Oliver TUG and Veronica TOTE, his giant to her dwarf, stood beside a concrete blast barrier and observed. But it’s never made an appearance in mentarspace, Veronica said, her elbow planted against his hip bone. At least, we’ve warned it to stay out of mentarspace. Doesn’t matter, Oliver replied. Its very thought patterns mark it as a mentar, or at least a midem. The current mentar consensus, or so I’m told, says that it’s an autonomous adjunct of an as yet unidentified mind. You should keep it under wraps. That’s not possible. We must train it in the real world. All I’m saying—the taxi zoomed close overhead, and Oliver ducked—is that you should maintain secrecy as long as possible. Perhaps. On the other hand, what harm is there in people knowing we’re raising a mentar? It’s a perfectly legal and innocuous activity. The taxi finished the course, but instead of landing beside the track, it revved its hover fans to maximum RPM and hurled itself straight at Oliver and Veronica, who ducked behind the blast barrier.
