"They don't usually send organics; instead it's these little nattering probes that snipe at you, How are you adjusting to your new life you murderer, and, How do you think your best friend feels about what you did and here's footage of her learning about it for the first time (they have holoprojectors too), and so on. If they're not sentient, we strip their code and send them back programmed to make nothing but fart noises, or something."

Anwei's home planet made Epicurea look like a pastoral paradise; anything would be an improvement over Fle.

"Great! I can set you up in the new-hire program, they've got a great languages program. Room and board, paid vacation time, free health care mental and physical, and a pretty good salary too."

She held her palms out. "I deserved that wigging. I'd underestimated how ruthless Stacy would be in testing me. I was too used to AIs who were always on my side."

The marble between Howard's fingers seemed to hum, and the rest of the marbles slid across the table and up his chest and arm to form a bracelet of spheres on his wrist.

"Hi!" the marble said chattily, in a synthesized voice that sounded neither male or female. "What's your name?"