B? L? Bull? No—bison.

Bison:

bison (bi'sn) n. The buffalo

of the N. Amer. plains.

Phildee shook his head and scowled. No—not bison, either. What, then? He probed.

Riya took a step forward. The sight of a living organism other than a person was completely unfamiliar to her. Nevertheless, anything that small, and undeniably covered—in most areas, at least—with some kind of fur, could not, logically, be anything but a strange kind of calf. But—she stopped, and raised her head—if a calf, then where was the call?

Phildee's probe swept past the laboring mind directly into her telepathic, instinctual centers.

Voiceless, with their environment so favorable that it had never been necessary for them to develop prehensile limbs, female people had nevertheless evolved a method of child care commensurate with their comparatively higher intelligence.

Soft as tender fingers, gentle as the human hand that smooths the awry hair back from the young forehead, Riya's mental caress enfolded Phildee.

Phildee recoiled. The feeling was:

WHY?:

M is for many motionless months.

T is for tense temper tantrums.

R is for rabid—NO!—rapid rolling wrench.

MTR. Mother.

Phildee's mother wanted Phildee's father. Phildee's mother wanted green grass and apple trees, tight skirts and fur jackets on Fifth Avenue, men to turn and look, a little room where nobody could see her. Phildee's mother had radiation burns. Phildee's mother was dead.

He wavered; physically. Maintaining his position in this world was a process that demanded constant attention from the segment of his mind devoted to 

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