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Jeb.”
    â€œThough you were not personally acquainted with him.”
    â€œYes.” She thought of another thing. “Do starfish have art?”
    â€œThis is the representation of people and objects in symbolic manner? We do have diagrams used in the construction of machines.”
    â€œThe opera,” she said impatiently. “That’s art. Music is an art. So is dance.”
    â€œMusic,” he echoed thoughtfully. “We do have that. But with us it is a tool. It is integral to our machines.”
    â€œThat accounts for that, then,” she said, bemused. “It is a survival skill. Using it for pleasure is a coincidental corollary for you, not an end in itself.”
    â€œYes, of course.”
    â€œWith us, the arts are ends in themselves. Oh, there are those who make a living from them, but they can do so only because the great majority of us appreciate performances for their own sake. And so do you, sometimes.”
    â€œDo we?”
    â€œYour Song of Joy.”
    He considered, and nodded. “You evoked that in me.”
    That triggered another thought. “Gloaming, we’re married, at least before the world. We are having sex, or more recently making love. I think it is time for me to stop taking the Pill.”
    â€œThe pill that renders you infertile? That is your choice. But why?”
    â€œSo I can have your baby.”
    â€œIt would be Quincy’s baby, the fruit of his body, not mine.”
    â€œThat will do. You will accept it?”
    â€œI will accept anything you prefer.” He was speaking literally. His immense potential was subject to her whim. She tried hard not to abuse that power. For one thing, it complicated Sam and Martha’s job of protecting them.
    â€œThen I will stop the Pill. It is time.”
    â€œIt is time for Star, too,” Aliena said. “I will tell her.”
    This brought Lida up short. “What does Star’s reproductive policy have to do with mine?”
    â€œShe needs to have the experience of a baby, as I did.”
    â€œBut there is Maple.”
    â€œMaple is mine. She must have her own.”
    Lida nodded. “Maybe that’s right.”
    Gloaming had waited politely for her dialogue with Aliena to conclude. “Now let’s make love.”
    â€œYour will is mine,” Lida said, laughing. How he had changed, once she had come to love him! But this was good.
    He hesitated, then laughed with her. He was beginning to get it.
    Two months later it was confirmed: both Lida and Star were pregnant.
    â€œThis is new to Star,” Aliena said. “She wants to be with you.”
    â€œMe? She’ll have a bellyful even without me!”
    Aliena laughed. She was ahead of the other starfish in this respect, picking up on the literal and figurative meanings. “She wants your emotional guidance, so that she can treat her baby appropriately. This does not come naturally to her. It was difficult for me too. That is why I enlisted the Smythes. They will, of course, help. But you will have a special understanding, being not only in the same condition, but fully human.”
    â€œBut what of the danger of having the starfish together? Because if I join Star, Gloaming will come too.”
    â€œI will,” Gloaming agreed.
    â€œThe security apparatus has been refined. The public now accepts the starfish. The incident with Jeb helped; in the popular mind the starfish were credited with having the empathy to provide for him. It should be feasible now.”
    Lida was satisfied to let the starfish have the credit for her idea; they had done a nice job animating it. Lida had seen Star hardly one minute, yet her presence had been magnetic and her voice spectacular, and Lida liked her. But did she really want to associate with her on a daily basis? It would mean life even more in the limelight, not something she had been accustomed to. But she was now a part of this project; what could she