"I had not yet reached that conclusion, but I accept your statement as truth."
"One of those uncommon powers of mine, to which you referred a while ago, is a wide range of perception, from large masses down to extremely tiny components. Another, or perhaps a part of the same one, is that, after resolving and analyzing these fine details, I can build up a logical and coherent whole by processes of interpolation and extrapolation."
"I can believe that such things would be possible to such a mind as yours must be. Go on."
"Well, that is how I know that I underestimated Mr. 'X.' Whoever or whatever he is, I am completely unable to resolve the structure of his thought. I gave you all I got of it. Look at it again, please—hard. What can you make of it now?"
"It is exactly the same as it was before; a fragment of a simple and plain introductory thought to an audience. That is all."
"That's all I can see, too, and that's what surprises me so." The hitherto imperturbable and serene Camilla got up and began to pace the floor. "That thought is apparently absolutely solid; and since that is a definitely impossible condition, the truth is that its structure is so fine that I cannot resolve it into its component units. This fact shows that I am not nearly so competent as I thought I was. When you and Dad and the others reached that point, you each went to Arisia. I have decided to do the same thing."
"That decision seems eminently sound."
"Thanks, Uncle Trig—that was what I hoped you would say. I have never been there, you know, and the idea scared me a little. Clear ether!"
There is no need to go into detail as to Camilla's bout with Mentor. Her mind, like Karen's, had had to mature of itself before any treatment could be really effective; but once mature, she took as much in one session as Kathryn had taken in all her many. She had not suggested that the Rigellian accompany her to Arisia; they both knew that he had already received all that he could take. Upon her return she greeted him as casually as though she had been gone only a matter of hours.
"What Mentor did to me, Uncle Trig, shouldn't have been done to a Delgonian catlat. It doesn't show too much, though, I hope—does it?"