"And you feel like a new human," she says, smiling faintly.

"Yes." I glance at her lower pair of hands. I can't help noticing that she's fidgeting. "Even though I stuck with this conservative body plan." I'm very conservatively turned out—a medium-height male, dark eyes, wiry, the stubble of dark hair beginning to appear across my scalp—like an unreconstructed Eurasian from the pre-space era, right down to the leather kilt and hemp sandals. "I have a strong self-image, and I didn't really want to shed it—too many associations tied up in there. Those are nice skulls, by the way."

Kay smiles. "Thank you. And thank you again for not asking, by the way."

"Asking?"

"The usual question: Why do you look like, well . . ."

I pick up my glass for the first time and take a sip of the bitingly cold blue liquid. "You've just spent an entire prehistoric human lifetime as an ice ghoul and people are needling you for having too many arms?" I shake my head. "I just assumed you have a good reason."

She crosses both pairs of arms defensively. "I'd feel like a liar looking like . . ." She glances past me. There are a handful of other people in the bar, a few bushujo and a couple of cyborgs, but most of them are wearing orthohuman bodies. She's glancing at a woman with long blond hair on one side of her head and stubble on the other, wearing a filmy white drape and a sword belt. The woman is braying loudly with laughter at something one of her companions just said—berserkers on the prowl for players. "Her, for example."

"But you were orthohuman once?"

"I still am, inside."

The penny drops: She wears xenohuman drag when she's in public because she's shy. I glance over at the group and accidentally make eye contact with the blond woman. She looks at me, stiffens, then pointedlyturns away. "How long has this bar been here?" I ask, my ears burning. How dare she do that to me?