"But, Herbux, what is a Destructor?"
Herbux looked around the room. He saw Smithy's birdcage, walked over to it and stared for a moment quietly at Dicky, the doctor's parakeet.
Dicky looked back, chirped angrily twice and toppled from his perch. He landed on his back, his tiny feet rigid and unmoving. He was quite dead, Smithy observed, with a sudden, detached, unbelieving horror. Why, Dicky was seven years old and he had been as good a pet as any lonely old professor could have desired as a cheery avian companion.
"Look here, young man," he began sternly. Then, as the shock passed, he hastily changed his tone. Suppose this child did have some strange sort of power—mystic perhaps, but definitely abnormal. He may belong in the School of the Future, Smithy thought. Or perhaps in the School of the Past—the Dark Ages Department. But not here!
"Don't worry, sir," Herbux said. "I can't do it to you."
"But—do what?" Smithy cried. "What did you do?"
"I destructed."
Smithy took a deep breath. He felt as though a cruel hoax had been played on him. After all, Possy could have lied about the cat and the other creatures. And the boy was quite obviously bright enough to learn lines and play a part. But how explain Dicky?
He tried to calculate the coincidental odds that might have caused Dicky to die a natural death at one precise instant in time under unusual and exact circumstances. They proved to be incalculable to his unmathematical brain. He rubbed his face with the palms of both hands. Then he turned abruptly to Possy.
"I just don't know what to say about it," he explained. "How could I know? How could anybody know?"