"Audrey," Dan said as he approached the desk, "we should probably work on figuring out what happened this morning. Then we can deal with creating a new test."

She looked miffed that her tirade had been interrupted, but she said, "Well, what do we have to do?"

"I'd like to get everybody in here," I said. "Everybody who was involved. Then I can find out the sequence of events." Then I interrupted myself (and I could imagine my employer's look of disapproval at my disorganization). "You mentioned that Corey had a broken arm. I'm just curious about how he broke it."

Dan shrugged. "He just said he fell, but it seemed there was more to it."

"We broke it," one of the Golden said suddenly. I had already given up trying to figure out which of them was which. "He tried to put his hands on Sharon's body, under her clothes. So, we broke his arm to stop him."

Audrey looked dubious about this, but then Ron spoke up.

"He did that to me," she said. "Or he tried to. The first day I was in school."

I glanced at her, and I guess it was obvious to the others that I had not known about this before.

"Hazel wants to fight her own battles," one of the Golden said, "as much as possible. She has been defending herself from various human predators for some time, after all." He jumped nimbly away as Ron tried to kick him in the shin, and one of the others continued. "To run to you with every incident in her life would cause you to lose respect for her. She is fully aware that she can come to you whenever she encounters a situation she can't solve, and that feeling makes her happier than she will ever express to you directly."

It was almost like a dance. The Golden spoke in sequence, and as each one spoke Ron tried to deliver a kick, but she was always blocked by the other two, one of whom then started to speak.

I had heard of people completing each other's sentences, but this seemed extraordinary to me. It was apparently not unusual, though, since Audrey and Dan barely reacted, except for Dan's smile at Ron's increasing determination to land a good kick on somebody.

When that was done, Ron made a face, but she was clearly not upset. We had already observed that kicking was mostly a friendly game with Ron. When she was really upset, she cursed, loudly and at length.

"Well," Dan said, "now that we've had our exercise, let me get the others."

Ron leaned over to whisper something to one of the Golden (her expression said that it was probably her friend Will). As she finished, they all three smiled.

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Claudia looked thoughtful, as if she was not sure this was appropriate. But, as she had just said, we had come a long distance to help her.

"Yes," she said, "we have talked about it. But I really don't want to think about where to live until I've figured out what I want to do."

Jan smiled and said, "Si je m'habille parfois un peu trop, d'avoir parfait un surcroît d'éducation le fait oublier aux yeux du monde."

Claudia shook her head. "I'm reasonably certain that there are already French translations of Oscar Wilde. I don't–"

"I'm not suggesting that. I think you should be a teacher."

"I do hate to disappoint you, but I don't really care for children."

She shrugged. "Neither do I. Except for my own, of course. But 'education' doesn't automatically mean children. We have adult education, and we need a lot more."

"Don't you need some sort of certification or a specialized degree or something like that?"

"Not for our school."

Claudia looked thoughtful, and Erika took her hand. "You should do this," she said quietly. "We should do it. We should go home, to our home, and live in your parents' rooms. That's what we should do."

Claudia looked both surprised and pleased at this sudden vehemence from Erika. Erika's smile was broad, and Claudia's lips moved as she tried to control her own expression. She turned to us, still holding Erika's hand. "Apparently I don't have much choice," she said. Then she frowned thoughtfully. "Also," she said slowly, "I do think a better translation would be 'S'il m'arrive de porter des vêtements d'une excessive élégance, c'est que mon éducation l'est tout autant.'"

Jan inclined her head in agreement.

"You have a child?" Claudia asked in some surprise, as if Jan's earlier comment had just registered with her.

"I do. We do. And once you meet her, you'll be glad you decided to teach adults."

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"That's not far from the truth," my employer replied. "Most countries in the world, and most religions, consider marriage a good thing in the abstract. We don't. Because most societies consider it a good thing, they encourage people to get married, by giving them financial and other benefits for doing so.

"Once that starts to happen, then you have to be able to reliably identify who is married and who isn't, so you can be sure you're giving those benefits only to the right people."

