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she had killed Chrystal. They had been a human family before they became a robot family.
    She swallowed, hoping it hadn’t been too hard on him.
    The close-in view followed the robots toward a hangar. Bright light spilled from the door as it slowly rolled up and then limned two female forms in a halo of light.
    The men stopped, hesitated.
    All four of them ran toward each other, two women and two men.
    Nayli squinted, uncertain what was happening.
    The robots came together, linked arms, a group hug. She saw Jason’s face, ecstatic with happiness.
    She stiffened and swallowed, stepped toward the screen. The resolution was good enough that when the light was right she saw Chrystal’s face, whole and happy.
    She hadn’t killed Chrystal after all.
    It hadn’t been possible to kill her.
    She stared, unwilling to turn and face the others. Relief and anger and shame all raced through her, warm and cold and hot in turn.
    When she had herself back under perfect control, Nayli turned to Brea and met her eyes. Brea’s eyes were pale blue, like water but steely. They showed nothing more than patience. Waiting.
    â€œI’m in,” she said. “I’m in.”
    She glanced at the time. It had only taken fifteen minutes.
    Damn.

CHAPTER FOUR
    YI
    Yi’s new feet carried him around the vast track at least twice as fast as he could have ever run before, and much more smoothly. A piece of his attention focused on each bend of an ankle, on the angle of elbows, on the cant of his head. He heard the touch of every step on the smooth running surface, felt the wind that he himself created, and smelled the salt-sweet sea.
    The subtleties of his design amazed him afresh, over and over. He did not hear his breath. He had no lungs. Even though it took power to run with such abandon, such love, movement gave him more power than it spent. Excess heat from running became more energy to help him run farther, made him feel better, lighter.
    At this time of the afternoon, the silver walls of Nexity didn’t cast a shadow across the town inside the walls the way they did in the morning. The western side of the town was open to the sea. The edges of bridgework could be seen, implying that the top of the Wall would become a large circle while the bottom of the city would remain open. A clear field extended out into the ocean, a force more than an actual barrier. He had never touched it, but he had been told that if he tried to walk through it he would feel it like a slight resistance but be able to pass. He had also been told it would solidify into a barrier for an enemy.
    From time to time other robots ran past him, only a few even looking close to human. Nexity was already far more diverse than the ships he had been on. He’d met at least a hundred differently named individuals, and many of those were human and multiple, like the Colorimas or the Jhailings. He would grow to be like them, to be able to move from one body to another, to alter his own body, to copy himself into more than one individual entity.
    There were more of him now, but that had been done by the Next, done to them. But surely the more advanced multiples made their own choices?
    An expanse of sand spread out beyond the city at ground level. After the sand, sea. One and two foot waves with crashing curls of briny foam that smelled of salt and seaweed.
    There was only the faintest shimmer to suggest the barrier existed. It was wholly unlike the wall that blocked his view of the spaceport and Manna Springs beyond it.
    The shield, the city, and the easy transformation of matter all amazed him even more than his own body amazed him. The Next themselves had never been on a planet, except perhaps a few who had visited Lym before they became robots in the long ago, and a few who had paved the way.
    Nexity rose and changed around him so fast he found it delightfully dizzying, a constant source of amazement. He had seen this very spot—empty—only