six months apart by a couple of well-compensated surrogate mothers. At the time he had been inexpressibly shocked. Reproduction these days had very little in common with how the function had been performed in the nineteenth century.

In the presence of little Violet Caroline and William Edward he could almost feel himself ossifying, reverting back to the Victorian paterfamilias his own father had been: remote, kindly, dutiful, uninvolved. Almost three years old and nearly three-and-a-half, Vi and Willie were not interested in walking hand in hand with an adult. Disney World was far too enthralling. They ran, screaming in glee, to the Dumbo ride for the tenth time today. Lash said, "Good heavens, what energy. A pity you can't plug them into the grid. You'd save a mint onfever scorched right through Titus's shirt, and yet he shivered in the raw chill.

"What have they been living on?"

"One-quarter of a food bar daily," Dio said. "And water that the Fortie helped them filter."

"The Fortie." Titus ducked low to ease his burden into the tent, through the standard zipper portal now that the condoms were defunct. Its blessed warmth and dryness enfolded them like a mother's arms.

Dio followed and unfolded a sleeping bag. Together they lowered the sick man into it. "Only one, apparently. And it's breaking up into pieces. From what he's been saying it's possible we may have never yet touched the surface of Aloha. All this time, we've been wading over disintegrating and outlying segments of Fortie."

Titus grimaced in disgust. "Faugh!"

"Don't say that," Ticker said