"Genius," I breathed with icy sarcasm, "sheer genius!"
"Well," she said, "it worked!" The eternal pragmatist had applied her sole criterion. "And what's more they looked and smelled lots better after they used it."
I shrugged, gave it up and turned my attention back to the mammals.
Edith had emerged from her sack and was standing before the male.
"Do I look like a nightmare?" she demanded.
"No. More like a skinned rabbit—ouch! What did you do that for?" He rubbed his face where she struck him with her digits.
"There!" Edith said. "Now do you think it's a dream?"
"I never did," he replied mildly. "I've never dreamed in my life. I was just breaking it to you easy. It was real enough—even the blank spaces. I wonder—"
"You wonder what?"
"What their reason was for capturing us and then letting us go. It doesn't make sense. They wouldn't grab us just for fun. They're obviously intelligent, and probably thought we would be useful to them. But they turned us loose. So we couldn't be useful except maybe for amusement—but that doesn't jell. No. They've done something to us. They've let us go for a reason."