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By Root 724 0

the biplane from side to side. The joystick trembled under Chris's palm. The empty promenade deck rushed up silently to meet them. He flared at the last possible moment, putting the rear wheel down first. The forward undercarriage hit next, skidded, and then bounced twice as if reluctant to settle. Chris pushed hard on the rudder as the rear of the biplane slewed sharply to the right and skidded to a halt three metres from the end of the deck. The joystick was still trembling. Chris wondered what could be causing the strange vibration until he let go and found that his hands were still shaking.

'Did you enjoy that?' asked the Doctor.

Chris nodded, unable to speak.

'I could tell,' said the Doctor.

Bernice was trying to explain the methodology of Martian archaeology to saRa!qava and why she needed her help.

'What do you want to know?' asked saRa!qava.

It didn't seem to surprise saRa!qava that Bernice and the Doctor had taken over the investigation of vi!Cari's murder. These things were generally left to the IDIG but only because people associated with IDIG were the ones that wanted to be involved. 'Some people just love being nosy,' she had said. To make it worse even the Interest Groups were just collections of individuals with shared interests; you didn't have to join anything, you didn't even have to register your interest. It didn't matter how often the Doctor tried to explain, Bernice still found it difficult to believe that a society could function without some kind of structure. It was all so maddeningly vague.

'I need some help,' said Bernice. 'I'm looking for some information but I don't know how to get it.'

'Let me just finish with Smelly then,' said saRa!qava.

'Smelly' was an unnamed female baby of nine months, one of saRa!qava's six daughters, although Bernice had forgotten to ask whether saRa!qava was the father or the mother. The little girl was howling as saRa!qava rubbed moisturizing lotion into her plump belly. She had luminous orange eyes, red hair and, judging from the volume, high capacity lungs. Like every baby Bernice had ever met Smelly gave off the faint but unmistakable aroma of sour milk, which was why she was called Smelly. In another year or so she would be talking and would probably be calling herself something like 'Poo' or 'Yaga'. SaRa!qava said that most people adopted at least two or more names as they got older and she knew a few who had given themselves numbers instead.

The idea offended Bernice for some reason, perhaps because her identity was so bound up with her name. Her academic credentials were all phoney, she had the ultimate in no fixed abodes, but her name was her own. Before she was even old enough to separate the universe into me and not-me, her mother and father had looked down like gods and gifted Bernice with her name. A small collection of letters, a pair of syllables. A flimsy thing to build your personality around. It was all that she had left of her parents.

SaRa!qava's people sloughed off their names like snakes shedding their skins. Their identities were as protean as their society, with its non-laws and non-organizations. They discarded the past without thought and stepped into the dawn of a bright new future. And if the dawn wasn't bright?

They damn well manufactured themselves one that was.

SaRa!qava finished with Smelly who immediately stopped howling. The child started bouncing up and down in her mother's lap, waving her plump arms in the air.

'No,' saRa!qava told her. 'You're supposed to crawl today. You have to do it or otherwise your legs will atrophy and drop off.'

Smelly's bouncing became more insistent.

'Oh, all right then,' said saRa!qava. She lifted the child above her head. 'House!' she called and Smelly drifted into the air where, gurgling with delight, she began to do slow orbits around the kitchen ceiling.

Go for it, kid, thought Bernice. Why crawl when you can fly?

'Another one destined for the Weird Aviation Interest Group,' she said.

'I hope not,' said saRa!qava. 'You should see the contraption Dep is building in her room. She says