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barn – dances on stilt-like legs. "Bera haad a little lamb," he sings as he stops. "Baa, baa," he bleats in that thin little voice that disrupted your eating.
        A part of you notes, The young of all species share com mon characteristics: large eyes, small, thin voices. Although from his size he's merely mimicking a cub, what's more inter esting is that you responded to the stimulus of what you thought was a youngster in distress. Maybe that's a sign that this pseudo-autism is losing its grip.
        You ignore the voice, and return to chewing the grass. At the same time the man stops his little dance and stands normally as Bera shouts, "Stop it, Thorir!"
        Your chewing is again interrupted, by the man bleating, "I'm another of Ra-a-gn-a-ar's little lost lambs; please let me suck on your titties, Bera-a-a–" His bleating is cut short by a thud, and he topples forward.
        Ragnar stands over him, opening and closing his right hand, rubbing at its knuckles. "If you weren't my sonin-law, Thorir, we'd be duelling at dawn tomorrow for that insult."
        "I– I didn't mean to insult you," Thorir says. "I was merely teasing Bera."
        "Even if what you say is true," Ragnar says. "Your insult of my foster-daughter is an implicit slur of me. Though I would expect nothing more of Thorir the Stupid. How did you persuade Hilda you were worthy of her at the Spring Fair? Ye gods, you must be good at shagging, because you're good for nothing else. Get up, you cur!"
        Thorir drags his knees toward his head, and pushes himself upright.
        Your head is yanked back, the pain so excruciating that your fugue is broken. Bera shrieks, "Don't hurt him!"
        "You were eating grass?" the red-faced chieftain bellows over background laughter that subsides instantly at his glare.
        "It's the nanophytes," you say, though you don't understand half of the words that the Other pushes out of your mouth; he's wresting control from you. "I've lost so much weight to the lifegel that the nanophytes have taken control. They're assimilating them, but that requires energy. I'd need to eat a lot anyway to regain the lost mass, but on top of that I need thousands of calories a day. Every day. I'm so hungry, I'll eat anything – even if I can't digest it the nanophytes are swarming up into my gullet and converting the fuel directly."
        Ragnar is staring at you with both pity and revulsion. "You can talk. Even if half is gibberish."
        "The lingua-weave," you say. "It intercepts what you say in your tongue while it's still in my auditory nerves. That's why I can't watch your lips – it confuses the signals. When I reply in Anglish, it intercepts the signal again, takes control of the mouth and vocal cords, and turns it into Isheimuri."
        Ragnar clearly doesn't understand. "Stop. Prattling." He separates the words for emphasis. "Do something useful. Help the women work."
        You stare at him, still chewing on a mouthful of cud, as he stomps away.
         "The AIs' presence is probably the one unifying thing that stops humanity from exterminating itself–"
        "Come and help us pick lichens, Bera," a woman says, baring her teeth in a rictus that you catalogue as a smile. Her teeth are crooked and irregular, but her lips are full, and again you feel a surge of desire for her.
         "This report's conclusion is that without constant access to technology the Isheimur colony's long-term survival is un likely–"
        She looks down at the gown that Bera draped over you, and her face is red, but she smiles. "My," she says, "he certainly is a big boy, isn't he, Bera?" You interpret this as reciprocatory interest, but before you can reach for her, Bera pushes you back into the wheeled device.
        "Hormonal imbalance," the Other says in that toodeep voice. "Testosterone and adrenaline will be re-absorbed into the bloodstream."

    You find it difficult to concentrate on