Dane looked up sharply. "How did you know—?"
"Simple logic. The analysis gave me all the things in your mind—about the man with the hairless skull who was your master, and the silver needle, and the Kalquoi. When I mentioned robots, it was almost certain to make you think about—the man."
"Oh."
"You don't need to worry, either. You're not a robot. Robots don't have feelings. Besides, the celloscope would have shown it if you were. As for the rest—the shaft—the Kalquoi—I imagine they're some sort of delusion. Tied in with your amnesia, perhaps—specialized situations the standard tests weren't geared to touch."
"I see." Dane studied his knuckles.
Yet what did he see? What, really? He wondered.
Certainly not that the fiend-faced man and the silver needle and the Kalquoi were delusions!
For as Nelva talked, her words had come faster and faster. A new note had crept into her voice—a note of tension. And now, as he watched her obliquely, he became acutely aware that her fingers were all at once ever so restless. Her lips showed a minute tendency to tremble, also, and the grey eyes stayed clear of him, as if the things she said were creating some under-current of conflict in her that she feared to let him see.
Dane's jaw tightened. Breathing carefully, evenly, he thought back once again to the way the girl had first looked at him—and then, how the blinds had come down, shutting him out.