"It was our elder sister—"
The thought so translated by the man was not really "sister." That term, having distinctly sexual connotations and implications, would never have entered the mind of any "person" of Lyrane II. "Elder child of the same heritage" was more like it.
"—and another person from what it claimed was another world," the thought flowed smoothly on. "An entity, rather, not really a person, but you would not be interested in that, of course."
"Of course I would," Kinnison assured her. "In fact, it is this other person, and not your elderly relative, in whom I am interested. But you say that it is an entity, not a person. How come? Tell me all about it."
"Well, it looked like a person, but it wasn't. Its intelligence was low, its brain power was small. And its mind was upon things ... its thoughts were so—"
Kinnison grinned at the Lyranian's efforts to express clearly thoughts so utterly foreign to her mind as to be totally incomprehensible.
"You don't know what that entity was, but I do," he broke in upon her floundering. "It was a person who was also, and quite definitely, a female. Right?"
"But a person couldn't—couldn't possibly—be a female!" she protested. "Why, even biologically, it doesn't make sense. There are no such things as females—there can't be!" And Kinnison saw her viewpoint clearly enough. According to her sociology and conditioning there could not be.
"We'll go into that later," he told her. "What I want now is this female zwilnik. Is she—or it—with your elder relative now?"
"Yes. They will be having dinner in the hall very shortly."