"Not now, no," said Davout. Thank you he signed. "Can I move from the bed now?"

Li’s look turned abstract as he scanned indicators projected somewhere in his mind. Yes "You may," he said. He rose from his chair, took the pipe from his mouth. "You are in a hospital, I should add," he said, "but you do not have the formal status of patient, and may leave at any time. Likewise, you may stay here for the foreseeable future, as long as you feel it necessary."

Thank you "Where is this hospital, by the way?"

" West Java. The city of Bandung."

Earth, then. Which Davout had not seen in seventy-seven years. Memory’s gentle fingers touched his mind with the scent of durian, of ocean, of mace, cloves, and turmeric.

He knew he had never been in Java before, though, and wondered whence the memory came. From one of his sibs, perhaps?

Thank you Davout signed again, putting a touch of finality, a kind of dismissal, into the twist of his fingers.

Dr. Li left Davout alone, in his new/old body, in the room that whispered of memory and pain.

In a dark wood armoire, Davout found identification and clothing, and a record confirming that his account had received seventy-eight years’ back pay. His electronic inbox contained downloads from his sibs and more personal messages than he could cope with-he would have to construct an electronic personality to answer most of them.

He dressed and left the hospital. Whoever supervised his reassembly-Dr. Li perhaps-had thoughtfully included a complete Earth atlas in his internal ROM, and he accessed it as he walked, making random turnings but never getting lost. The furious sun burned down with tropical intensity, but his current body was constructed to bear heat, and a breeze off the mountains made pleasant even the blazing noontide.

The joyful metal music of the gamelans clattered from almost every doorway. People in bright clothing, agile as the siamang of near Sumatra, sped overhead along treeways and ropeways, arms and hands modified for brachiation. Robots, immune to the heat, shimmered past on silent tires. Davout found it all strangely familiar, as if he had been here in a dream.