“I need to run! I can’t sit cooped up in a smelly can like this for hours at a stretch! At home, I hit the track every hour.” A.B. wanted to say, I’m not the one who stuck those big-cat codons in you, so don’t yell at me! But instead he notched up the cabin’s HVAC and chose a polite response. “Right now, all I can do is save your nose some grief. We’ll stop for lunch, and you can get some exercise then. Can’t you vib out like old Gershon there?” Gershon Thales stopped his air haptics to glare at A.B. His lugubrious voice resembled wet cement plopping from a trough. “What’s that comment supposed to imply? That I’m wasting my time? Well, I’m not. I’m engaged in posthuman dialectics at Saltation Central. Very stimulating. You two should try to expand your minds in a similar fashion.” Tiger

