 What most attracts Halden to Meredith?
In repose, Taphetta the Ribboneer resembled a fancy giant bow on a package. "Outside of your own world, there's nothing like your species, except superficially, and that's true of all other creatures, intelligent or not, with the sole exception of mankind. Actually, the four of us here, though it's accidental, very nearly represent the biological spectrum of human development. Emmer just misses being able to breed with my kind, but there's a fair chance that I'd be fertile with Meredith and a similar though lesser chance that her fertility may extend to Kelburn." "And whereas there are humans who are relatively near and not fertile, they can always mate with those they were adjacent to two hundred thousand years ago !"
 Her long, slender legs and biologically superior appearance
 Her bold and outspoken communication among 'higher-level' species  Her shared desire to be associated with a 'higher-level' species  Her long, slender legs and biologically superior appearance  Her blatant disregard for rules that govern intermixing among species