He decided to be a male.

"Well, he's got his nerve!"

"I should say so! Looka the skinny little runt, right in the middle a that nice empty spot."

"Tell 'im to move over Fred. We saw it first."

The Sirian smiled at the palpable lie. "Please share it with me," he said pleasantly, scooting over to one side.

His move was too precipitous. A long-legged blonde creature, pink and supine, hunched to a sitting position. "Watch it, junior. You kicked sand all over my sun-tan lotion."

"Oh, sorry!" He sent a super-gentle wave of vibratory energy out to wipe off the offending grains of silica.

"Yipe! Why you fresh punk!" Then the blonde discovered that the fresh punk was still six feet away. She turned to her henna-haired companion. "Ye Gods, what a sensation! Goose flesh, yet." She rubbed on some more lotion, turned over on her side and dug her blue-clad hip into the sand under her blanket.

The Sirian studied the shapely back and buttocks, for which, in his brand new orientation, he seemed to possess a peculiar aesthetic appreciation. The intruder called Fred, in the act of spreading his blanket, noticed his stare and laughed. "She's not for the likes of you, Super-mouse."

The idiomatic allusion escaped the Sirian. He had thought he had the language pattern mastered in his initial survey, but the item, Super-mouse, apparently had a remote significance.

Instinctively, he lashed out a sub-etheric feeler to probe the man's brain—and just as instantly retrieved it. To his annoyance he discovered an extremely sensitive and complex network of brain-waves encasing and protecting the frontal lobes of the man's thinking apparatus. Yes, his "subconscious" mind was easily available, and therein was stored a fabulous assortment of inconsequential, intellectual debris, including a knowledge of the language, but to sift and sort that disorganized nest for one silly term seemed like more trouble than asking what it meant.

So he did.

Fred replied, "You don't know Super-mouse? You should go to the movies. Anyhow, I just meant you could use some meat on your bones, fellow."

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