Credit: Barry Olive

Senator Wu accepted Twing's seed out of courtesy, although she had no intention of conceiving his child. Twing of Sails had thrown this party in his house in her honour, but he wasn't as free with kilojoules as he was with genetic material, and Senator Wu wasn't prepared to funnel the heat donations of her two crèche mates to bring another man's child to the world. She acidified the pores in her tentacle and waved it around, letting the current carry away the dead spores. She smiled at Twing and a wave of blue burst from his centre and radiated towards the thin membranes that rippled on the edge of his disc-shaped body.

He didn't look bad, but he wasn't as comely as Senator Wu. Her body was an almost perfect sphere, and she was well aware of it. Wherever she went, she took care to rotate every few minutes, lest gravity pull on her too long in any one direction and tug her gelatinous figure out of shape.

Although she was tired, Wu was careful not to show it. Her pregnancies were progressing nicely. The eldest foetus, Hoo, was about to be born, and she was getting too big for parties, but the Senate elections were only months away and her visible pregnancy gave her an advantage she could not afford to waste. Aspiring-Senator Brida was angling for a permanent seat and Wu disliked the woman openly. Wu's seat was not in question, but if Brida were appointed, it would be seen as nothing less than a personal rebuke of the People to Senator Wu. Brida was too young to be fertile. Wu's size and roundness reminded everyone that experience was on her side.

She drifted off to a group of men and watched them preen for her, responding graciously to their advances and admiring their rainbow of colours. Most of them were Senators and she regaled them by pumping blood into the small sexy capillaries that could be seen through her transparent gelatin.

"May I dance with you, Senator Wu?"

Wu whirled around. "I'm sorry. You startled me."

The young man went crimson around the centre and purple on the edges. Wu was sorry to have discomfited him; it was indelicate of her, but she had been caught off guard. He turned away.

"Oh no, please stay. It is good to be startled now and again, don't you think? Especially for an old politician like me. Monotony is the seed of detachment from the People …" She let the phrase trail and, sure enough, the man picked it up from there.

"And distance from the People's needs leads to corruption, yes," he said, the perfect school response Wu expected.

At least he didn't seem so mortified any longer. His colour was almost back to normal. "But nobody here could call you an old politician, Senator. Last year's Energy Resolution was everything but conservative. I understand how you got the children's vote. Only a mother can make someone feel so loved and cherished."

Senator Wu squinted at him. Was he flirting? It was his right to do so; nobody would dream of denying a young man's right to secure a place in a crèche, but most of the younger generation didn't dare make advances. Her kudos was too great, her crèche was too stable and the chances were slim of her adding another mate to it and risking confrontation with her existing partners.

The older men never gave up, of course. Even having a child by her or publicly donating energy towards her ongoing pregnancies would give them a huge boost on the political level, but Wu couldn't tell what this young man wanted.

"I was greatly honoured by the children's vote," she said. "I sometimes think they perceive things on a non-verbal level that adults are simply immune to. Getting the kids' votes makes me feel I'm floating in the right current. I feel I'm projecting the right image and that they know I'm telling the truth…" Wu fell silent. She hadn't meant to get so personal with this stranger.

The man smiled and nodded. "You are right. There is a truthfulness about you that can be easily sensed. I am a Teacher. I understand a thing or two about children."

Was he mocking her? Teaching was such an honour that it was almost always awarded only to those who had age and wisdom to accumulate kudos and endorsements.

"A Teacher? Aren't you too young for that?"

"I am Teacher of the Muddy Waters. And I recall a certain Senator who was invested soon after her first marriage."

Wu smiled, relieved. She liked this Teacher.