ugh the screen door. Dairine raised her eyebrows, and said to the other two, Come on, and I ll give you the grand tour of the house. There s more Filif said, sounding surprised. Sure, Dairine said. I ll show you. By the time she and the other two were up the stairs, Roshaun had already opened the oven door, and was looking in. If this is a food preparation area, he said, it can t be meant to service very many people. It s not, Dairine said. There are only three of us here. I know about that, Sker ret said. There s you, and your sire, and your sister. He said both the relationship words as if they were strange new alien concepts. Yes, Dairine thought. And if you knew it, why doesn t Roshaun know it That s right, Dairine said. Roshaun closed the oven door and looked around him, still with that faintly fancier-than-thou attitude, but also with a slight air of confusion. Even so, he said, looking into the dining room as if he expected to see something there and didn t see it, surely you don t prepare your food yourselves Uh, sure we do, Dairine said. Did I miss something about this guy s profile she thought. I should go back and have another look, because he s really behaving strangely… My sister s better at it that I am, but I should be able to manage something. Sker ret was up on his hind legs, or some of them, carefully inserting a couple of claws into a cupboard door. I ll be glad to help you, he said. What s in here Is this where you keep the food He pulled the cupboard door open literally. It came off its hinges, and Sker ret put his head end into the cupboard, holding the door off to one side as he rummaged around. What are all these bright-colored things he said, taking out packages and jars and cans, holding them up, and staring at them with many stalked eyes. Uh, yeah, those are all kinds of food. It s just that, you want to watch out for the ones in the glass Crash! went two of the jars that Sker ret was holding in his claws. It became increasingly apparent that Sker ret did not know his own strength. The shower of broken glass, various kinds of canning juices, and things like asparagus and peas and peaches in a jar, was shortly joined by more leakage from cans that Sker ret was holding with his other claws. Roshaun and Filif looked on this, fascinated, but neither saying anything. Oh, I m sorry, these are very fragile, aren t they Sker ret said. Were those supposed to do that Not exactly, Dairine said, hoping against hope that she could stop this catastrophe before it got much further along, and get it cleaned up before her dad got home. Why don t you let me take care of that, and I ll just Crash! Oh no, Sker ret said, I am sorry about that. Several more jars and bottles fell down and either smashed on the counter or bounced off the floor; a few glass jars bounced and then smashed when they came down the second time. Both Filif and Roshaun crowded carefully back out of the way, and looked at Dairine to see what she would do. Dairine let out a long breath, and started carefully across the wet, glass-crunchy floor toward the basement steps, where a mop and broom were kept. His claws clutched full of the remains of various cans and bottles, Sker ret looked after Dairine with a number of its eyes. Where are you going he said. Well, Dairine said, I could do a wizardry, but sometimes a mop makes more sense… What s a mop Filif said. It s a thing we use to clean up the floor if something wet s gotten on it To clean it up Sker ret said, sounding shocked. But we haven t had anything yet Dairine opened her mouth to say something, and then completely forgot what, as Sker ret began to eat. He ate the glass. He ate the cans. He ate the asparagus, and the peas, and the canned tomatoes, and every other foodstuff that had fallen on the floor. He slurped up every bit of liquid. And when he was done, he looked around him, and with his foreclaws, he picked up the torn-off cupboard door, which he had carefully set aside while dealing with the canned goods. Not the door! Dairine yelled. Sker ret s head turned in some alarm. No No, Dairine said, trying hard to calm herself. I m sorry; that s part of the kitchen. Oh, Sker ret said. My apologies. I didn t realize. Carefully he set the door aside again, and turned his attention downward. No, no, no, no, Dairine said. Leave the floor! Somewhat bemused, Sker ret cocked a few eyes back at Dairine, shrugged some of his legs, and began to levitate. Roshaun was leaning against the counter by the kitchen sink, his arms folded, watching this spectacle with insufferable amusement. Dairine desperately wanted to punch him in the nose, even though he hadn t said a word. Filif was watching, too, though with a far less superior air. Maybe it s the berries, Dairine thought. It s hard to look supercilious when you have berries hanging off you. The back door opened. All four of the occupants of the kitchen looked up, startled. Dairine s father came in, closed the door behind him, and looked at his daughter, the young man, the centipede, and the tree. Hello, everybody, Harry Callahan said. Filif, Roshaun, and the gently floating Sker ret all looked at Dairine s dad. Then they all looked at Dairine, waiting to take their cue from her. Dairine had rarely been more embarrassed to have her father turn up without warning or more relieved. Daddy! she said. Who s in the store Mike s there for the rest of the day, her dad said. Mike was his new assistant, whom he d taken on a few weeks back: a young guy just out of high school who had been looking for a job and was good with flowers. It