Elin leaned back against the cliff. Grapevines rustled under her weight. Already she missed the blissed-out feeling of a few minutes before. "Actually, I'm an agnostic."
"You were. Things may have changed." Landis folded the towel into one pocket, unfolded a mirror from another. "Speaking of which, how do you like your new look?"
Elin studied her reflection. Blue paint surrounded her eyes, narrowing to a point at the bridge of her nose, swooping down in a long curve to the outside. It was as if she were peering through a large, blue moth or a pair of hawk wings.
There was something magical about it, something glamorous, something very unlike her.
"I feel like a raccoon. This idiot mask."
"Get used to it. You'll be wearing it a lot."
"But what's the point?" Elin was surprised by her own irritation. "So I've got a new personality; it's still me in here. I don't feel any weird compulsion to run amok with a knife or walk out an airlock without a suit. Nothing to warn the citizenry about, certainly."
"Listen," Landis said. "Right now you're like a puppy tripping over its own paws because they're too big for it. You're a stranger to yourself-you're going to feel angry when you don't expect to, get sentimental over surprising things. You can't control your emotions until you learn what they are. And until then, the rest of us deserve-"
"What'll you have?" Hans was back, his forehead smudged black where he had incompletely wiped off his facepaint.
"-a little warning. Oh, I don't know, Hans. Whatever you have on tap."
"That'll be Chanty. You?" he asked Elin.
"What's good?"
He laughed. "There's no such thing as a good lunar wine. The air's too moist. And even if it weren't, it takes a good century to develop an adequate vineyard. But the Chanty is your basic, drinkable glug."