«Wow, I look like a dork,» said Teresa, as Toloth examined their reflection in the closet mirror. «Toloth, how can you stand to be part of an invasion that has such awful taste? Even the British at least wore nice red coats.»

Toloth ignored her. Truth to tell, he thought that he looked rather smart in the costume that Iniss Two-Two-Six had had designed for the Sharing fête. The colors were pleasingly vivid, and the pointed hat and knee socks added an air of distinction reminiscent of a San-Mo-Skee aristocrat. If his host thought that it made her look like an overweight poster girl for Keebler cookies, there was no need for him to share her parochialism.

He did, however, need to act as though he did, and so it was rather surreptitiously that he made his way back down the hallway to the den. Since all three of the adult humans were gathered in the living room, discussing the situation with the girl Jasmine, it was fairly easy to slip past them unnoticed; the frustrating part came once he was in the den, and realized that, to be faithful to Teresa's character, he would have to spend most of the next hour hiding there. (Or, rather, not hiding – Teresa wouldn't have considered it hiding – but steadfastly resisting any urge to go somewhere more public.)

To a more intellectually voracious creature, spending an hour in the Sickles family den, with its aforementioned five or six shelves full of books, would have hardly seemed an oppressive fate. To Toloth, however, who prided himself on his Yeerkish practicality, books had no such intrinsic allure; they were tools, pure and simple. You consulted them when you needed to know where the matter-translation unit went on a Bug fighter's engine, or what the correct form of address was for a Desbadeen Lord Navigator (or what aspects of a human religion could be converted into Imperial propaganda), but to seek personal recreation in them was a sign of rather pathetic desperation.

It seemed, however, that he was now thus desperate. With a sigh, he ran Teresa's eyes over the shelves, searching for something that wasn't hopelessly human in its appeal; finding nothing, he lowered his gaze to the bedside table, thinking that he might at least play a few rounds of zashpik on the notepaper that lay there.

On top of the notepaper was one book he'd forgotten about.

Oh, no, he thought. Certainly not. The last thing I want to spend an hour doing.

Then why did you bring it down last night? he asked himself.

For verisimilitude, he answered. Her father had seen her reading it; it made sense that she would wish to continue.

Then why not add to that verisimilitude by continuing? Better, certainly, than leaving zashpik diagrams lying around for the humans to find. And who knows? Perhaps you will find the information that you were looking for, after all.

Rubbish. I shall do nothing of the sort.

But alas! it is often to no purpose and in vain. For this outward consolation is no small hindrance to the inner comfort that cometh from God. Therefore we must watch and pray that…

There was a knock on the door, and Toloth jumped and hastily tossed the Imitation aside. "Yes?" he said.

"Time to get going, Teresa," said Mrs. Sickles, opening the door. "It's almost ten, and you said that you needed to be there no later than ten-thirty, so you could help Kati and the others do the last bits of setting up."

"Oh, right," said Toloth. "Thanks, Mom."

"So, Catherine," came Mrs. Chiodini's voice, "are we permitted to ask what the program is for this event, or is that as carefully guarded a secret as so many things about this organization of Teresa's seem to be? 'Inner Sharing', honestly – it sounds like one of those things they used to make us do in the '70s, as a non-authoritarian substitute for the Rosary or…"

At this point, the old woman's face came into view, and she got her first glimpse of her granddaughter in full Iniss-commissioned regalia. Her voice trailed off, and she stared speechless for a moment before murmuring, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

Toloth put on a diffident smile, and flushed some blood into Teresa's cheeks. "Yeah, I know," he said.

Mrs. Chiodini licked her lips. "Perhaps I don't want to know what delightful things Mr. Chapman has planned for us, after all," she said. "If I get gunned down by drug dealers on the drive over, it won't do me any good at the Pearly Gates for my last thoughts to have been of dancing pixies singing about inner sharing."

"Oh, Mama, it's nothing like that," said Mrs. Sickles. "It's just an ordinary community gathering, with songs and food and maybe the inevitable speeches about how the Sharing's changed people's lives. And Teresa already feels self-conscious enough about the costume they assigned her, so you don't need to make it any worse for her."

"Who's making it worse?" said Mrs. Chiodini. "She should be grateful to know that someone else appreciates the outrage that's been perpetrated on her. There's nothing worse than being alone in a world gone mad. I ought to know; I was raising children in the 1960s."

"I daresay," said Mrs. Sickles briskly. "But it's time to get moving, so if everybody will just get their coats on, we can continue this discussion in the car. Clarence, would you mind going out and getting it started?"

"Aye, Cap'n," said Mr. Sickles.

"Just tell me they didn't make you pay for it, darling," Mrs. Chiodini whispered as Toloth slipped past her by the coat rack.

"Well, not really," said Toloth. "But of course I pay Sharing dues, so I guess I carried part of the cost indirectly."

Mrs. Chiodini rolled her eyes. "What you think is worth three dollars a month about this group, I can't imagine," she said.

Toloth opened Teresa's mouth, preparing to drop some good word about the Sharing into the old woman's ear. It would be the easiest thing in the world; Teresa did genuinely admire the things the Sharing did for the poor and friendless of her community (if not its reasons for doing them), and this was a perfect opportunity for her to say so. Moreover, Toloth knew how much affection for her granddaughter lay beneath Mrs. Chiodini's acerbic crust; if anything could soften her on this subject, it would be a glimpse of how much the Sharing mattered to Teresa. There was no question but that he could, here and now, do the invasion a definite and positive service – a small one, perhaps, but his duty was no less clear for all that.

So he opened her mouth – and then he closed it again, and donned her coat in silence. In a minute or so, he and the two human women were heading out the door, and the moment had passed irretrievably.

And for the next thirteen minutes, as he sat in the back seat of the Ford and watched the southern-California scenery flit past, he wondered and wondered what was wrong with him.