Chittering from inside the armor. "You offering me a deal, Tiny?"

"Yes." Koen held his hand out to the armored figure.

"Accept the offer!" urged Fling.

A hatch opened in the chest of the armor. A nose poked out.

It was pointed and black, wet and flexible. Sniffing furiously, it wiggled toward Koen's outstretched fingers. Whiskers followed, compressed by its passage out of the armor. Ginger fur sprang into shape as it passed into the open air. Ears unfurled and a pair of huge, green eyes blinked open.

Little black claws gripping the rim of the opening, the Greave stretched his neck out of his armor and touched his nose to the tip of Koen's middle finger. Koen held still, as if feeding a wild animal out of his hand.

The Greave shot back into his armor and the hatched chocked shut. The bulk wooden shell shook itself and rose, hoisting the top of its helmet a full meter above Koen's head. A gauntlet the size of a ham swung around, slowed, and came to rest just barely touching the tip of Koen's nose.

"We accept!"

They walked toward Graa's omnivator, loaded down with bags and rolling barrels, the sun sinking over the meat market.

"Now," said Fling. "My nucleus retroambiguus has formulated a question for you."

That was a bad brain region for a rodent, but Koen didn't know that.

"Uh, yes?"

"I want to talk to you about Human Laura. First, confirm that your mutual attraction is sanctioned by your society?"

"Yes?"

"Then why are you not having regular sex?"

Koen stopped walking. His first impulse was to tell Fling to mind her own business. But the conversation with the Greaves was still fresh in his mind. "How dare you?" they'd blustered from inside their armor.

"I don't know," he said.

"He hasn't asked her," said Graa.

"Wait," said Koen. Another thought had occurred. A question. "How do you know she's attracted to me. I mean, that we're, uh, attracted to each other."

"The smells are obvious," said Fling. "Unless humans have a very different pheromone system from other panglires."1

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"No," said Graa. "And there are visual signs as well."

"Why didn't you say anything?" asked Koen. Laura was attracted to him.

"Because you already knew," said Fling.

"Because you'd spend less time with me if you were preoccupied with sex," said Graa.

"So what is stopping you?" asked Fling. "Why not make the leap? The worst that can happen is you die."

Koen twitched. "What? How?"

"Yes, the body is like that," said Fling. "It becomes frightened. It balks. Of course it does, it spent the last 4 billion years evolving the ability to avoid danger." She made clutching gestures with her hands, as drinking from an invisible cup. "But we are not our bodies. We love danger: the leap of faith, the quest into the unknown, the gamble that could lose or win everything."

"Are you talking about your soul?" asked Koen, "or your toxoplasmosis?"

Fling's tail swished. "Five hundred years ago, we publicly tore apart those who asked that exact question. Now, I think…" Her nose twitched. "I think that there is a balance between myself, my body, and the world around me. I urge my body onward into the world. I stumble, I stumble in the direction that's left to me." She was hopping in place now, huge, iron-orange teeth bared.

Koen stood up straight, acutely aware of Graa standing on his shoulder. The bird who was keeping him away from Laura. The bird he'd wronged.

"Human Koen, answer this question: why are you guilty?"

Koen twitched. "I'm not guilty!"

"You are in love with Human Laura, aren't you?"

Caught between one confession and another, Koen scurried toward safety. "Yes."

Graa's beard bristled. "I am delighted! Not only have I correctly understood your emotions, but you admitted to having some."

"I have emotions all the time," protested Koen.

"Yes, but you usually pretend that you don't. That is a sign of trust."

"It's a sign of something. Insanity?" Guilt?

Fling was right, Koen didn't need brain parasites to tell him the right thing to do. He just needed to listen, and then force himself to do the right thing.

"I can't —" Koen began, and she leapt forward, grabbed his hands and stuffed them into her mouth.

Click. Four incisors met between his palms.

Koen tried to pull away, but Fling was still holding his wrists. Was she trying to mother him? Humiliate him? Literally bite off his hands?

"Eeeyeeeyee!" She said, a warbling stream of sound with no tooth-clackling to break it into words. Somehow, though the translator bug managed to render: "You know what is right, Koen. You know what to do. Now, practice it until your body does it. Do it!"

Graa fluttered up to the top of Koen's head. "Stop that. Human Koen, tell her you'll confess your dreadful secret."

He had to tell Graa about Mr. Grumbles. There was no other thing to do. But Koen owed something to his friends, too. First, he'd warn them.

1The clade that includes rodents and primates.