Now a cage of jointed limbs settled around him, protecting him from the crush. He stared up, recognized the fast-healing wound of a recent budding. He called out — but his speech membrane was still moist, and the sound he made was indecipherable. He tried again, feeling the membrane stiffen. “You are my father,” he said.

“Yes.” A huge face lowered towards him. He reached up to stroke the stern visage. The flesh was hardening. He felt a sweet pang of sadness. Was his father already so old, so near to Consolidation?

“Listen to me. See my face. Your name is Sculptor 472. I am Sculptor 471. You must remember your name.”

Sculptor 472. “Thank you,” he said seriously. “But—” But what did “Sculptor” mean? He searched his mind, the memory set he’d been born with. Limbs. Father. People. Consolidation. The Sun; the Hills. There was no referent for “Sculptor.” He felt a stab of fear; his limbs thrashed. Was something wrong with him?

“Calm yourself,” his father said evenly. “It is a name preserved from the past, referring to nothing.”

Sculptor 472. It was a good name; a noble name. He looked ahead to his life: his brief three-day morning of awareness and mobility, when he would talk, fight, love, bear his own buds; and then the long, slow, comfortable afternoon of Consolidation. “I feel happy to be alive, father. Everything is wonderful. I—”

“Listen to me.”

He stopped, confused; his father’s tone was savage, insistent.

Something was wrong.

“Things are — difficult, now. Different.”

Sculptor 472 wrapped his limbs around his torso. “Is it me?”

“No, child. The world is troubled.”

“But the Hills — Consolidation—”

“We had to leave the Hills.” There was shame in 471’s voice now; again Sculptor became aware of the crush of people beyond the cage of his father’s strong limbs. “The Hills are damaged. There are — Sun-people — strange forms, glowing, shining. We dare not go there. We had to flee.”