Four fingers, she told herself. Four-fingered hands. She watched, as the creature turned over more tomato leaves itself. The long, hard talons didn’t interfere with precise, delicate movement. It didn’t tear the leaves; it didn’t miss turning any of them.

She looked down at the creature’s feet. All she had seen at first were long feet with splayed toes. Now she noticed four toes, three almost parallel and one angled aside, all with heavy dark toenails blunted at the tips. No… the angled one had a narrow front, almost spike-like. This creature, placidly squatting in her garden and turning up leaves, had its feet flat on the soil, but the tracks she had seen didn’t show the heel. How, then, did it walk? On its toes? She turned away and looked over the lane fence. There were two of them far down the lane; she couldn’t tell.

She wasn’t a… whatever it was that studied animals or aliens. She didn’t know how to do this. It grunted, and she turned back to it. It held a ripening tomato in the pincer of its digits; it had not bruised the tomato nor broken the stem.

“It’s not ripe yet” Ofelia said, shaking her head. Gesture might be easier than words; certainly she had learned none of their words yet. Assuming the grunts and squawks were words, and she had to assume that now. She spotted a ripe tomato on another plant and touched it. “This one is ready. Ripe.” She nodded, then pulled it off. The creature looked at her a long moment, then let go of the one it had touched. Ofelia put the tomato in the basket and then picked a handful of beans. The creature touched the beans, then the tomato. Different. Of course they were different, beans and tomatoes. Green beans, orange tomato. Long skinny beans, fat round tomato. “Beans,” Ofelia said, touching the beans. “Beans.” Then the tomato. “Tomato.”

The creature grunted, making no attempt to say the words.

“Beans,” Ofelia said again. “These are beans. Tomato.”

A series of grunts, none resembling the words she had spoken. Why should she expect words? They were aliens; they might not be able to make the same sounds. Terran animals couldn’t. Besides, she had more work to do. She picked more beans, aware of the creature watching her closely. When she had as much as she wanted, she stood, grunting. Did the creatures think her involuntary grunts and groans were attempts at speech? She couldn’t tell. This one had not reacted in any way she could detect to the noise she made. It followed her to the door of the house, but did not come in. She rubbed her feet on the doorstone, scraping off the bits of mulch that clung to them. The creature watched that, head tilted. She did not shut the door, but she glanced that way often. She put the beans in the drawer of the cooler; she would cook them in the evening. The tomatoes went in a bowl on the table.

When she opened the containers of flour, salt, sugar, the creature leaned in the door. Ofelia decided to make raised bread instead of flatbread. Yeast breads had always been a festival bread, made but once or twice a year. The waste recycler was capable of maintaining a yeast culture, but the flatbread was familiar, and so much faster. She had not made yeast bread since before the colonists left. Could she remember exactly how much sugar? She really should look it up.

When she took down the stained little book that had been her mothers, she glanced again at the creature. Would it understand reading? Did it have any similar system for making words last? She paged through the book. Some people insisted that there was no need for hardcopy cookbooks, but Ofelia liked this one. It reminded her of her mother.

She put the lump of yeast culture from the cooler into warm water with a pinch of sugar and flour. Sugar, salt, fat — she could use the fat she’d saved from the sausages. Rosara had not approved of using that fat, but Ofelia saw no reason to make the waste recycler clean it. She melted the fat and strained it into her big mixing bowl through a clean cloth cut from one of Barto’s old shirts. Then she mixed the fat, the sugar, the salt, with warm water and tested it with her wrist. Warm enough, cool enough. She glanced at the door. Two of the creatures now, both watching intently. Ofelia scooped flour into the big mixing bowl, stirring with a wooden paddle. She didn’t measure the flour; she knew that by feel. The lump of yeast culture had softened, was beginning to bubble in its little cup of water and sugar. She poured it in and kept stirring. When it was smooth, she worked in more flour, and more, until the dough pulled away from the bowl. Now flour on the table, plenty of it — her mother had said there was no use making raised bread if you were going to worry about wasting a little flour — and she turned the dough out.

It was fun to knead. This was something else she had missed, without realizing it. A few of the women had made raised bread more often; they had said they enjoyed it. At the time, Ofelia had thought of the mess it made, the flour drifting onto the floor, their hands sticky with dough. Now, her fingers sank into the warm dough, enjoying its resilience, the way it pushed back against her. She turned it, flattened it, rolled it up and flattened it again.

The creatures chittered. Ofelia looked at them. One had cocked its head, and now lifted a foot, as if to step forward. Was it asking permission? She chose to think it was.

“Yes, come on,” she said, sweeping a welcome with one floury hand. It came to the table, and leaned over, peering closely at the bread dough. One taloned digit hovered over the dough. She could see the dirt around the long, dark nail, and who knew what else under it? “You have to wash,” Ofelia said. She nodded at the sink, and when the creature didn’t move, she sighed. Just like children, who never believed they were that dirty. She brushed the flour off her hands, and reached slowly to take the creature’s arm. “Wash,” she said. “Over here.” She led it to the sink, and nodded again. It looked at its hands, and then at hers. With only a little fumbling, it turned the water on and held its hands under the flow. It eyed Ofelia. She didn’t want to get her hands wet, not when she still had more kneading to do, so she mimed scrubbing. The creature blinked, but complied, and she could see the dirt coming away from its nails. Ofelia turned off the water when she thought it was clean enough, and handed it a dishcloth.

“Dry off,” she said. As if it could understand, it squeezed the cloth in its hands, drying them well enough. Then it followed her back to the table. Again it extended a tentative digit. Ofelia nodded this time, and it poked at the dough, giving a sharp Eerp when its digit sank into the dough and came out sticky. Ofelia grinned, and went back to kneading the dough.

The creature touched the dough more lightly, then very slowly moved its digit to her face. What? Ofelia felt herself frowning. Again, very slowly, the creature touched the dough, and then this time her mouth. She couldn’t figure it out. She put her own finger on the bread, lifted it to her mouth — oh. Of course.

Eating. It wanted to know if this was food.

“Yes, but not yet,” she said. How to explain bread? She made an attempt anyway, moving her hands to show the dough growing fat, the second kneading, the second rising, the shaping into loaves, the baking. The creature’s expression didn’t change. Well, it would have to observe, that was all. The dough had gone silky, the way it should, firm and responsive under her hand. She covered it with a cloth, cleaned her hands, and remembered that she had meant to cook a pot of beans. She opened another container, poured out the beans into a cooking pot, and covered them with water.

The creature watched closely as she did this, then reached out to the cloth-covered dough. “Let it alone,” Ofelia said sharply. “It needs to rise.” Again, she mimed the enlargement of the dough. The creature pulled its hand back.