tomorrow. Can this one be kept for an hour?=
"Sure," I said. "Kamala, would you like to meet a Hanen?" I transferred
Silloin to a dino-sized window on the wall. "Silloin, this is Kamala
Shastri. Silloin is the one who actually runs things. I'm just the
doorman."
Silloin looked through the window with her near eye, then swung around and
peered at Kamala with her other. She was short for a dino, just over a
meter tall, but she had an enormous head that teetered on her neck like a
watermelon balancing on a grapefruit. She must have just oiled herself
because her silver scales shone. =Kamala, you will accept my happiest
intentions for you?= She raised her left hand, spreading the skinny digits
to expose dark crescents of vestigial webbing.
"Of course, I ..."
=And you will permit us to render you this translation?=
She straightened. "Yes."
=Have you questions?=
I'm sure she had several hundred, but at this point was probably too
scared to ask. While she hesitated, I broke in. "Which came first, the
lizard or the egg?"
Silloin ignored me. =It will be excellent for you to begin when?=
"She's just having a little tea." I said, handing her the cup. "I'll
bring her along when she's done. Say an hour?"
Kamala squirmed on couch. "No, really, it will not take me ..."
Silloin showed us her teeth, several of which were as long as piano keys.
=That would be most appropriate, Michael.= She closed; a gull flew
through the space where her window had been.
"Why did you do that?" Kamala's voice was sharp.
"Because it says here that you have to wait your turn. You're not the
only migrator we're sending this morning." This was a lie, of course; we
had had to cut the schedule because Jodi Latchaw, the other sapientologist
assigned to Tuulen, was at the University of Hipparchus presenting our
paper on the Hanen concept of identity. "Don't worry, I'll make the time
fly."
For a moment, we looked at each other. I could have laid down an hour's
worth of patter; I'd done that often enough. Or I could have drawn her
out on why she was going: no doubt she had a blind grandma or second cousin
just waiting for her to bring home those artificial eyes, not to mention
potential spin-offs which could well end tuberculosis, famine and premature
ejaculation, blah, blah, blah. Or I could have just left her alone in the
room to read the wall. The trick was guessing how spooked she really was.
"Tell me a secret," I said.
"What?"
"A secret, you know, something no one else knows."
She stared as if I'd just fallen off Mars.
"Look, in a little while you're going some place that's what ... three
hundred and ten light years away? You're scheduled to stay for three
years. By the time you come back, I could easily be rich, famous and
elsewhere; we'll probably never see each other again. So what have you
got to lose? I promise not to tell."
She leaned back on the couch, and settled the cup in her lap. "This is
