There was no suggestion of truculence or stubbornness in the boy's lack of response. It was as though Derwin's statements had not merited answers, or that the answers had been too obvious to need saying.
Derwin leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his stomach. "All right," he said. "If you aren't interested in that, let's get back to your immediate problem. You know what you were arrested for?" He did not wait for an answer. "You're accused of killing at least thirty people," he said. "And they have plenty of proof—enough to hang you. I'd say your only defense would be that you didn't know what you were doing."
Derwin made an impatient motion to rise. "Oh, there's no use going on," he said. "Either you can't understand me, or you know all this already."
Abruptly the boy was nodding his head: nodding it vigorously.
Derwin remained sitting. "Why are you doing that?" he asked.
The boy blinked his eyes, pressing the lids tightly together, and opened them again.
"What's that mean? Do you want help of some kind?" Derwin paused. "I'd like to do what I can, but if you don't tell me, or show me—how can I help you? If you have any way of communicating, use it now, or we'll never get anywhere."
The boy's forehead creased with lines of effort. His mouth opened—but no sound came out.
Derwin ran his fingers along the stubble of his jaw line. "I suppose if the profs and psychiatrists at the U couldn't find a way to talk with you, I can't. I understand when they couldn't learn how you mutants read minds—or even if you did—they tried to teach you to speak, and to live like human beings. You couldn't, or wouldn't, learn either. You wouldn't work, and nothing seemed to interest you. Until toward the end you turned surly, and scratched and even bit people who annoyed you." Derwin paused again. "Have I touched on what's troubling you yet?"
The boy moistened his lips and nodded, his face eager.