“How long will you be gone?”
Julia gathered up her handbag. She folded the birth certificates and stored them in it. “I don’t know. I’ve got to convince someone of some facts that are going to be very hard to believe.” She paused at the door. “I won’t forget you, Walt. I’ll be back soon.” She smiled almost shyly. “If Calvin contacts you again, don’t go away. I’ll just have to hunt you down.”
*
After she had gone, Walt relaxed. His body was still weak. He lay staring at the ceiling. Outside, the sun’s rays slanted even more. A breeze, chill with approaching night, rustled the curtain.
There were shadows along the far wall.
I’ve been an instrument, Walt thought, a piece of metal, to be used as Forential saw fit: if she were not lying. My parents are somewhere down here on this planet, the third from the sun. They are not on Lyria. I might have killed them during the invasion. That would be worse than killing Forential, even. If Julia weren’t lying to me. Forential has been raising me to fight my own people!
Forential. Saucer eyed. Tentacled. Moist and slippery. Breathing in labored gasps under high gravity. Air bubbling in his throat. Tentacles caressing, fondling—not with affection (if Julia is right) but with calculating design: to fashion my personality to his purpose . . . .
Walt closed his eyes.
Forential, he thought.
Forential was far away in space; every second he was growing farther away in time. I’ve lost him, Walt thought. So much has happened, so much, so fast, since last I saw him, that I’m changing away from him every minute.
Earthlings aren’t so bad. They’re—they’re not too much different from Lyrians, from . . . mutants.
I’m a mutant?
I’m not a Lyrian?
FORENTIAL!
But Forential could not hear him.
I’ll have to think for myself, Walt decided. Julia said I couldn’t be fooled if I just looked at the facts.
Earthlings aren’t like Forential always told us they were. They’re pleasant enough. In their way. I don’t see how they can menace Lyria (if there is such a place). I don’t think they’ve even got space travel!
He tossed restlessly on the bed.
And Julia, he thought. Well, she’s nice. She’s all right.
She’s . . . .
Again the new emotion troubled him. He missed her. He wished she would hurry back.
Julia!
. . . and why did she lose her powers if she’s a Lyrian? Why did I? Lyrians shouldn’t lose their powers.
What about the machines on the ship?
Can there really be another compartment of—mutants?
Is that why the walls of the ship were impenetrable?
Is that why we were never permitted in more than a fraction of the overall space of the ship?
I don’t think, I don’t think I like Forential any more.
*
Julia consulted a phone directory for the address of the local F. B. I. office.
It was four thirty when she arrived, and only one man was still in the office. He had his feet propped up on the desk; he was smoking a pipe and reading a law book.
“Yes?” he said, standing up as Julia came forward.
“You better sit back down,” she said.
“Well, now . . . . And who are you?” He said it not unkindly.
Julia gave her name. Gravely he shook hands with her.
“Sit over there, Julia,” he said.
When she was seated, he sat down. He bent forward and cleared his throat.
Oh, dear, how can I start? she thought. How can I ever start? “What, what was the page you were reading in your book?”
He ignored the question. His eyelids drooped wearily. He took out a notebook. He unscrewed his pen cap.
“I suppose you want to report on the family next door?” he said.
“Well, as a matter of fact, no,” Julia said. “I wanted—” And again her resolve faltered.
“Yes?” the F.B.I. man asked.
His law book floated from the table behind him and drifted over his shoulder. It opened itself before his face. The pages riffled.
“What page?” Julia asked intently.
The F.B.I. man took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at it. “Page one hundred and fifteen,” he said.
The book fell open to that page.
The F.B.I. man plucked it out of the air. He felt all around it. He put it in his lap. His eyelids were no longer weary.
“I think I underestimated you,” he said. “I believe I’m going to sit right here and take down every word you say.” He gestured with his pipe. “Start talking.”
Julia spoke slowly. She gave the F.B.I. man all the information she had. His pen skimmed rapidly, making short hand squiggles over the white pages of his notebook.
*
When she had finished, he looked up. He tossed the law book toward the desk. She caught it and let it down gently, so that it landed without a sound.
“Julia,” the man said, “put yourself in my position. What would you do if someone came to you with a story like this?”
“I’d send that person to Washington, where she could talk to somebody.”
“I’d like a little more proof.”
Julia passed her hand through the back of the chair. “I should certainly be investigated: just on the basis of being able to do that, shouldn’t I?”
The F.B.I. man nodded. “Do that again.”
Julia did.
“Excuse me a minute,” he said. He swiveled to his desk. He picked up his phone and dialed. He waited. “ . . . Peggy? This is me. I won’t be home for dinner tonight. A case just came in . . . .” He hung up.
He turned back to Julia.
“Now, about this space station. How is it we haven’t seen it?”
“I assume it has a distortion field around it. It’s invisible.”
“Hummmm.” He entered that in his notebook. “Is there any way we could detect it?”
“I . . . . If I were able to talk to a physicist, he might be able to build detection equipment. It would take time.”
“I see. Now, about this Walt. How dangerous would you say he is?”
“I disconnected the bridge in his mind.”
“Bridge?”
“I call it that. It’s what makes us different. It could be built into a normal human being, I think.”
“You mean,” he said, “I could be fixed up to do the things you can do? Teleportation? Telepathy?”
“If