Of course, not all the pleasures were intellectual, as my waistline will attest, thanks to Atlantas fine BBQ joints.

The monstrous body must be fed!

HARSH OASES.

Thomas equinas hated to run.

But now he had no choice.

He had been entrusted with the future salvation of his kind.

An egg named Sweepea.

And the Manticore was hot on Sweepeas trail.

Equinas contemplated the innocuous-looking egg resting now on his desk in its scrollworked mahogany cradle. A standard, stand-alone brood-pod, big as a baseline watermelon, the ivory-colored egg could have held any kind of embryo: mosaic or basal, cold-blooded or warm-blooded, vertebrate or invertebrate. No exterior sign pointed toward the unique destiny of the occupant.

A most hypothetical destiny, as yet. The embryo had first to survive to birth and live to adolescence.

About hating to run. This was both a philosophical and physical issue with Thomas. Both a figurative and literal disinclination. His pedigree included a large percentage of horse genes, and he had in the latter half of his life strived to minimize this part of his heritage. Running was part of what he abjured.

Of course, anyone seeing Thomas would have had little doubt as to his genetic composition. The large, liquid brown eyes, the stocky chest, the blunt horny feet and hands, his mane-like hair-all of these features betrayed the equine genes that consorted with the human, seal, raccoon and even avian codons in his cells.

As a young mosaic two decades ago, however, Thomas Equinas had loved to run. An unsophisticated healthy splice, employed on a vast African cell-phone plantation, Thomas had happily spent all his free time, after the days round of tending to the circuit shrubs, with the other bucks and fillies, in foot races and wrestling matches, afterwards nimbly climbing gnarly booze palms to pluck the liquor nuts from on high, returning to the ground for drunken orgies, awaking with throbbing head in the fragrant, breath-humid stables to start the cycle of mindless work and pleasure all over again.

But that had been before he learned to read.

One of the basal humans tangentially associated with the plantation had gifted-or perhaps cursed-Thomas with literacy. Her name had been Petrina, and she was a slim, blonde woman of indeterminate age who had come to the plantation to upgrade the circuit bushes one day. Her task took her a week, and during that time she was constantly out in the fields with the worker splices, sowing her upgrade viruses and checking the results of her work. During these times, Thomas had eyed her with a strange new mixture of curiosity, lust and interest. Petrina was unlike the humans who ran the plantation. She treated the splices with courtesy and genuine affection.

"Thomas, I need a random sample of antenna buds from at least six bushes separated by no more than seven meters but no less than four meters."

"Yes, Peej Petrina, right away."

"Just call me Petrina, please, Thomas."

"Whatever you wish-Petrina."

Somehow, without any intentionality on Thomass part, he miraculously found himself rutting with Petrina one night. He had seen her standing at the flickering edge of the circle of light cast by the big bonfire that accompanied the nightly diversions of the splices, and he had gone to her, abandoning his kind for the promise of the unknown-a path he had been following ever since.

Together Thomas and Petrina moved off further into the darkness and had sex. Afterwards, lying amidst the crushed lemon grasses, Thomas could not find it within his stunned self to initiate conversation. Luckily, Petrina had plenty of questions that would loosen Thomass tongue. She sought earnestly to learn the parameters and dimensions of his life, and eventually stumbled upon his illiteracy.

"Why, thats scandalous! Back home, all our splices can read. Its essential. Thats how they improve themselves and help us more efficiently. I dont see why its not the same here ..."

"Perhaps-perhaps its because there are so many of us here, and so few humans. You say that is not the case in your land ..."

"No, not at all. In fact, even the old rough parity of one splice to one human has decreased lately, as new generations of kibes with higher turingosity become embedded in superior mycoflesh bodies. These aphylumic helpers seem destined to outmode your kind, by any number of performance criteria. Already, people are referring to a period known as the Redaction, a time when splices will go extinct."

Thomas did not understand everything Petrina was telling him, but he sensed the imminence of some doom.

Thomas dared in this intimate moment to utter a rebellious thought. "I-I would like to read, I think. But our humans seem to want to deny us anything that would bring us closer to their level."

Petrina sat up eagerly, her breasts swaying. In the darkness, her eyes seemed to catch the glint of the many Southern Hemisphere constellations overhead.

"Why, nothing could be easier, Thomas. Ill get a sartor to fab up a dose of literacy trope tailored to your genotype when I go into town. Youll be reading the next day, once all the glial rewiring subsides."

"But how will you get access to my genotype?"

"Silly horse! Ive already got one big sample of your cells. But you can give me another if you want."

Thomas blushed at his stupidity, but was not so embarrassed that he failed to comply with Petrinas suggestion.

Petrina went into town the next day, but did not return immediately. Thomas almost gave up hope that she would keep her promise. But when she did show up again, she carried the promised dose of neurotropins.

Passing over the smart pill on the sly, Petrina also whispered goodbye. Thomas was too excited even to realize he would never see her again.

