The endotherms sipped from broad ceramic bowls as their cold-blooded merchants soaked up their payment. Koen kept darting looks at Fancy Death, who kept not eating his Huddle.

"Fling, I have a question."

"I approve of curiosity."

"Yes," said Koen. The jaguar slitted open one eye. Closed it. "Curiosity. How exactly did you tame Fancy Death?"

"Tame death? Impossible."

"I mean, how did you train him?"

"Train danger?"

"I predict you won't get any sense out of her," said General Graa.

"Yes," said Fling. "Our brains do not allow us to reach each other."

"I understand." Koen remembered with some shame the conversation he'd had the night he'd decided to steal Mr. Grumbles. He hugged his reptile closer, and she croaked. "Our philosophers say that it's impossible to know what it's like to be a bat."

"Your brain is remembering the Loxodromes," said Fling.

"I mean that you can only be a human imagining what it's like to be a nonhuman. The real experience is impossible to get."

Fling swished her tail. "Our philosophers agree. Their mouths and writings say that even if you contract toxoplasmosis from someone it is impossible for one mind to have the same experience as another. We are each of us alone, trapped in the armor of our skulls."

"That philosophy is ridiculous," said the Huddle under her. "It is impossible to be alone and alive."

"Exactly." said General Graa. "Watch me as I strut atop the logic-meats that you have left unguarded. I wouldn't like to be killed and eaten, but I am me and not you. Do you like it? Maybe. Maybe you experience pain as pleasure. That is the most convenient thought for me."

Koen tried to figure that out. "You mean it's better to assume that we're all the same under the skin."

"Yes. We all flock together."

"But I could tell just you I don't like being killed and eaten," said Koen.

"You could be mistaken. Perhaps you do like it. Assuming so, I kill you and eat you." Graa gave a short qwork. "See my point!"

"I don't need to trick my lateral septum1 into believing everyone is the same," said Fling. "I simply know what is evil and what is good."

"But how can you know?" Koen asked, a little desperately.

"I know evil when we feel it. Good too. Even people with no toxoplasma in their brains have a connection to this eternal truth."

Koen imagined Fling praying. Meditating. Turning her inner eye around and searching for her holy parasite.

"Such thoughts are frivolous," said the Huddle under Koen's chin, her tongue flapping over his cheek like an energetic mop. "They do not continue life. We sell soup. Do you want more?"

They didn't.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"Human Koen," said Fling as they walked back into the market, "my vocalization parvicellular reticular formation has composed a question for you."2

"Go ahead."

"Has your society dealt with the question of the purpose of existence?"

"You mean 'why am I here?'"

"Yes."

"No. We haven't answered it." Koen looked at the rodent as she shuffled herself back into her clothes. "Uh. Have you?"

"Some people have found answers, but only to the question of 'what should I do with my life'? Usually those answers are 'devote it to something larger than myself.' The specifics vary. But the other question…watch this."

Fling hopped to the edge of the path and reached out with prehensile pink toes. She grabbed up a foot-full of grass-like plants and passed them up to her hands.

The plants were composed of long segments of pale gray stem, tasseled with green, blade-shaped leaves. The leaves withdrew into the stems as Fling lifted them and held them out over Fancy Death's head.

The jaguar's eyes and ears locked on the waving sheaf. He crouched, shoulder blades rolling under his coat. Fling tossed the grass into the air just in time for Fancy Death to pounce. He sprang a meter straight up and came down in a shower of shredded greenery.

"Do you see how Fancy Death chases the grass? Why?"

"He thinks it's a prey animal," said Koen.

She bared her teeth. "Fancy Death does not think. He only feels. He reacts according to the instincts sculpted by selective pressures. His ancestors always pounced on small moving things, and derived great satisfaction thereby. Now consider your ancestors, Human Koen. What were they selected for?"

"Throwing rocks and walking long distances in the sun," said Koen immediately. He'd had this conversation many times with his colleagues, back in university, and when he worked at the museum.

"No," aid Graa. "That's Mr. Grumbles. She's talking about your ancestors. What distinguishes you, the humans?"

"Well, we're tool users," said Koen, "and we can talk. We have language."

"Yes. You give meaning to sounds and functions to objects. You have evolved to do both very well. Now consider what happens when you turn those meaning-finding, creative impulses onto yourselves. What are you urged to do?"

"To give myself meaning," said Koen. "To find my purpose."

Fling's tail swished.

Koen didn't know what to say to that, so he focused on the stalls around them.

One caught Koen's eye because it looked so human. There was an awning at head level and a counter top at waist-height. Jars and bundles of dried herbs were laid out on the flat surface, and piled in front were gourds in fantastic shapes, boxes of roots, nuts, and corms, and a pyramid of green fruits that looked very much like pomelos. A series of brick-red carcasses hanging in the stall were, as far as Koen could tell, roasted geese.

He stopped, caught between his eagerness to get a closer look and worry about the opinions of the bird on his shoulder.

"Forward!" commanded Graa.

Koen held his hand up to his passenger. "I'm not sure how to bring this up. What are you, uh, feelings on the consumption of birds?"

"Which birds?" Graa jabbed his beak toward the geese. "Those ones? Better them than me."

Koen started forward again, thinking of what he could do with one of those geese, and salivating.

As they approached, the stall's proprietor stood, a broad figure, vaguely snow-man-shaped, in wooden armor.

"Oh," said Koen. "I think I know those guys. Hello!" he said to the Greaves. "Do you remember me?"

The huge helmet rotated, portholes chocked open, and big green eyes peered out.

"Yes," two voices said together. "You're the idiot who doesn't know how to order groceries."

Koen cleared his throat. "I'd like to order some more."

1Clemens, A.M. et al. The lateral septum mediates kinship behavior in the rat. Nat Commun 11, 3161 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16489-x

2That's the good one. A question coming from the Nucleus retroambiguus would be worse. See Hartmann K, et al. A Functionally and Anatomically Bipartite Vocal Pattern Generator in the Rat Brain Stem. iScience. 2020 Nov 16;23(12):101804. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101804.