The Demisiv looked up through the leaves of the trees at the shifting light of the sky above, where clouds were racing by in a stiff wind. “That’s fine,” Filif said. “We wouldn’t want to frighten anybody.”
“Come on this way,” Dairine said, and led them out of the woods. “Oh,” she said, “and this is my associate, Spot.”
Spot put up a selection of stalked eyes and looked around him, fixing on each of the aliens in turn. “Dai stihó,” he said.
“Dai,” said Filif and Sker’ret. Roshaun peered down at the small laptop in Dairine’s arms. “Is it sentient?” he said.
I’m beginning to think he’s more sentient than you are, Dairine thought. And immediately after that, she thought, What is the matter with me?
“We like to think so,” Dairine said, as politely as she could. “Though since he and I started working together a couple of years ago, there’ve been a few discussions over which of us is more sentient.”
They made their way up the lawn toward the house. “It’s spring here!” Filif said. “I love the colors.”
“Yeah,” Dairine said. “They haven’t really started yet, though. In a few weeks there’ll be a lot more flowers here.”
“Oh,” Roshaun said, “so the look of the place will improve, then? I’m glad to hear it. At home, we would have had the groundskeepers reprimanded.”
Dairine flushed as hot as if someone had insulted her, or her dad, or Nita, to her face. There was something insufferably superior about Roshaun’s delivery. I have to be imagining this, Dairine thought. I’ve known this guy exactly two minutes. It’s much too soon to believe that he’s a complete turkey.
Nonetheless, as Roshaun looked around the Callahan backyard, as he took in the slightly beat-up lawn furniture and the artfully ragged plantings, he radiated a sense that all of this was below him, somehow. I don’t get it, Dairine thought. Where is he getting this attitude? All the wizards I’ve ever known have been nice!
Well, Spot said in her head, how many wizards have you known?
That brought her up short. Well…she said.
Sker’ret, oblivious to what was going on inside Dairine’s head, was looking around him in all directions, a job made easier by stalked eyes that went every which way. “Do you have an indoor dwelling place here,” it said, “or do you stay outside?”
His tone of Speech was entirely different, suggesting a cheerful interest. “Not this time of year,” Dairine said. “It’s too cold for us to stay out just yet… though the time’s coming. We’re heading for the dwelling now—this white structure. Come on inside.”
She led the way toward the back door, Spot pacing her. Sker’ret came trundling along behind, followed by Roshaun, with Filif bringing up the rear. “And these other structures built so close to your dwelling,” Roshaun said, looking left and right as they approached the house, “more members of your species live in these as well?”
“That’s right,” Dairine said.
“They are perhaps an extended kinship group?” Roshaun said. “Members of your family?”
“Oh, no,” Dairine said. “As I said, they’re just our neighbors.”
“Neighbors,” Roshaun said, as if trying out a completely unfamiliar word. “It’s fascinating. At home, it wouldn’t be permitted.”
Dairine stopped halfway up the stairs to the back door. “Not permitted?” she said. “By whom?”
Roshaun looked at Dairine as if she were insane. “By us,” he said. “Our family wouldn’t want, you know, people looking at them.” And the word he used
wasn’t the plural of the one in the Speech that meant “person, fellow sentient being”; it was one that meant a being markedly less advanced than you in the Great Scheme of Things. Usually the word was used affectionately, or at worst in a neutral mode, for creatures that were aware in some mode but not quite sentient. But Roshaun’s tone of voice seemed to put an extra unpleasant spin on it, turning the word into something more like “lowlife.”
Dairine stood there wondering if she was suffering from low blood sugar or something of the kind. It has to be me, she said. No one could be so offensive on purpose… and if he’s doing it accidentally, then it’s not his fault. Why am I finding it so hard to cut him some slack?
“It must be very lonely for you, then,” Dairine said, as politely as she could.
“Oh, no,” Roshaun said, “I wouldn’t say that…”
The phrasing caught Dairine’s attention sharply as she opened the screen door. You wouldn’t say it because it would be true, she thought.
That insight, if it was one, she filed away for later study. “My father,” she said, “isn’t here right now. He’s still at work. But he’ll be along in an hour or so.”
“What does he work at?” Sker’ret said.
“He’s a florist,” Dairine said as they went in the back door into the kitchen.
Filif looked at her with many more berries than previously. “A doctor!” he said.
“Uh—” Dairine paused. She’d translated the English word into the Speech a little loosely, but it struck her as a good idea, on second thought, not to get into the minutiae of floristry any more clearly right now…especially since the image suddenly rose before her mind of what her dad actually did with the flowers in his shop. Yeah, my dad takes the corpses of things that grow in the ground and then arranges them in tasteful designs. She could just hear herself telling Filif that.
“He does landscaping, too,” she said hurriedly, having to search around a little for the closest word the Speech had for that. There were several possibilities, but she didn’t think the word for terraforming was going to be appropriate here, so she selected a word that implied a smaller scale of operations.
“Oh, an architect,” Filif said. “That’s a good thing to do for people!”
“Yes…” Dairine said, wishing she’d had a little more time to think about the implications of having a sentient vegetable in the house. Well, I was the one who couldn’t wait to have them here, she thought. Now they’re here, and I’m just going to have to deal with it.
“Come on in,” Dairine said, “and we’ll get you guys settled. Does anyone want some dinner?”
“Dinner?” Filif said.
“Things to eat,” Dairine said, as they walked toward the house. “Dinner is the name of the meal we eat, starting around this time of day.”
“Definitely!” Sker’ret said. “What have you got?”
“All kinds of things,” Dairine said. “We’ll see if we can’t find you something that will suit your tastes…not to mention your physiologies. This—” she said, indicating the kitchen—is where we do our cooking,” Dairine said. Roshaun simply looked around again with that uninterested, downhis-nose expression, but Filif and Sker’ret turned all around, staring at everything in fascination. “Cooking?” Filif said.
“What’s that?”
“What do you eat that needs to be cooked?” Sker’ret said.
“I can see this is going to take some explaining,” Dairine said. “It’s partly a physiology thing for my people, and partly cultural. But, look, before we get into that, you’re going to want to set up your personal worldgates and your pup tents. The pup tents…” She thought about that for a moment. “Sometimes, this time of year, the weather can be unpredictable. Probably it’s going to be more convenient for you if you put the pup tents down in the basement.”