"I have heard about human warmth from friends," Zillif said. "But experiencing it personally is… disturbing."

"If the heat is too much for you," I told her, "I can wrap my hands in my jacket."

"No, your temperature is quite pleasant," she said. "What bothers me is that I knew about human body heat and was still surprised by it. Such things are not supposed to happen to someone in my profession."

She turned her head, aiming for an angle where she could look me sharp in the eye… but with slabs of her neck muscles gone AWOL, she couldn’t manage. "Forgive me if I err," Zillif said, "but you are a young human, are you not? Under age?"

Ooloms cared about such things. "I get the vote two elections from now," I answered. That was two and a half Demoth years away — almost four Earth years.

"May you vote wisely," she told me. It was a common Oolom phrase, and mainly just a pleasantry, the way humans toss off Good luck or Have a safe trip. Zillif, though, put more feeling into the words. Sincerity. A moment later she added, "I haven’t voted in the elections for many years."

She said it blandly, the way people do when they want to see how quick you are on the uptake. I got it right away… and in my surprise, I precious near slipped on the rain-slick grass.

Here’s the thing: Ooloms voted every chance they got. They exulted in it. Compulsive democracy galloped through their veins. Even the paralyzed patients in the Circus were constantly holding plebiscites on what types of music they’d sing, or how they should honor the latest casualties of the disease. A self-respecting Oolom would no more skip voting in an election than a human would skip wearing clothes when the thermometer dropped to brass monkey. Unless…