking serious for the camera. The young Jonamon stood in the center, a sharp-chinned man with an avaricious cast to his face.
    â€œThis was taken the day before the Act went into effect. Right after this, the president and I retired to a private office to settle the last few details and sign the agreement. You never saw anyone so nice and polite in your life. Did I want a drink? Don’t mind if I do. Would I like to screw? Hell, she was kind of cute. Then she asked if I wanted to try out a new