One of the animals made soft chortling noises that seemed to express delight, and the two appeared to grin at each other.

Making a timpani of the floor, Merlin galloped out of the room.

“Of monkeys, only capuchins and—I think maybe—guenons can move the thumb around to touch a couple of the other fingers.”

Grady counted, “One, two, three, four,” as he moved his right thumb to each finger on his hand.

“I don’t know of any monkeys that have fully opposable and extendable thumbs, capable of such dexterity,” Cammy said. “A lot of monkeys can’t hold things with their thumb, they just press the object between their fingers and palm.”

“Anyway,” Grady said, “these guys aren’t monkeys. They don’t look anything like monkeys.”

“Definitely not monkeys,” she agreed. “Some lemurs have pretty flexible hands, but these hands aren’t like the hands of any lemur.”

“What has hands like theirs?”

“We do.”

“Besides us.”

“Nothing.”

“There must be something.”

“Yeah. There’s them.”

Having made a selection from his toy box in the kitchen, the wolfhound thundered into the living room with a plush raccoon in his mouth.

The animals on the sofa reacted to that ring-tailed treasure with interest.

Hoping to tease them into a chase, Merlin bit the raccoon, and it produced a squeak identical to that made by the purple bunny.

As if disappointed that the raccoon lacked a unique voice, the creatures returned to the examination of their toys.

“Look at the way they handle those things,” Cammy said.

“What way?”

“The way they stroke the fabric.”

“So?”

“Look at that one, Grady. Look how it likes the feel of the duck’s rubber bill.”

“Yeah, and Merlin loves to chew on it. So what?”

“The other one. See? The way it keeps rubbing its thumb across the bunny’s nose? I bet there’s something else they share with us besides the shape and function of their hands. A richness of nerve endings in the fingertips. Did you know, compared to other species, the human sense of touch is highly refined, it’s unique on Earth?”

“I didn’t know,” he admitted.

“Now you know. Unique on Earth. Or it was.”

As if tiring of the toy, one of the creatures tossed the purple bunny across the living room, where it bounced off the fireplace mantel and fell to the hearth.

Merlin dropped his raccoon and scrambled after the rabbit.

The second creature threw the duck to a far corner of the room.

The wolfhound seized the rabbit, dropped it, and plunged after the duck.

One of the animals began to pry up a sofa cushion, apparently to see what might be under it.

The other had taken an interest in Cammy. It slid to the edge of the sofa and leaned forward, staring intently.

At the centers of its beautiful golden eyes, the pupils were not black but a dark copper color.

Merlin returned with the duck. He squeaked the toy twice, but neither of the creatures wanted to play.

“Calling them ‘it’ doesn’t feel right,” Cammy said. “We ought to name them.”

“I don’t name every animal in the woods.”

“They aren’t in the woods. They’re here now.”

“Probably not for long.”

“Are you paying attention?” she asked.

“I thought I was.”

“They’ve moved in.”

“Wild animals don’t just move in.”

“Wild isn’t the right word for them. You yourself said they were almost tame, like somebody’s pets.”

“I did. I said that. You think they’re someone’s pets?”

She shook her head. “No. Not pets. But they’re something.”

“We aren’t making any progress. We’re back to the something theory.”

After discovering that neither of his new friends was in the mood for a chase, Merlin came to Cammy with the duck, squeaking it teasingly.

She rubbed his head and said, “Not right now, you big sweetie.”

Astonishment and amazement affected the heart and the mind only momentarily and couldn’t be sustained. The wonder that gripped Cammy was continuous, however, in part because the longer she observed the creatures, the more they intrigued her.

Their nostrils quivered frequently, suggesting that their nasal cavities were richly supplied with blood vessels and nerves, like the noses of dogs, and that their olfactory sense was highly developed. Their teeth were those of omnivores, quite human in shape, sharpness, and arrangement. In spite of the masking fur, their facial muscles allowed a wide range of expressions. Their toes were longer than those of humans, and the great toe appeared to be a kind of thumb, not fully opposable but functional enough to make them good climbers.