Nate made a psah gesture. “Keanu Reeves? Are you kidding? Oh, sure, there’s the money and the glamour and the chicks, but on the downside you can’t go out in public without being mobbed, critics lambaste you, you have to keep in incredible shape and compete with about a thousand up-and-comers who are even more gorgeous than you are, you struggle with egomania, question your own identity, are terrified of growing old, and are pretty much stuck with dating actresses who are even vainer and more screwed up than you are! Jeez, that wasn’t even hard.”

Jill laughed. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a pessimist?”

“Nah, I’m not a pessimist. I still hold out hope for you and me, don’t I?”

He abruptly stopped walking backward and looked away after he’d said it, for which Jill was grateful. They walked in silence for a while. It was Jill who broke it, in a very neutral voice.

“It’s a clever theory. But I’m not sure how you’d quantify it. And if you can’t quantify it, it’s not—”

“I know. It’s not science. So shoot me.” Nate bounced the metal capsules in his hand. “What I don’t get is this place, though. At seventy percent good, why is this civilization dying? Shouldn’t this be Paradise? It’s not consistent.”

Jill felt a spark of excitement. “It is, though. Remember the mice, what happened when we pushed the one pulse too far? How lethargic they got? It may take certain levels of… of challenge and stress to make life vital and interesting.”

“Well, I’m dying of boredom, and I’ve only been here a few days.” Nate yawned hugely and juggled the metal capsules in the air like fruit.

“Quit that!” Jill grabbed one of them and looked at it. It was shaped like an aspirin except it was more slender, and tiny holes perforated the metal in a grid design. “For all you know it’s a bomb.”

“I think it’s something you swallow,” Nate said, bringing it up to his face.

“Don’t you dare!”

But Nate only sniffed it. “Doesn’t smell like anything.”

“Those holes remind me of a telephone mouthpiece or a speaker.” Jill turned it over in her fingers.

“Really?” Nate held it up to his ears to listen. Then he began to scream.

“Nate, what is it? Nate!”

He was screaming and jerking around, bent over at the waist, head tilted to one side, fingers scrabbling at his ear.

“Oh my god, I knew those things were dangerous! Nate, talk to me!”

“It flew in my fucking ear,” he screamed.

“Let me see!”

“No!”

He was trying to push a finger into his ear canal, as if he could dig it out.

“Nate, let me see!”

He finally stopped his panicked dance, but he remained bent over at the waist, his wounded ear tilted down, panting hard.

Jill put her hand on his arm. “Let me look.”

“I don’t want to move my head,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Does it hurt?”

He was reluctant to say. “No.”

“No? What’s it feel like?”

He shook his head, gingerly at first, then harder. He remained bent over. “I can’t feel it now, but I felt it go in.”

“Well, let me see!”

“If I move my head it will just go in more!”

Jill rolled her eyes. “So you’re going to hold your head like that for the rest of your life?”

With great reluctance Nate straightened up, an inch at a time, pausing to wait for sensation. When he was almost upright, Jill moved in, placing one hand on his jaw and the other on his hair near his ear.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Um, that’s because it’s in my ear.” He put his fingers at the base of his ear, pressing carefully. “I can’t feel it. But, Jill, it’s in my head. That can’t be a good thing.”

She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t say “we’ll get it out” because she had no idea how and there wasn’t exactly an emergency room down the street. In fact, she was as alarmed as Nate.

“Let’s get back to the main artery and we can find an apartment with power and rest. Okay? Can you make it?” She put her hand on his arm for support.

He didn’t answer, but he started walking, cautiously, like an old man. He kept moving his jaw, trying to feel the capsule.

“You’re only working it in deeper,” she commented.

He stopped doing it.

Nate’s arm was over Jill’s shoulder and hers was around his waist, helping him along. He didn’t seem to be suffering from any specific complaint, could no longer feel the thing in his ear. She realized this, recognized that their contact was completely unnecessary, and held on to him anyway.

It was nice to have an excuse to touch him, to allow herself to be close to him without worrying about what he might think. She liked the way it felt as they walked together, how they fit. She liked that he winced every once in a while so that they could maintain the farce. And she was scared enough about what had actually happened to him to make her reluctant to let go. The fingers of her left hand felt the muscles of his waist working as he walked. His arm over her shoulder was warm and heavy, even in this light gravity.

She was so distracted by these unusual sensations that it took her a while to realize that something was bothering her ears. It had started out as white noise, but they had to be approaching the source, because it grew louder. It sounded like high-pitched feedback, squeaking and squawking.

“What is that?” She grimaced. “It sounds like the feedback from an amplifier or—”

Nate stopped, abruptly. No, not just stopped, he jerked back, detaching them. She turned to look at his face. It had gone pale as milk.

“Nate? What is it? Are you in pain?” She could only think of the thing in his ear, praying to god it wasn’t burrowing into his brain or doing something equally gruesome.

“Nate, answer me!”

He shushed her. He was listening, and she realized it was the sound he was responding to. She listened, too. It occurred to her that the squeaking and squawking could only be alien speech. It was being broadcast from someplace nearby. That might have been interesting, if she weren’t so worried about Nate falling dead at her feet any second now.

“What do you hear?” he asked her, with emotion held deliberately at bay.

“Um… a high-pitched noise. Almost like radio feedback. I was thinking it might be alien speech.”

“Oh my god.” His forehead went smooth as his brow pulled back in amazement.

“What?”

But with a jolt, she knew what he was going to say. Knew. Her heart turned over, then began to race. She waited for him to tell her. He walked forward slowly, like a man in a dream. A smile started first in his dark eyes, then spread to his lips. He titled his head back and crowed.

“Nate?” she asked, smiling herself. “Nate? Is it—”

He grabbed her arms, pulling her close. “My god, Jill! I’m hearing English.”

The source of the voice was a metal sheet on a post stuck at the side of the street. It was blank until they approached; then the sheet turned transparent, revealing alien text on a screen.

Jill watched Nate with a mixture of excitement and disbelief. It was difficult to accept he was actually hearing anything other than what she was hearing—that god-awful racket. But if he was acting, it was a helluva performance. He stood at the post, an expression of happy confusion on his face, like someone trying to place a familiar tune.

“What’s it saying, Nate?”

“Um. ‘Remember your duty, citizens. Report to the fertility clinic today.’ ”

“What?”

“ ‘This is not an optional activity. Your identification will be recorded. Penalties will be enacted on any citizen… um… not recording sufficient time at the clinic, per Standard 10-39714—something something something…’ Then it starts over.”

Jill was skeptical. “Fertility clinic? Are you sure?”

“That’s what it says.”