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rent for her: more than adequate compensation.
    The changeling was becoming human enough to be slightly annoyed to find her replaced by another male, but it had learned enough from the one encounter that its simulation of a woman would fool anyone but a thorough gynecologist.
    Dr. Grossman wondered whether Jimmy’s astounding musical performance extended into related areas of motor control, and so for the next meeting he brought along a friend who was an artist—and also a beautiful woman. He wanted to observe the boy’s reaction to that, as well as his skill with a pencil.
    Jimmy did show some special interest when they wereintroduced. She was a stunning blonde who matched his own six feet.
    “Jimmy, this is Irma Leutij. Everyone calls her Dutch.”
    “Dutch,” it repeated.
    “Hello, Jimmy,” she said in the husky voice she automatically used with attractive men. She calculated that Jimmy was about five years her junior, wrong by a thousand millennia.
    “We want to do an experiment with drawing,” Grossbaum said. “Dutch is an artist.”
    The changeling knew the sense of the word “experiment,” and was cautious. “Artist . . . experiment?”
    “Do you like to draw?” Dutch said.
    It shrugged in a neutral way.
    Grossbaum snapped open his briefcase and took out two identical drawing tablets and plain pencils. He gestured toward the breakfast-room table. “Let’s sit over there.” Jimmy followed them and sat down next to Dutch. The psychiatrist put open tablets and pencils in front of them and sat down opposite.
    “What shall I draw?” Dutch said. “Something simple?”
    “Simple but precise. Maybe a cube in perspective.”
    She nodded and did it, nine careful lines in four seconds.
    “Jimmy?” He pushed the pencil toward the boy.
    The changeling was cautious, remembering people’s reaction to the piano playing. It could have duplicated the woman’s actions exactly, but instead slowed down to a crawl.
    Grossbaum noted the speed. He also noted that Jimmy’s cube was a precise copy, even to its position on the page and accidental overlap of two lines, less than a millimeter. An expert artist could have done it if you asked for an exact copy. The slow compulsive precision would be appropriate for an idiot savant.
    But as far as he could find, reading and talking to people, you had to be born with that condition—no normalperson had ever become an idiot savant from a blow on the head or a stroke.
    “Let me draw him,” Dutch said, “and see whether he draws me.”
    “It’s an idea,” he said doubtfully. The boy would probably just copy his own portrait, precisely.
    Dutch turned the page back and picked up her pencil and stared at Jimmy.
    It returned her stare, unblinking. She smiled and it smiled. When she began to draw, though, it didn’t do anything but watch.
    She finished the simple portrait in a couple of minutes, and turned the tablet around to show it to Jimmy.
    The changeling studied the picture. The left ear was a half-inch low, and so was the chin. Having seen her use the eraser, it applied it and corrected her work, completely redrawing the whole ear and chin. It added a small mole she had missed.
    “What is that all about?” Grossbaum said.
    “Amazing. I made a slight mistake in proportion, and he corrected it. Added the mole I’d left off.” She set the tablet down. “Do you spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, Jimmy?”
    The changeling didn’t quite understand the question, but nodded, and then shrugged.
    Most people can’t draw freehand circles. Dutch did three concentric ones, and then tapped on Jimmy’s tablet.
    Again it slowed down its natural impulse, and again made a perfect copy.
    “Jimmy, do you know the word for those?” Grossbaum said.
    “Drawing,” it said.
    Dutch tapped the center of the picture. “These?”
    “Circle,” it said. “Circles.”
    “I wonder how much he knows,” she said, “and can’t talk about.”
    “Well, he knows about sex,