In any case, the rules on freeing pets don't apply to Riki. He intends to hold on to Riki, even though having a slum mongrel as a pet threatens both the laws of Tanagra and the prestige of the Blondies. Nov says everyone who's eligible wants to be a pet, but it's not much of a life. Pets are kept for a year or eighteen months at most. The pets are always at each other's throats, occasionally murdering each other when jealousy and rivalry get too high.
Furniture are always slum kids, and is obviously what good looking slum adolescents become.
They're slightly older than pets, being recruited from the orphanage where slum rats are raised when they reach the turfing-out age of sixteen. Katse says that even when they find out the basic requirement for becoming furniture, most guys don' t hesitate to accept the position, castration being a minor price to pay for freedom from the slum. Ok, back to vid. Guy hopes the vanished Riki is making out OK, like he said he would. They go back to the headquarters, and Riki catches up on what's happening- which, as he says, isn't much.