s been a slow afternoon, anyway. I m not needed there. Who re your friends Dairine looked at her dad sidewise, admiring his cool, especially since she knew he d done his reading and knew perfectly well who these people were. There he stood, acting like a man who had aliens in his house every day. And he had looked right at the cupboard door and not even mentioned it. This is Filif, she said. Filif, this is my father. I am honored to meet the stock from which the shoot proceeds, Filif said. He rustled all over, bending a little bit like a tree in a wind. Dairine was relieved to see that her dad must have the briefing pack somewhere about his person, as he was plainly understanding the Speech that Filif was using. Well, you re very welcome, Dairine s father said. And this is Sker ret… Well met on the journey, Sker ret said. Dairine s dad reached out to take the claw that Sker ret offered him. You don t have to float there like that, he said. The floor s not so clean in here that you need to be afraid to walk on it. He glanced to one side. Something wrong with the cupboard It came off, Sker ret said. That happens, Dairine s dad said. Just leave it there for the time being; we ll put it back where it belongs later. He turned to Roshaun. And this is Roshaun, Dairine said. … ke Nelaid am Seriv am Teliuyve am Meseph am Veliz am Teriaunst am det Wellakhit, Roshaun said, and to Dairine s mortification, looked at her dad as if expecting him to bow. Her dad s response took just a fraction of a second longer this time. Make yourself right at home, he said to Roshaun. But then I see you already have. He turned away from Roshaun with exactly the same matter-of-fact motion that Dairine had seen her dad use with customers who were wasting his time at the counter. So let s all go into the living room and sit down. What s on the agenda, Dairine She recognized the code her father rarely called her by her whole name unless there was trouble of some kind. At least for once, the cause of the trouble wasn t her or if it was, she was only the indirect cause. All of them followed her dad into the living room, and Dairine said, They ve spent the day traveling, and I was thinking maybe some food would be nice… Absolutely. I could do with some dinner myself. We can sit and relax and get acquainted. Any thoughts Well, I thought maybe something neutral. She glanced at Roshaun, who was looking around their living room with an expression of badly concealed confusion, as if he d found people living in a hole in the ground and liking it. Some fruit drinks to start with, maybe, and then… Dairine was grasping at possibilities; this was more Nita s specialty than hers. I don t know, maybe something vegetarian… That sounds nice, Filif said. Something to do with my people. What s it mean Huh Vegetarian Oh, around here it means people who eat only vegetables… Then Dairine heard what she was saying, and stopped short. But she hadn t stopped soon enough. Filif stood there frozen in shock, and the decency field around his roots almost went away. You… eat… vegetables Oh, great, Dairine thought, in a complete fury with herself. Why didn t I just come right out and say, Hi there, we re cannibals Except I just did. But they re not, you know, the people kind of vegetables, Dairine said, though the look Filif was turning on her made her wonder whether she was going to have any success with this approach. They don t…They re not alive, I mean, not the way you re alive…I mean, they don t think… Then Dairine stopped herself again, this time because she was getting onto conceptually shaky ground. When you were a wizard, you quickly discovered that thought and sentience didn t necessarily have anything to do with each other, and sometimes they manifested independently. Her father leaned over her shoulder and looked down at Filif with an unusually calm expression. What do you do for nourishment at home, son he said. Normally, Filif said, having recovered enough to tremble a little, we root. I ve got just the place for you, Dairine s dad said. You come on outside with me. Dairine, you take care of these two for the moment. Her dad went out the back door, closely followed by Filif. She sagged a little with relief and turned back to the others. Sker ret was looking out the front window of the living room with great interest, but Roshaun was leaning against the polished wooden breakfront, snickering. That was interesting, he said. His tone of voice suggested not that he was trying to restrain his amusement, but that he was intending to let it loose full force as soon as he had an excuse. He found Earth funny, he found Dairine s dad funny, and he found Dairine funny. Dairine just looked at him. It would be so very bad, she thought, to punch out a guest on his first day in the house. Very, very bad. But really satisfying… Come on and see the rest of the house, Dairine said, rather more to Sker ret than to Roshaun; and she led them off on the grand tour. The tour took about fifteen minutes, after which Dairine left Roshaun and Sker ret in the living room and went into the kitchen again. Her dad was standing there with a screwdriver; he was in the final stages of refastening the cupboard door. I could have sworn Nita and I brought home canned stuff to replace everything we used last week, he said. You did, Dairine said. I think we re going to need more. Where s Filif Is he okay He s fine, her father said, swinging the door back and forth a couple of times. He didn t go outside the yard, did he I put a force field around the edges of things that ll keep the