[No matter how casually he says it, Kesara tenses, scenting for mockery like a bloodhound. She's had to learn to recognise even the faintest sound of it, to judge what she might say to people who give her anything resembling respect or kindness. Always better to err on the side of caution. But he really does sound like he means it, when he says something like a limited understanding of what learning is.]

I have learned a lot. [Defiance, almost, and bitter reflection. Learned a lot of tricks. And they serve, more than enough. She sometimes wishes she could be more openly proud of them.] There's a trick to everything, when you have to have one.

[You'd know, her tone implies. However badly he thinks he's coping with what Dr. Watson had called his illness, she's sure he has tricks of his own, as well. She's interested in it, in the places where they are alike.

The places where they are different confuse her, to her dismay. She doesn't know what a genetic sequence is, and is still not grasping quite what about Kid makes him a different species. He seems a boy like all the boys she'd known back in Serindia - except more thoughtful, deeper somehow.] Maybe he - your father - maybe he shouldn't have done it. Raised you as a human, I mean. Maybe that is why things went wrong for you. it isn't good to raise one breed of thing to be like another. That is what they say.