"'... to fill the room and all your tanks, so you'll be all right now.'
"'And now you can get yourself out of our swimming hole, sir,' Aloysius, I think, concluded.
"I was still a little dazed. But I tried to put my brain in gear, while I looked from one smiling, expectant Monahan face to another. 'I've got one question,' I said at last.
"'Yes, sir?' asked Jim, all eagerness to be helpful.
"'Does this psionic ability all of you are playing around with so freely make you basically any smarter than an ordinary untalented run-of-the-mill human of the same age?'
"'Well of course, sir,' said Jim, and then looked at the two brats, who were staring at him with their mouths open.
"'Well, of course, we have a lot more to learn than the Normals,' he began again. 'But then, I've studied hard instead of playing hooky like the imps here.'
"Now all three of us were staring at him.
"'Well, to be truthful, sir, Dad says that we've got about the same basic intelligence as the Normals, and that we shouldn't try to get uppity because of our special talents. But most Normals that I've seen usually don't act very bright.'
"'Then,' I asked with elaborate patience, 'all you did was to make my Delta Crucis bigger, and to increase the strength of the components to match? Nothing else?'