Unbelieving, she looked up. She saw a figure standing beside her and knew instinctively that it was Tom. But—
It wasn't Tom. Tom was an identity, a label for someone she had never seen.
This was—Davey.
Davey! The realization exploded in her, sent alternate waves of fire and ice crashing against the walls of reason.
Davey! But a changed Davey, taller and straighter, with a firmness in his face and a brightness in his eyes that had never been present before. He was somehow majestic—god-like.
Dazedly she realized that Davey was different, just as she was different. Behind the outward dullness of Davey, so carefully hidden that she had not suspected it, had been the flashing intelligence she had known as Tom.
He smiled again. "Yes, Fran. I'm a little surprised that you didn't connect Tom with Davey before this. You should have remembered that Davey was two years younger than Sammy—around the same age as yourself—which meant Davey had been born after the atom raids, just as you were, and was just as likely to have been ... changed. Maybe Davey seemed a bit too empty—and he was, in more ways than one. He was never all there mentally until now.
"You see, Fran, an important part of Davey's mind was away most of the time. He was in contact with other changed children—gathering information, making plans for the future, developing his own abilities. And he had to be careful not to let Sammy or Big Luke discover his true nature. The difference between Davey and themselves was so great that even family ties would have meant nothing. For that reason Davey pretended to be a simple-minded tool who helped Sammy in teasing you. But he wouldn't have done anything that meant actual harm."
"But why did you call yourself Tom?" Fran asked. "Why didn't you tell me you were different, too? We could have gone away—out of danger."