NOTES: For those who are wondering how the child is able to understand what's being said, I'm hoping this chapter helps answer that question. For those who are wondering about him not speaking, I refer you to chapters 1 and 4...I alluded to a reason there though I have not given the specifics as yet. And don't feel badly if you didn't remember it—I had to go back and re-read it to be sure I'd mentioned it.

Had originally written this chapter on a friend's laptop while dogsitting, but that laptop is currently in the computer ER and it turns out my efforts to save my work to a disk were a dismal failure. Consequently I've had to rebuild this chapter entirely from memory, and I've got a mind like a steel sieve. If the original survives whatever is done to the ailing laptop and there is anything worthwhile in it that I've missed I'll try to integrate it with this...

Sorry this chapter's so short, but that's just how it happened...

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Chapter Seven

Listening to people's feelings without their permission was considered quite rude, but how else was he supposed to find out if these people were going to hurt him? Besides, he wasn't reaching out and trying to listen to all their feelings...he was just peeking, just a tiny bit, just to make sure it was safe here. It wasn't naughty to just peek, was it? He was sure it wasn't. Besides, their minds were rather loud, and it was hard to not hear some of their feelings. Maybe one of them would invite him to listen sometime, but for now he'd just peek a tiny little bit from time to time. Just to be sure it was safe. And to help him understand them, of course, since their voices sounded a bit muffled and peculiar.

They didn't smell like predators. Well, not too much, anyhow. They actually smelled a little nice, even though there was a trace of meat-eater in their scent. Their teeth weren't pointy and didn't look too terribly sharp...that had to be a good thing. And though they looked far different from the creatures that had taken him away from the bad ship, the breath of the one that was carrying him out of the pretty blue room smelled the same as the one that had put the mask on him. He was the same one who had proclaimed himself Taj djahl-nach—the other man had called him Mao-Kim. Maybe they'd be Joined soon and he'd be able to listen to Mao-Kim all the time. He'd like that.

Lehrites Joined almost immediately after proclaiming Taj, but apparently Hoo-mins waited a while. He'd been taught that each species does things a little differently and waiting to Join was, it seemed, one of the differences between Lehrites and Hoo-mins.

He'd seen pictures of Hoo-mins, of course, just as he'd seen pictures of many other races when he'd been taught about them. And the stories, of course—they'd all heard stories about Hoo-mins, just like they'd heard stories about En-dor-me-ams and Tell-rights and King-ons and Naw-ki-sams. He'd even gotten a glimpse of a real live En-dor-me-am once, though only for a few seconds. They were very interesting, and not just because they were blue, and not just because he'd never seen a real one before. En-dor-me-ams could wiggle their horns! That was something he'd never learned about them from any of the stories. Someday he'd like to talk to an En-dor-me-am and learn how they wiggle their horns. He supposed it wasn't too much different than him wiggling his ears, but knowing for certain how they did it would be nice.

Of all the stories, though, he'd always liked the ones about Hoo-mins best. In the stories they sounded like strange, funny, mostly pleasant creatures. And they were even prettier in person than in the pictures he'd seen, even if they didn't have horns. This idea of special clothes for dangerous places, though...that was just...well...silly. They must have been joking with him, because if a place was dangerous you simply stayed away from it. Everybody knew that. He'd been taught that Hoo-mins sometimes liked to joke...

He'd been taught about Vul-cams, too...all the children learned from infancy that they had to stay away from Vul-cams because Lehrites had somehow made Vul-cams unhappy long ago, so now Vul-cams hated Lehrites. Making people unhappy was bad, and hurting people was bad, so if being around Lehrites hurt Vul-cams and made them unhappy then Lehrites had to just stay away from them. To avoid offending Vul-cams Lehrites didn't even teach their children anything about Vul-cam language, and they always taught at least a little about alien languages when they could. He'd only learned about the hand salute by accident while randomly reading through some files on the computer at school. He wasn't even certain that he'd done the salute properly, but it had seemed the polite thing to do. He'd hoped that, if he did it correctly, maybe she wouldn't hate him. Maybe it would even make her happy. And the Vul-cam had seemed to approve. But still...

Though the Vul-cam's mind was quieter than the Hoo-mins he'd still heard the Vul-cam lady clearly, and it confused him. He'd been taught for a long time that Vul-cams hated Lehrites, but he didn't hear hate from her. Hate was a loud, sharp, painful, unmistakable thing, easily recognized even by babies. What he heard from her was loud, too, and though less painful it was equally unpleasant and very, very confusing.

After all, why would the Vul-cam lady be scared of him?