"And, of course, societies use this to enforce their particular views on who should be able to get married and who shouldn't." She shrugged. "We don't do any of that, frankly because we don't care. Get married, or not, what does it matter to us? You get no benefits from us, so we have no reason to track who is married and who isn't." She smiled. "It makes life so much easier.

"Which doesn't mean we're against marriage on an individual basis. Marshall and I are married, but I'm not going to impose that on other people, any more than I would try to force people to smoke cigarettes and wear neckties, just because I do."

"What about incest?" Father Frank asked.

She frowned. "Are you asking in relation to marriage?"

"Yes. What if two people who were blood relations wanted to get married?"

She looked thoughtful. "An interesting question, in theory. Does it have any basis in fact? Do you know of any instances of this happening?"

He shook his head. "No, thank God. But it sounds like you're leaving the door open."

She laughed. "I suppose we are, and thank you for pointing that out. But I think we'll hold off on worrying about that scenario until we find out if it's real. Not that incest of various sorts doesn't occur, but I don't believe it usually ends up with a desire for matrimony." She shrugged. "Abstract theoretical discussions can be challenging and fruitful, but public policy should really be bounded by reality."

Perry resumed his story.

And then, Pete and Katherine got married. The ceremony was nice, and Daphne was the only one who cried. She cried out of happiness, but also out of worry. Was this the beginning of the end?

But it wasn't the end. It was only the beginning, for Pete and Katherine and Daphne. Both Pete and Katherine cared about her very much. They had been heartbroken when they'd thought she might be dead.

She was worried that she could never replace them, that she could never find other people who understood her and loved her as they did, but she didn't look at it from their point of view.

He stroked Daphne's head, looking right at her.

"When they thought you were dead, I suggested that maybe they could get another dog someday. And they told me that there weren't any other dogs like you, that you're one of a kind. Which you are, and they know that."

He was leaning over her, trying to get up his nerve to kiss her. She closed her eyes and puckered up her lips, nudging him in the stomach with her elbow. Squeezing her waist, very gently, he kissed her on the lips.

She smiled and opened her eyes. "That's a pretty good story," she admitted. "I'm impressed. I've read your books, and I thought they were rather jejune. This was better."

He sighed. "Thanks, I guess."

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Daphne figured out when she was quite young that she was much smarter than the other puppies. The other puppies were mostly interested in chasing balls and sticks, and she enjoyed that, too, but she usually got bored with it pretty quickly and went off to read a book instead. She realized after a while, in fact, that the other puppies didn't read books at all, which she thought was rather odd.

People mostly didn't want to talk to her, since she was a dog (and only a puppy at that), and the other puppies weren't interested in the things she liked.

Then she met Pete and Katherine, and they seemed to understand her. They took her in and gave her a home. They took care of her, and her only complaint was that they didn't clean very often. But that wasn't that important, since they clearly wanted her there.

But then Pete and Katherine became a couple, and Daphne started to worry. She was happy for them, they were very good together, but she wasn't sure how she fit in. Would they let her stay? Did they care about her as much as they had before? Or would they get so caught up with each other that they'd pay less and less attention to her? She was a little scared, since nobody else had ever understood and accepted her as they had.

And then, one day when Pete was out, Katherine threatened her, and then Daphne started to worry more. Where would she go, if they kicked her out?

Daphne had opened her eyes at this point, and she was looking at Perry quizzically. He paused, and she asked, "How did you know about that?"

"SarahBeth told me. Katherine told her, and it made quite an impression on SarahBeth, as you can imagine."

Daphne nodded. "That's all she said? She left out half of the conversation. She said she'd shoot me if I did anything with Pete, but then I told her that, if she ever hurt Pete, I'd kill her." She bared her teeth and growled. "I don't mean hurt him emotionally, I mean for real. If she shoots him or something."

"What did she say to that?"

"She said that was fine with her." She smiled, the first time since he coaxed her into the room. "It's no big thing to keep from having sex with Pete. I mean, I love Pete, but not like that." She laughed. "He's kind of skungy-looking, really. Not my type. I remember starling and I were laughing once about how much we didn't want to have sex with Ray, and I didn't mention that Ray and Pete look a bit alike. But not to her, I guess."

