"I do not remember being unable to communicate."

"Hmm.  Humans refer to each other as he or she depending on gender, and refer to objects and animals and - other things that aren't people - as it.  For a long time the Foundation referred to everything and everyone they contained as it.  That's softened up recently for humans and humanoids like me, but not always for creatures that can talk but aren't shaped like humans."

Rumble.  Low and quiet in the back of its throat, like it does when it's trying to put a complicated thought together.

"It is better for you to be called she than it," it says.

"Yeah.  It - shows that the Foundation takes me seriously as - the kind of being it owes things to, and as a human being.  They didn't use to think humanoid anomalies or humans with anomalous abilities were really humans, they thought we were - pretending."

"You called me he because it seemed to you better for me to be a he than an it."

"Sort of, yeah.  It was something I did without meaning to because - when we talked I started to feel about you the way I'd feel about another human I was getting to know."

Rumble.

"I think that is a good thing that you feel that way but I think I am an it and not a he.  I do not like being meat and being male or female seems like a meat thing.  It does not hurt me right now because you are near me but it is disgusting."

"...It is disgusting to me," it amends, thoughtfully.

"Okay.  I'm sorry.  You could also be a they instead of a he or she if you wanted.  They usually is the plural of he or she but sometimes it's used as a singular if you don't want to specify a gender for whatever reason."

(She thinks, suddenly, of telling Charlotte Eschenheimer that she wanted to keep her number in addition to picking an ordinary name.)

"But it's also okay if you want to be an it."

"...Maybe I can consider this while I am in the acid bath.  It would be something to think about that is not being disgusting or hurting."

"I'm glad I can give you other things to think about.  I wish I could give you more."

Peaceful rumble.

Pat pat.

"I would like to talk some more about whether there's anything we could do to make the acid bath more comfortable.  I know it's kind of... ludicrous to say something like that, when the thing I'm trying to make more comfortable is drowning you in acid for days on end, and when I can't do anything about that part of it.  But if you think being able to tell time would help, I can talk to Dr. Hijazi about that, and if there are other things like that I want us to figure out what they are."

"Turning the lights off at night was not a hypothetical but also might not happen?  And the same is true for the next things we discuss."

"Right.  I still can't promise these things but they're - ideas I can take to Dr. Hijazi that she might or might not approve of, rather than just what I might try for you if I could do anything."

"I understand."

"Can you tell me more about - what the worst parts of being in the acid bath are, for you?  I know that it hurts, and I know that when I'm not around everything is disgusting, and I can't do much about those things."

"Hurting is not so bad.  The hurting means that many of the disgusting parts of me are being torn away.  Occasionally it feels satisfying. But much of the time it is just pain and nothing more."

"Talking to you has been..."

"There are many new thoughts and ideas in my head now.  Some of them might not be very unpleasant once you leave.  In the acid bath I quickly ran out of things to think about, and everything was the same for so long that - "

" - it is hard to explain.  But it was very bad, sometimes worse than the pain."

"Sometimes if humans are stuck in a place for a long time with no - new or interesting things - it hurts them too.  Being able to tell time helps a little.  ...A day is twenty-four hours, and we've been talking for about an hour."

Rumble.  "And in seven days we will see each other again."

"Yes."

"...Do you think you'd like music?  Can you hear things outside the acid bath, in your chamber?"

"What exactly is music."

Oh.

She sits up straight, breathes in and out trying to feel her diaphragm, and starts humming the chorus to Starman.

It cocks its head to the side, slowly.

...all the children boogie.

She looks at it.