The securely latched breadbox began to rock back and forth as Buffo hurled himself around inside. "Let me out, let me out! I want to meet her too! I promise I won't pee anymore! Please, please, pretty please! I love when babes lick me! Look, my exocrine glands are already flowing with nice juicy heavy-chain polypeptides!"

Otto cuffed the box. "Shut up! You'll stay in there until I say you can come out."

The box ceased rocking, and a baleful yellow eye pressed itself to a ventilation slit. "I hate you!"

But Otto had already turned away, and with Toto now considered a swelling on the floor.

Larger and larger the bud grew until it was human-sized, although still too small to hold the massive Toto or Otto. Scorings appeared on the bud, outlining petals, which began to peel back from the pointed tip, lotuslike.

Revealed inside the intraship transport mechanism stood a woman: short blonde hair, medium height, one eye green, one violet. She was clad only in a single strip of red metallic fiber. Clinging in no clear manner, the band began around her left ank1e, spiraled up around that single leg, zipped between her crotch, twixt her buttocks, around her waist, across one breast and circled her neck as a collar, leaving her half-naked in a helical fashion.

Her eyes widened at the sight of the twins. "I--my name's Goldie Liddell. Who--who are you?"

Otto spoke first. "Allow me to introduce us. My name is Otto the Original, and this is Toto the Copy."

Toto chose not to protest this slanted introduction, but simply said, "Charmed, I'm sure."

The woman stepped tentatively forth from the blossom, which was already collapsing back into the floor. "Are you, like, intelligent bears?"

"Of course not! We're completely human, although modified a wee bit. That is, I'm human, whereas Toto is merely a clever cornucopion duplicate of me."

Goldie looked curiously around. "Where am I?"

The caterpillar interjected, "Aboard the Grigori Bearford, out of Sheffield City, Venus. We are currently in the neighborhood of Saturn, where we came upon your escape seed."

Goldie shivered. "That awful coffin of a thing! I remember being hustled into it when the Peppermint Stick ran into trouble. They said I'd be picked up soon. After that, it's all a blank. How long was I in it?"

"What was the date of your ship's disaster?" asked the deva.

"Let me see... I think it was October. I remember I had just had my period... October the fifteenth!"

Toto sighed deeply. "He means the year."

"Oh. Twenty-ninety."

"You have been in suspension then for nearly a century."

"Goodness! I guess my contract's expired then..."

Otto asked, "What contract is that?"

"The Peppermint Stick was a resupply ship for the whorehouse on Tehys. Hundreds of bi-boys and omni-girls. We were hired to service the water-ice miners. I was hoping to save up money to homestead on Mars. They were almost done terraforming it..."

"Whores!" laughed Otto

"Water miners!" guffawed Toto.

"Holy frog!" said Otto. "We've hauled aboard a living fossil!"

Goldie frowned. "That's not a very nice thing to call someone. I'm a completely modern and up-to-date person of intelligence."

"Not anymore, Little Golden. We exist on the far side of the Singularity now."

"That foolish notion came true? People were always talking about it, but it never got any closer. It was always just five years ahead forever! The Vinge-point after which nothing would ever be the same... Well, what happened?"

Toto said, "Basically, humanity assumed godlike powers without any idea of how to use them. Our machines run everything perfectly now and, by law, every citizen has to think up creative tasks to keep them busy, whether we need anything done or not. Mostly it's not. That's why we happened to be out here. We thought we might get some good new ideas if we looked back at the Solar System from its edge. We were on our way to the Oort Cloud when we detoured to rescue you."

Goldie sauntered up close to Otto and Toto. "And I'm so-oh grateful you did! I don't think we're too different, despite our coming from, like, different centuries and all, do you?"

Goldie began to stroke the pelted chests of the giants. Loud borborygmous rumblings as if from salmon-stuffed grizzlies issued from deep in their diaphragms. Encouraged, she pressed up against them.

"Now, tell little Goldie the truth. Do I feel like some old 'fossil' to you big, sensitive fellows?"

Otto loosed a roaring bellow, which Toto echoed. Goldie stepped back in mock fright. "Oh, you bears are scaring me!" She raised her hands to the collar around her throat, whereupon the entire stripe fell away in a slack coil, leaving her completely naked.

From the breadbox came the plaintive voice of Buffo. "Hey, this isn't fair. Guys, guys? Get off that couch and let me out! C'mon, you know a nice hit of frog will make it better." Buffo paused to watch the busy tangle for a while. "Although I don't really see how... Oh, shucks!"

Soon Buffo's resigned snores competed with the other noises in the cabin.

Then there was silence.