"Love blurs the vision," he said. "Which is probably a good thing."

She pressed her cheek against his stomach, closed her eyes again, and put her arms around him. "Is there more to the story?" she asked.

"Of course."

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Perry was sitting on the bed, wondering exactly how SarahBeth was going to make an army, when there was a thump against the door. He waited a moment, listening. There was silence, then there was a shuffling noise, and he got up to go investigate.

When he opened the room door, he found Daphne lying on the floor in the hall. She didn't move, and she didn't look at him.

"Daphne," he said softly, "do you want to come in?" She was curled up and looked as if she was about to cry, and he wasn't sure what he could do to help. He had an urge to pick her up and carry her into the room, but, if he had been able to lift her at all, he'd be afraid he'd drop her.

He put one hand on her shoulder, and stroked her head with the other. "SarahBeth is out," he said softly. "Come in and keep me company. She's out creating an army, so we can worry together about the implications of that idea."

That got him a smile, a very small one, and she slowly got up on all fours. He walked into the room, and she followed, her head hanging.

He sat down and patted the bed next to him. "Come on," he said. She came over and peered up at the top of the bed, then she shook her head. At first, he though she was complaining that it wasn't clean enough, but then he figured it out.

"Come on, Daphne" he said. "You won't get into trouble for being on the bed. I promise."

She put her hands up on the cover, then she looked at him again, as if wanting to be sure that it was okay. He smiled and nodded, rubbing her head.

After she had climbed onto the bed, she fell over sideways, looking sad again. He slid himself over next to her and put his hands around her torso, trying to lift her so that her shoulders were in his lap. He had trouble doing this, since he was trying to avoid touching her breasts or her belly, and finally she put her hands on the bed and lifted herself so she was lying across his lap.

At this point, he was unsure about what to do next. Was he allowed to touch her or kiss her, with SarahBeth not there? He wasn't worried about Daphne's reaction, his concern was more about SarahBeth. He and Daphne had already had sex, of course, but that had been with SarahBeth there.

He had already been together with SarahBeth long enough to figure out that the rule was probably that she could have sex with women in his absence, but that he didn't have that option.

"Would you like to hear a story?" he asked.

She shrugged, her eyes closed.

"Okay," he said, ignoring her lack of enthusiasm. He rubbed her shoulder. "This is the story of Daphne the Dog," he said.

She frowned. "Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not. Hey," he said, poking her, "I'm a big famous writer here, and I'm telling you your own personal story. You should be honored."

She looked up at him and rolled her eyes.

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Tammy smiled. "If we need more information," she said, "and we certainly do, I should go and ask some questions of the soldiers on the bridge."

"Excuse me?" Ray said.

She smiled. "I have a way with soldiers, as you saw. There are certain things you learn as an attorney, such as how to get witnesses to tell you things they don't want to reveal, how to sway a jury, and so on."

Ray nodded slowly, puffing on his cigarette. "We're talking about more than that, aren't we?"

She shrugged, still smiling. "Possibly. Does it matter? Either I'll get information, or I won't."

Neil had been observing this exchange very carefully, and he asked, "Was there a problem with soldiers?"

"Before you joined us," Vicki said. "Some soldiers broke in here, to round us up or to kill us. But Katherine saw them come into the building, and shot them all. There were more, outside on the street, and Tammy convinced them to go away."

"Actually, I think three of them joined us," Jan added.

"So," Neil said to Tammy, "you can be . . . persuasive." He was obviously choosing his words very carefully.

She nodded. "It's a matter of record that, when I was practicing law, I almost never lost a case. And, between us, the few that I did lose, they were cases I didn't want to win."

"You should be very careful, then," he said. "It would be important to find out everything you can, of course, but please be very careful how you do it. If higher ranks of the military should start to get the idea that we have somebody who could, even potentially, turn their own troops against them, they might decide to bomb us out of existence. I have no idea if they have that capacity at the moment, but I'd rather not find out." He shrugged. "In their position, in the current situation, that's probably what I would do."

Vicki nodded. "That makes sense."

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