hology? But you
get one, you convince it to explain the rest to you. It helps. Counselors are
always from another world -- by the time the first generation raised in a
bat-house has grown old enough, there aren't any bats' children left to counsel
on their homeworld.

#

I take room-service, pizza and beer in an ice-bucket: pretentious, but better
than sharing a dining-room with the menagerie. Am I becoming a racist?

No, no. I just need to focus on things human, during this vacation.

The food is disappointing. It's been years since I lay awake at night, craving a
slice and a brew and a normal gravity and a life away from the bats.
Nevertheless, the craving remained, buried, and resurfaced when I went over the
room-service menu. By the time the dumbwaiter in my room chimed, I was
practically drooling.

But by the time I take my second bite, it's just pizza and a brew.

I wonder if I will ever get to sleep, but when the time comes, my eyes close and
if I dream, I don't remember it.

I get up and dress and send up for eggs and real Atlantic salmon and brown toast
and a pitcher of coffee, then find myself unable to eat any of it. I make a
sandwich out of it and wrap it in napkins and stuff it into my day-pack along
with a water-bottle and some sun-block.

It's a long walk up to the bat-house, but I should make it by nightfall.

#

Chet was up at 6h the next morning. His mom was already up, but she never slept
that he could tell. She was clattering around the kitchen in her housecoat,
emptying the cupboards and then re-stacking their contents for the thousandth
time. She shot him a look of something between fear and affection as he pulled
on his shorts and a t-shirt, and he found himself hugging her waist. For a
second, it felt like she softened into his embrace, like she was going to say
something, like it was normal, and then she picked up a plate and rubbed it with
a towel and put it back into the cupboard.

Chet left without saying a word.

The bat-house breathed around him, a million farts and snores and whispered
words. A lift was available almost before he took his finger off the summon
button. "125," he said.

Chet walked to the door of the guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla and started
to knock, then put his hands down and sank down into a squat, with his back
against it.

He must have dozed, because the next thing he knew, he was tipping over
backwards into the apt, and the guy who thought he was