Thomas swallowed the tropes when out of sight of his human overseers, washing it down after his shift with a swig of booze-palm juice. Almost immediately he began to feel light-headed and confused. He left his brawling peers for the stables, where he went immediately to sleep.

When he awoke in the morning, he felt fine. And the first thing he noticed was a sign on the wall of his crib.

CAUTION.

MOSAICS UNPREDICTABLE.

WHEN DRUNK.

As the revelation that he was actually reading struck him fully, Thomas began to weep. As the deeper implications of the sign dawned on him-that he had been wasting his life as a brutish sot-he began to weep even more forcefully.

A human overseer came by to inquire politely, "Hey what the fuck is the problem here, you stupid Var?" Thomas pulled himself together, denied any ills, and went to work.

This was the start of his new life.

Thomas began to read omnivorously. He slyly rescued from the compost heap a cell-phone that had failed several quality-control teste but still functioned well enough for his purposes. He used it to surreptitiously download texts from the ideocosm. With each book he consumed, Thomas felt his image of the world expanding and growing richer.

Thomas came particularly to relish philosophy, seeking the why of his world as well as the what. The ancient Greeks, the Germans, the twentieth-century masters like Bertrand Russell and Bob Dylan, the mid-twenty-first-century school of neo-Nozickians-all became as essential to Thomas as food.

And when he learned of the first historically recorded splice philosopher, an individual named Modest Mouse, Thomas made up his mind to become one himself.

The path to this ambitious goal was not easy, and had taken many years of travail and suffering, years of heartbreak and setbacks overcome by perseverance and ingenuity.

Thomas and his fellows had been manumitted when the cellphone plantation went bankrupt, in the wake of the introduction of communicator earwigs into the marketplace. This gesture was not as altruistic as it sounded, amounting merely to turning loose helpless plantation mosaics into the restored primitive veldt where they had to contend with wild basal predators. Somehow, Thomas had managed to survive and make his way to the nearest big city, Joburg, where he found a job as a house servant for a conservative family that disdained the new mycoflesh servitors. There, Thomas was able to continue his education, eventually even surreptitiously taking degree-level courses in the ideocosm.

After ten years, Thomas managed to compose and post several philosophical treatises in the ideocosm without revealing his true identity. They were accepted by the intellectual community. After a string of such successes, Thomas came out of the closet. A small media firestorm resulted among several granfalloons, which only had the effect of solidifying his new status. Grants and stipends followed, allowing him to abandon his lowly job. Since then, Thomas had become well established among both humans and splices, traveling around the world to speak and teach. He owned his own home now in the Republic of Snows, near Stockholm.

And it was here he sat now, contemplating the egg containing Sweepea.

Thomas Equinas could pride himself on being a free, self-made splice, with several virtual books to his credit, respected by open-minded humans around the globe.

All because of a chance encounter with a generous woman.

The miracle of this was beyond any philosophy Thomas had yet managed to formulate.

But what good did all his personal success amount to, if his kind was doomed?

The predicted Redaction was well underway. Each year, fewer and fewer splices were being commercially bred, as soulless creations of ultra-pliable mycoflesh animated by aphylumic artificial intelligences came to occupy the societal niches that had been the domain of the splices for well over a century. It was a mass extinction on the order of that which had ended the Permian age. Well, okay, maybe that was stretching matters a little. But it was at least as big as the Cretaceous die-off.

Facing the end of his own inherently abbreviated natural lifespan, the elderly Thomas was more troubled by the decline of his race than by his own personal mortality.

Which explained why he had agreed to become Sweepeas guardian.

A month ago, Thomass servant-yes, he acknowledged the irony of employing splices in the same capacity in which he had once been employed-a badger-weasel mix named Gromo, had ushered into Thomass study an imposing mosaic. Tall, broad-shouldered, tawny-furred, muzzle packed with teeth, the splice had announced himself as Felix Navidad.

Studying the visitors half-familiar somatype, Thomas was shortly moved to ask, "Are you perchance any relation to the infamous Krazy Kat?"

"My great-grandfather," rumbled Felix throatily.

"I hope you do not espouse his radical beliefs."

"Not entirely. Warfare between the basal humans and we mosaics is both impractical and nihilistic. But I do believe in the preservation of our kind. Which is the mission that brings me here. A small, secret group of concerned cultivars has formulated a plan to insure that all the myriad splice genotypes survive any effort, however uncoordinated or gratuitously intentioned, to expunge them. We wish to enlist your help in carrying this scheme forward."

"What can I possibly do?"

"All our hopes and dreams are to be embedded in a unique individual whom we call the Teleological Ark. This being will need a tutor and guide until he matures. We have chosen you, as one of the wisest among us. You must raise our heir to honor and protect his lineage. Teach him to carry our glory into futurity."

Thomas pondered the breadth of this challenge. It required more energetic activity than he had been accustomed to in a long time. But what better use of his waning years could he ask for?

"I accept."

Tension flowed out of Felix Navidads bunched muscles. "This decision relieves me. I had no wish to kill you to insure secrecy."

Thomas smiled. "I appreciate both your honesty and forbearance."