neighbors from seeing anything. But if he went out He didn t. He may get around, but he didn t feel like going anywhere right now, except under the sky. I get the feeling he doesn t particularly like being indoors. No, Dairine said, I think maybe you re right. And he s enough of a conifer for me to know his tastes, at least a little, her dad said, opening the cutlery drawer where the screwdrivers lived and dropping in the one he d been using. Besides that, we chatted enough for me to find out that he likes his soil acidic. I plugged him into that new bed I was getting ready for the rhododendrons and told him to kick back for a while. He should do fine. You re certainly taking this well, Dairine said, before she could stop herself. I don t know that we have much choice at this point, her dad said, sounding somewhat resigned. I agreed to this, after all, so I may as well try to enjoy it. Now then what about dinner Sounds good. But Dairine immediately started worrying again, as that produced a whole new level of problems. Filif… Her dad was ahead of her. What have we got in the house that s not recognizably a vegetable He thought for a moment. Pasta Spaghetti and meatballs, Dairine said. How s Filif likely to handle the sight of tomato sauce Dairine s dad said. Dairine thought about that. Tomatoes were vegetables … but a jar of spaghetti sauce might pass if no one actually discussed what went into it. Of course, even pasta had been a vegetable once Her father was way ahead of her. Since Filif isn t going to be eating what we are, Dairine s dad said, and since I m not operating under the restrictions you are, I m prepared to prevaricate if I have to. But let s see if we can t just steer the conversation in other directions if the history of food comes up. Meanwhile, utensils… Her dad started rummaging through the flatware drawer for a matched set. I suspect Roshaun can use a fork and a spoon on his spaghetti. If he hasn t had the experience before, we ll teach him. And as for Sker ret I think if we can get him to stick to the spaghetti and leave the plates and the table alone, Dairine said, we ll be doing okay. Dairine s dad reached up into another cupboard and came down with a couple of odd plates from an old set, which Dairine knew for a fact her dad hated, and had been looking for an excuse to get rid of. And in case of accidents he said. Dairine grinned, and went looking for a pot for the spaghetti. As it turned out, the plates survived dinner, though Dairine s temper almost didn t. And the problem, as she d suspected it would be, had been Roshaun. Filif came in to sit at the table in a large bucket of potting soil that Dairine s dad brought in for him, and Sker ret more or less draped himself over the seat and through the open back of one of the dining room chairs, leaving his front end free to deal with the spaghetti. Dairine s dad only had to warn Sker ret once that they were only eating things on top of the tablecloth and inside containers. This led to a lively discussion of what humans ate, and Dairine sat there in mostly mute appreciation of how her father somehow confined himself entirely to discussing how things tasted, without ever going near the subject of what they were. Dairine spent most of her time ingesting spaghetti she found that she was ravenous and forcing herself not to glare at Roshaun. It took him exactly five seconds to master the fork and spoon, though he let it be known that at his home, his people used several different kinds of tongs to handle slippery foods like this. He let a number of things be known over the course of dinner, dispensing the occasional fact or opinion as if he expected everybody to be eagerly awaiting his every word…and paying precious little attention to anyone else s opinions, if they came up. His clothes, his possessions, the size of his house, which apparently would have dwarfed Dairine s, all these came up for brief and tasteful mention. What did not come out was anything personal, anything revealing of the inner nature of the entity who sat there at the table, managing the fork and spoon with the grace of someone who d been using them for years, and had never gotten spaghetti sauce or any other sauce on him, not once. Dairine sat there listening to it all, and stewed. Sker ret didn t seem to notice Roshaun s attitude, or if he did, he didn t reveal it during his workmanlike and concentrated assault on the food. Filif mostly sat quietly listening to the others, and rustled occasionally whenever anyone said anything with sufficient emphasis to suggest that they wanted a response from the listeners. Dairine and her dad concentrated on keeping the conversation going along in a relatively friendly fashion, but Dairine increasingly felt like she was doing weights, and ones that were getting heavier every minute. But they made it through the main course without a murder, and through dessert (her dad s chocolate pudding) without trying to keep a medicine ball in the air. And at the end of it all, Well, Dairine s dad said, looking around the table, it s been a long day, and I m sure that it would be a good thing if we all got some rest now. But it s not even dark yet, Filif said. I know, Dairine s dad said, in a very kindly voice. But there s the time difference to think of; there has to be at least some time difference between your planet and this one. And whatever it is, I m sure it means that you need some rest now. I know I do. And he stood up. The others stood up with him. I think I might withdraw, Roshaun said graciously. Your local night is how lo