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mansion to change his diaper.
    â€œLast diaper,” Ukiah told Kittanning as he arranged the diaper-changing supplies. “We’ll have to go shopping now.”
    His mind, though, was on the Ae. Rennie had given Ukiah a blood mouse with genetic memories stretching backcountless generations of Pack and Ontongard, to a time when Ontongard were nothing but pond scum. Ukiah sorted through those memories now, trying to juggle through several lifetimes—Rennie, Coyote, Prime—to find the last memory of the Ae.
    While both Rennie and Coyote searched often for a sign of the machines, neither had found any clue to their fate. Alarmingly, Prime’s only references to them was that he dare not tamper with them while working on the destruction of the mother ship and other assorted plans including Ukiah’s conception; the mounting number of disasters made Hex obsessive about all the weapons.
    Linked through all the memories—naturally enough—were references back to the Ae’s creators, the Gah’h. The Ae had been a last defense stolen out of their hands; as a race all that was left of them were Ontongard memories.
    Kittanning had been mouthing on his fingers. He held up his hand to Ukiah’s inspection now. “My hand?”
    â€œYes, that’s your hand.”
    Kittanning stuck his hand into his mouth and gummed it some more. “Why is it like this? I can remember it as something else.”
    Kittanning was made after Rennie had given Ukiah the blood mouse, thus he was “born” with a full set of the ancient memories. As he grew, though, those memories deteriorated, leaving a confusing hodgepodge of earlier hosts with different body types, from wolf down to the octopilike Gah’h. Apparently Ukiah’s thoughts had stirred up Kittanning’s memories too, leaving him disorientated as to which were truly his.
    â€œThose were the ones that came before us,” Ukiah tried to explain. “They’re all gone now.”
    Kittanning took the tiny hand out of his mouth again and held it out, concentrating on it. Ukiah felt the cells in the hand readying themselves to change and shift, rearranging them to the Gah’h ancient design—a long boneless tentacle with suckers.
    â€œNo, no, no, no!” Ukiah cried, catching hold ofKittanning’s tiny hand, forcing his own will onto it. “That was someone else’s hand. We like our hands this way.”
    â€œWe do?” Kittanning voiced doubts, comparing his limited abilities as opposed to remembered fluid grace.
    â€œThis is Daddy’s hand.” Ukiah held it up to show that it matched in shape the littler one, built on the identical blueprint. “Doesn’t it feel nice?” He massaged Kittanning’s feet. “It can touch, and tickle, and give you your bimpy.” This was the family nickname for the pacifier. “And pick you up, and love you.”
    â€œDaddy.” Kittanning gurgled in delight at being cuddled.
    Kittanning’s sense of self wasn’t as strong as Ukiah expected. He would have to be careful to keep his thoughts on the here and now.
    Â 
    Ukiah loaded Kittanning back into the Hummer. Concentrating on the task of gathering Kittanning’s things and the slight worry of Kittanning changing shapes at the supermarket, Ukiah shrugged into his shoulder holster out of sheer habit and locked the gun safe. He was arming the security system when he realized what he had done. Rather than taking the time to reopen the gun safe and lock his pistol up, he opened the back closet and pulled out a windbreaker. It covered up his pistol, but anyone that could read bumps under clothing would be able to tell he was carrying.
    While Ukiah easily handled highway and country driving with the Hummer, city driving with the big, manual transmission SUV challenged his abilities. The narrow Murray Avenue was insanely busy as usual. He fought the clutch to keep the Hummer from