I'm going to have to figure this out, she thought. If I figure out how I did it, I'm sure I can teach other people. I'm no different than they are; and I don't intend to be.
She went back to the bed and sat down and began to think.
And she discovered that she could remember the greater part of everything she'd ever read.
CHAPTER IV
Calvin practiced teleportation for endless hours. He kept the metal ball Forential had given him in almost constant motion.
He would exclaim delightedly and hurl it toward one of the twenty-seven other mutants in his compartment. Until the time he hit John in the back of the head with it, his intended victims had always parried it. John lay in a pool of blood, and Calvin began to cry—loud, shrill wails of despair and contrition. When Forential came, he knew instinctively what had happened.
Calvin represented the only failure the aliens had experienced in their mutation program; ten years ago his mind had ceased to develop. But for Forential's intercession, the council would have had him destroyed long ago; Forential, like a proud parent, kept hoping to overcome Calvin's heredity.
Forential waved his tentacles in exasperation. "You, here, Walt," he said. "We'll have to hurry. I'll show you how, and you can do it."
Walt, the most adept mutant in the compartment, listened attentively and then began to heal John. His face wrinkled in deep concentration. Flesh came together; blood ceased to flow; bone knitted. Forential grunted approval.