"But be warned," continued Felix, "it is possible that you will face an antagonist far less charitable than I. A segment of humanity wishes to speed up the Redaction, claiming that an earthly paradise will occur only when our world hosts but a single species. You can imagine that the favored species is not a spliced one. They call themselves the New Adamists, and they have enlisted a formidable monster to hasten the day they await. He is called the Manticore. So far, we believe, the New Adamists have no inkling of our scheme. But if they learn, then they will surely send the Manticore after you and the Teleological Ark."

"How can I possibly protect myself and the Ark from a professional killer?"

"When the Ark is a year old, he will have formidable abilities of his own. Till then, you must rely on your wits and subterfuge."

Felix recounted to Thomas then the features sartorized into the Ark. Thomas mulled them over, marveling at the ingenuity of splice-kind. The measures seemed adequate.

"I will have to leave my beloved home then?"

"So we advise. We are relying on you to find secure places to raise our prodigy."

"When will the Teleological Ark be given into my custody?"

"A month from now."

"That is enough time for me to prepare a retreat."

Felix held up a paw to forestall Thomas. "Tell me nothing. The fewer who know of your plans, the safer you will be. Goodbye, Thomas Equinas, and good luck."

The Teleological Ark had arrived, cased in his brood-pod, some weeks later. By then, Thomas had made his plans. One of the first things he had done was to rechristen the embryo in its incubator. No surrogate child of his was going to have to answer to so clumsy and determinative a name.

Thus, Sweepea.

Now Thomas picked up the brood-pod from its cradle, holding it under one arm.

"Time to leave, Sweepea."

With Gromo carrying his few bags, Thomas made his way outside to his personal entomopter, parked on a broad lawn now summer-green. After stowing the luggage and the brood-pod onboard, Thomas turned to Gromo.

"I have established a trust to maintain this property for you and the other servants, Gromo, for as long as you live. Tend it well. Who knows, I might even return some day."

"We will miss you, Varplus Equinas. Please take our best wishes with you."

"Only the wordless support of splices everywhere gives me the strength to fulfill this mission, Gromo."

Behind the controls of the dragonfly, Thomas prepared for ascent. The entomopter began to rise, scissoring its gauzy wings.

Emerging from the bordering forest a hundred meters across the lawn, a figure was bounding toward the arm-waving Gromo. Fearing the worst, dreading what he was about to witness, knowing he could offer no aid, Thomas poured more power into the wings.

Incredibly fast, the newcomer disclosed more and more of his identity the closer he got, until finally his unique nature was undeniable.

A pugnacious, snarling human head sprouted twisted oriental dragon homs from its brow. The brawny neck merged seamlessly into a powerful leonine body covered with sharp quills. A jointed scorpions tale writhed from the hindquarters.

The Manticore. Crafted in some dark sartorial crucible as a dedicated killing machine.

Some eight meters above the lawn, Thomas felt safe. Still, he jerked back in surprise when the Manticore made a startling leap and came within venom-spitting distance of the entomopters undercarriage.

Thumping unharmed to the ground, the fiend took out his frustration on hapless Gromo. Enfolding the servitor in a spiny embrace, the Manticore stabbed Gromo over and over with his barbed tail, issuing a defiant roar of frustration and challenge.

Weeping for the doom he had brought on his friend, Thomas flew off toward the south.

The Manticore managed to keep pace below the entomopter for nearly a kilometer, before falling behind.

Truly, Thomas was on the run now.

He just hoped Sweepea was worth the sacrifice.

Scyphozoa City changed location continuously, but at a gentle pace.

The buoyant undersea community consisted of some ten thousand colorful sartorized jellyfish, each as big as an aerostat hanger, supporting jungles of tentacles hundreds of meters long, submerged in the warm, nutrient-rich Pacific waters near the Philippines. These living structures served as homes for some one million individuals.

The majority of the citizens were merpeople: basal humans modified somatically but not genomically to support an underwater existence. Thus they retained the legal genetic purity that conferred on them full enfranchisement, at the cost of some laborious postnatal kludges for each new generation. Allied with the mers were a variety of piscine splices. A smattering of short-term visitors from the airworld could always be found within city limits, accommodating themselves with various artificial devices.

Beneath the enormous pillowy cowls, those tissuey inverted saucers of the coelenterates, the daily routines of the city took place. Trading, eating, discussions, education, politicking, gossip-all the standard activities of sentient life. Meanwhile, the enormous jellies maintained themselves mindlessly, insensible to their internal parasites, stinging and capturing their prey with their nematocysts, and digesting their food gastrodermally, right alongside the oblivious merpeople.

Living in Scyphozoa City was like living under acres of billowing rainbow tents abstractly tethered with numinous cables. During the daylight hours, sunlight illuminated the translucent jellyfish from above, producing breathtaking stained-glass lighting effects that tinted the residents a thousand gemlike shades. By night, the internal bioluminescence of the living city produced a more fairy-like ambiance conducive to sleep, leisure and romance.