Smithy's lips parted. But for a moment he remained completely silent while his mind stumbled over the strange term.
"Destructor?" he repeated, at last.
"Wait," said Possy, "and listen carefully. This boy is now ten years old. He first gave me that answer three days ago. He repeated it two days ago, then yesterday and again today. I had never interviewed him before. I never interview a student personally until the tenth year—so I quite naturally had his files double-checked. Smithy, he's been giving the same answer ever since he was five years old. Two interviews a year for six years—and three extra ones this week! Imagine! Fifteen times this boy has said he wants to be a Destructor—and no one even knows what a Destructor is."
"Well," Smithy said with a shrug, convinced that Possy was getting all excited over nothing, "I admit it seems strange—and highly single-minded for so young a boy. But don't you imagine it's some word he just made up?"
"I admitted that as a possibility until this morning. But look here."
Possy reached behind his chair and took up a small leather bag. Slowly he unzipped it and delved inside. Then, with a grim flourish, he brought forth the body of a cat.
As Smithy's eyes widened, Possy said dramatically: "Smithy, that boy killed this cat with a glance."
"With a—a what?"
"A glance! You heard me correctly. He just looked at the cat, and the beast dropped dead. And he did it to other things, too—a sparrow, a baby fox. Why, he even did it to a rat that had been cornered by this very cat.
"I tell you, I had never been so shaken by anything in all my life. I said to myself, 'Possy, have you got yourself a mutant?' 'No,' I replied. 'He's completely normal in every respect, physically and otherwise. He's a bit brighter than average, perhaps—ninety-eight six in his studies, including elementary astrophysics. He speaks brilliantly, composes poetry, even invents little gadgets. He's a genius, maybe, but not a mutant.' Then I asked myself, 'how do you account for the cat?'"