Specimen Days

He watched her as she guided them toward his bench. The older one, a boy, probably four, ran ahead. He would find something a stone, a leaf and bring it back to her. He and she would examine it, confer quietly about its worth. The rejects were tossed back. The others she slipped into the pocket of her cape. As soon as a decision had been made, the boy went off in search of a new prize, tireless as a spaniel. This was witnessed with skeptical interest by the little girl, no more than three, who kept herself close to the Nadian. She toyed with the hem of her nanny's cape. Occasionally she reached up and took hold of the long, thin fingers of an emerald hand. She appeared unconcerned about the two-inch pewter-colored nails.

When the nanny and the children were within earshot, Simon said, "Hey." He'd been saying hey to her for several days now. It had been incremental: no acknowledgment, then a smile, then a smile and a nod, then a greeting.

Today she responded.

"Bochum," she said. Her voice was soft. It had that whistle. She sounded like a flute that could speak.

He smiled. By way of response, she dilated her nostrils. The Nadians were not smilers. Their mouths didn't work that way. Some of the less assimilated still panicked when smiled at. They thought the showing of teeth meant they were about to be eaten.

"What's he finding?" Simon asked. He inclined his head toward the boy.

"Oh, many thing." She spoke English, then.

The boy, who had wandered off a little, saw that his nanny was addressing her attention to another. He came running.

"Park's full of treasures," Simon said. "People have no idea."

"Yes."

The boy inserted himself between Simon and his nanny. He stared at Simon with frank and careless hatred.

The Nadian laid a taloned hand on the miniature blond head. It wasn't surprising, really, that some people still considered it liberal to the point of recklessness to hire them for child care.

"Tomcruise," she said, "we show what we find?"

Tomcruise shook his head. The little girl wrapped herself in the folds of the Nadian's cape.

"Is shy," she said to Simon.

"Sure he is. Hey, Tomcruise, I'm harmless."

The Nadian knelt beside the boy. "We show him marble?" she said. "Is nice."

Tomcruise shook his head again.

"Creelich," she said to the boy. Her nostrils sucked in like irritated anemones. She must have been forbidden to speak Nadian to the children. Quickly she added, "Come, then."

She rose. She prepared to walk on with her brood. To Simon she said, "Is shy."

She was bold. Many of them never dared to converse. Some could not even bring themselves to answer a direct question. If they were silent, if they were as invisible as they could make themselves, misfortune might be averted or at least forestalled.

"What's your name?" Simon asked.

She hesitated. Her nostrils flared. When a Nadian was unnerved its nostrils expanded and offered a glimpse of green-veined mucous membranes, two circles of inner skin juicy and tender as a lettuce leaf.

"Catareen," she said. She said it so softly he could barely hear her.

"I'm Simon," he answered. His voice sounded louder than usual. The Nadians could make you feel large and noisy. The Nadians were darting and indirect. They were quiet as plucked wires.

She nodded. Then she looked at him.

He had never seen a Nadian do that. He had not been sure they made eye contact even with one another. They reserved their main attention for whatever might be just off to the side or creeping up from behind. This one stood holding the hand of a human child with each of her emerald claws and looked levelly into his face without fear or servility. He had never traded gazes with one before. He could see that her eyes were fiery orange-yellow, with amber depths. He could see they were shot through with little flashing incandescences of an orange so deep it bordered on violet. The slits of the pupils implied a calm, regal intelligence.

You are somebody, he thought. You were somebody. Even a planet like yours must have princesses and warrior queens. Even if their palaces are mud and sticks. Even if their armies are skittish and untrainable.

She nodded again. She moved on. The little girl continued to robe herself in the hem of the Nadian's cape. The boy glanced back at Simon with an expression of pure triumph, his treasures unsullied by a stranger's gaze.

As they walked off across Bow Bridge, Simon could hear her soft little song. Ee-um-fah-um-so.

He pulled the scanner from his zippie, double-checked his schedule. General menacing until his first client, a level seven at seven-thirty. Followed by two threes and a four. He hated sevens. Anything above a six (or a five, really) was difficult. He had to refuse nines and tens outright. They were beyond his capabilities. They paid well, and he needed the yen. But he knew his limits.