"I can see that," Uclod replied… though his gaze was directed at a part of my person that is seldom associated with intelligent thought.

"Wait," I told him. "Observe my methods." Then I walked to the side of the path and kicked an old man so hard he flew off the floor and smashed into the wall.

The secret is to get your toe underneath the body. Use a strong scooping action.

"Whoa, missy!" Uclod cried. "Are you trying to kill that guy?"

"Do not be foolish," I answered. "My people cannot be killed. They seldom even feel pain — especially those whose brains are Tired. Look."

I pointed to the man I had kicked. Though he now lay awkwardly against the wall, he showed no sign of being roused from his stupor; he had slept through the whole thing. On the other hand, my kick had propelled him onto an old woman, and she was not nearly so lethargic. Indeed, she embarked upon a Storm Of Invective wherein she claimed to know all about my parentage, particularly how my mother became pregnant and what unusual measures she took thereafter. The woman was wrong in almost every respect, but her ill-informed harangue proved her brain was not so Tired as those around her.

"Hush, old woman," I told her in our own language. "I wish to ask you a question—"

"Who are you calling old?" the woman grumbled. "You’re likely older than I am—"

"I am not!" I snapped.

"What’d she say?" Uclod asked. He had not understood our words, but he must have recognized the anger in my tone.

"She said I was old," I told him. "Whereas, in fact, it is she who is elderly."

"How can you tell?" Uclod asked. "Yon look the same age to me."

"Of course, we look the same — my species ceases to change physically after the age of twenty. But mentally this woman must be older than I; she lives in an Ancestral Home."