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Flinx eyed his young host sharply. “You're a perceptive one, Kiijeem.”

The AAnn responded with a gesture indicting first-degree concurrence. “In ssocial groupss I am often ssingled out for approbation of my sskillss at obsservation.”

“Truly,” Flinx conceded. “The female's name was Chraluuc. Like all of the Tier to which she belonged, she was an artist. She was charged, I suspect originally against her will, with looking after my amnesiac self. We became friends. Good friends. More than most, she wished me to be a bridge between human and AAnn.”

“What happened to her?” Kiijeem was much intrigued. In all his studies he had never encountered an instance of a personal, as opposed to the occasional professional, closeness between a human and one of his own kind.

“The same thing that happens to all of us.” Flinx spoke softly, remembering. “She died. Too soon.” He eyed the young AAnn. Round eyes peered deeply into slitted pupils. “I've spent much of my life not doing that.”

Kiijeem was momentarily confused. “Not doing what?”

“Dying.” Straining to see past the landscaping off to his right, Flinx peered in the direction of the main residence. “I wouldn't want that to happen to you.”

“Not to worry on that sscore.” To emphasize his confidence, the crouching AAnn smacked the ground twice with his tail. “Sshould sserious conflict arisse between uss, I can alwayss turn you in to the authoritiess.”

It was a characteristic AAnn trait, Flinx knew well, to be direct to the point of tactlessness.

“Truly you could,” he admitted dryly. “But it is my hope that you and I might foster a friendship similar to the one I formed on Jast.”

“Time will reveal,” Kiijeem told his guest, as straightforward as ever. “For the moment I sstill find you far too interessting to ssacrifice.” Underlying his enthusiasm, the tip of his tail kept flicking from side to side. And according to his emotions, Flinx sensed a suggestion of thrill. No doubt from the danger inherent in being so intimate with one of his species' traditional adversaries.

Fine, Flinx decided. Keep the youngster interested, keep him involved, and he will be far less inclined to reveal his visitor's presence.

Kiijeem's inquisitiveness was as unbounded as his boldness. Adjusting his stance and settling into an ever-lower crouch while utilizing his tail for balance, he used his long, narrow, flexible tongue to clean the outer membrane of first one eye and then the other.

“Tell me about humankind. I know more of the thranx becausse my people have had longer contact with them. But where humanss are concerned, the information available iss less extenssive. I have sseen how you eat. How can you chew with your jawss insside your sskull? As you walk, don't thosse protruding external earss catch on thingss? You sstand perfectly sstraight: how do your kneess handle the consstant pressure?” Leaning to one side, he tried to see behind his guest. “And by the Great Egg, I cannot fathom how your kind can sstand upright, much less run, in the abssence of a tail to provide sstability.”

“Well, to a large extent that has to do with how our internal ears are made,” Flinx began.

In the days that followed he educated his young host not only in the particulars of human physiology, but in the art, music, theater, science, and sociology of his species, as well as the history of the Commonwealth. Hailing from a culture in which aggressive behavior was prized, expected, and rewarded, Kiijeem took a special interest in Flinx's description of pre-Amalgamation intra-human wars.

“Thesse taless of your once planet-bound sspeciess are very different from thosse of the dissgusstingly placid thranx, and do not ssound sso very different from what I have learned of my own kind and itss drive to make the leap out into intersstellar sspace. Though I am sstill young and have no experience of ssuch thingss, it sseemss to me that your kind and mine may have more in common than you do with the repellent hardsshellss. Yet you are alliess