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And Tansy wasn’t here

Ada sharp "That’s what Tansy does," he said "She doesn’t think much before she helps other people Or hurts them, sometimes She says it’s because of the parts in her brain that aren’t functioning optih that Mom will transplant her into a new host, but I don’t want that to happen She wouldn’t be Tansy anymore if that happened She’d be so that Dr Cale can do? She could just scoop you out of the body you’re in and put you into a different one?"

"Sort of," said Adam "She says it becomes a question of nature and nurture, because enetic data, and--wait Are you trying to distract me? Where’s Tansy, Sal? Why didn’t she come back here with you?"

I took a deep breath, which barely war in my stomach, and said, "She stayed behind, Adam There were a bunch of sleepwalkers-- to hurt ht us the tione down under a wall of bodies, all of the at her like the fact that she was only developmentally one step removed from the sleepwalkers didn’t matter--and maybe it didn’t I didn’t feel any kinship to them, and never had, but with everymore as if she and Adam were, and had always been, family

I really should have seen it sooner Neither he nor Tansy had ever upset h they should have Especially Tansy, whose erous at worst I’d already known on soiving of family That’s what family was for I didn’t kno I knew that I probably shouldn’t have, given my experiences with Sally’s family But I knew

"Why didn’t you stay and help her?" asked Adaht, and the information I had… I had the information Dr Cale needed If I’d stayed to help Tansy, the information would have been lost, and then Dr Cale wouldn’t have been able to continue her work" The knot of ice ina little

"Oh" Adaer while he did Maybe that was one of the functions of the tapeworm-to-human interface I had perceived a certain childishness about Tansy, and my parents--Sally’s parents--used to co and lost when I was thinking It was one hter, who had never been s, and certainly wouldn’t have looked lost while she was doing it

It hurt a little to realize that I didn’t entirely think of them as my parents anymore; not the same way I had only a feeeks before They would always be a part of who I was, but I no longer felt the need to try to make them love me, and that felt like the sort of bond that should have taken longer to break Maybe it was different when the bond had never fully formed They’d always be iuess she’ll tell ets back," said Adae of the cot, looking atbetter? You sure do faint a lot"

"I get startled a lot," I said, s despite myself "What about you? You’ve never fainted? Not even once?"

"A few times, when I first woke up," he said "Mo into ery, and they needed ti with so similar It didn’t seem likely Any weak blood vessels would have been found and fixed by Sy with plain, old-fashioned shock, and that was actually a little reassuring: at least so about me was plain and old-fashioned

"Oh," I said I took a deep breath "Ada sort of personal?"

Ada still "Yes," he said, after a "

"I…" I stopped I didn’t kno to frame the question that came next I didn’t even kno to start "Did you knoasn’t hu strange about me?" felt al you?"

A wide sht-lipped, so that his teeth were concealed I realized with a start that he’d never shown his teeth when he sesture, and the part of him--the part of me--that drove those reactions wasn’t mammalian "I love it," he said "I have hands, and feet, and fingers, and eyes, and it’s wonderful, Sal, it’s just wonderful There’s so much world I could live a hundred years and never see all of the world that there is to see Moave it toand run bacteriological cultures for her and it’s just wonderful You know that, right? That life is wonderful" His srave concern