I tried another tack. "Why are you afraid of Kohnke?" I asked. My
theory was that she did not understand insanity, and so her inability
to follow the illogical thought processes of the demented man
frightened her.
"He is so intelligent," she startled me by saying.
"He's crazy," I protested.
"What is crazy?"
"His reasoning faculties do not function properly."
She seemed to be reading my thoughts carefully, trying to understand
better what I meant. After a minute she smiled and her teeth showed
white and even against her tan. "Isn't it possible that his mind works
too swiftly for you to follow, and the only way you can explain your
lack of understanding is to say that he is insane?"
So that was why she feared Kohnke. To her he was a brilliant intellect.
So great that she could neither understand nor influence him as she did
the others of us. His aborted reasoning, his sudden shifts of interest,
his small concern with a situation that aroused our distress, were all
evidence of that superior intellect. I did not try to disabuse her of
the belief. It fitted well with my semi-formed plan.
"He is like the Masters," the anamorph interrupted my thoughts.
I quickly took up the diversion she offered: I did not want her to see
what lay in my thoughts. Also she had aroused my curiosity. "Who are
the Masters?" I asked.
"I'm not certain. I think...." Her voice trailed off. "I'm never too
sure that what I'm thinking are my own thoughts, or what I'm reading in
your mind, or have read in others," she said. "Perhaps if I looked away
from you....
"Many years ago the Masters landed on this small world to make repairs
on the meteor shield of their space ship," she began again in a low
voice. "They were passing through this part of the Galaxy on their
way home from a distant planet. I belonged to one of them. For some
reason they left me behind when they went away." She stopped talking,
saddened by the recollection of her desertion.
I saw her in a new light then. She had been a pet, a plaything, who
perhaps had strayed just before ship leaving time.
She nodded, smiling brightly. "A pet," she exclaimed, clapping her
hands. "That is right." I realized then, with mild astonishment, that
she was not very intelligent. Her apparent wit and sharpness before had
been only reflections of what she read in our minds.
"Are you all Kohnke's pets?" she caught me unprepared.