Ezra tapped his single hand-held drum. Elanor plucked that single string on her "guitar," which was a stick, a string and apparently a hack into my Radio. It went "Doom-doom. Doom-doom." Gary did something with his keyboard.

The result was an ominous, fretful bit of music. Cassie's voice came out over the Radio: "A group of researchers stuck in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. For nonhumans: Antarctica is where there's no help for anyone and it's very far and cold. Ordinarily, researchers have no predators in Antarctica. Ordinarily."

The curtain (another blanket) rose. A painted backdrop of snow-covered mountains under a gray sky. Some wooden front pieces, also painted to look like little mounds of snow.

From stage left came Schmendrick. Her usually white fur had been marked with black patches, making her look vaguely like a breed of sled dog. She stopped and faced the crowd. "I'm not really a dog animal. I'm the THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD!"

Cassie's voice: "But the dog wasn't ready to reveal itself yet, remember."

"Yes, that would be foolish," Schmendrick said. She kept her advance across the stage. "I will infiltrate these people and make them into monsters!"

"What a nice dog," said Armand loudly, popping from stage right. "Come stay with us in our warm science building."

"Oh, thank you."

As the play went on, several things became evident: Schmendrick didn't understand the story, or why it was being told. I think she and I were on the same wavelength there.

Mandy was sitting in front of me on the blanket. I was leaning against a tree, and I had one leg to either side of her. I could squeeze her with them if I wanted to. And I wanted to. Her rump was exactly perfect in front of me, making contact with the blanket in the ideal way. The dress had slid down a little in the back and I saw it: cleavage.

She tapped the back of her neck with a finger. I leaned forward, kissed her there, and she tasted like salt and sugar. She shivered. She tapped again, I kissed again.

"Is Cassie going to be the monster?" she asked. "It seems like she should be the monster."

"Don't know. I think I'm going to hug you. Do I need to set up the smoke grenade?"

She leaned back against me. Soft and warm. She'd been cold, ever since I'd known her. Those water-bodies she'd made for herself. But not now. My arms around that bare belly, the insides of my wrists drinking in all that smoothness. Where my skin met hers was…it was like nothing else.

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I didn't snap out of it until there was a scene involving a flamethrower.

Cassie was never the monster. It was always Schmendrick, coming out and announcing her intentions. "I don't want to be set on fire," She explained to the audience. "It kills me if I get burned. This also happens with real people, not just Thing people."

She'd undergone a costume change: a kind of red, shiny body stocking that looked a little like glistening innards; there were red sequins, so it came across as glamorous. She was trailing shreds of pink cloth that were apparently Thing tentacles.

Armand menaced her with the flamethrower, which was a simple wooden box labeled FLAMETHROWER in English. He did something, and it popped out yellow and orange ribbons all over Schmendrick.

"Dead!" she shouted, and fell over. She didn't act dead: she arranged herself into a comfortable loaf shape and kept talking. "I'm dead but a smaller piece survived! Two pieces!"

Phobos and Deimos, made up with little eye stalks on their heads, ran on stage. I didn't know why they'd been given floppy crab legs, but it looked good.

When Phobos and Deimos got bored, they ran forward into the audience and investigated everyone's dinner. The crowd made supportive noises of terror.

It was really something. There were large stretches of the play that didn't have music. I didn't know if it was planned that way or if it was because Ezra and Elanor were facing straight ahead, motionless, holding hands and whispering. Gary was still playing his keyboard, but it didn't seem to be a thing meant for Human hearing.

Eventually Cassie's hushed voice filled the air: "One of these people is the Thing from another world. Which one is it? Or is it…everyone?" Her voice dropped ominously. "And if you were the Thing from another world, would you even know…"

"I am, you told me I was the Thing from another world. Me!" said Schmendrick. "I have a costume."

"I know it's you, but you're not on the stage, your character was burned up."

"It's Armand!"

"Don't tell everyone yet, okay? Maybe it's…Mandy and Owen! Hmm. Okay, maybe not them, they seem otherwise engaged. I wish Sean were here, but it's okay that we think about him and what horrible monster stuff he'd do if he were the Thing from Another World. He'd eat all this food before we could, probably."

The Humans in the audience smiled tentatively. Nodded. They missed Sean. I tried to miss him, but history is history. Cassie didn't miss him either, but she was good at Cassie things.

"One of us is an alien impostor," Cassie went on. "I bet it's … GARY!"

"You leave me alone."

The crowd, for no reason I could discern, applauded Gary for being irritated. It was pretty loud, nearly drowning out another sound that immediately got my attention.

A rising whistle. An approaching boulder, burning in the night sky.

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