“What’s the matter?” be asked.
“I’m not sure yet-” Joachim looked at Nicki, who stood above Ilaloa with one band laid on the Lorinyan’s head. “What’re you doing here?”
Nicki lifted her face and stamped one foot. “Any objectionsf’
“Well, no, I reckon not. Maybe you can calm down the girl. She’s had a pretty bad A’Fight.” He relayed in ctirt words what bad been learned on Erulan: humans of strange habits secretly buying spaceships, and Ilaloa’s reception of a thought no mind should have had to endure. “They broke in on me, she and Sean, just when I was tl)inking Of leaving,” be finished. “That settled it. ‘Lo’s a good girl, though. She didn’t break down tiU we were safe.”
Trevelyan regarded the two women. Ilaloa was weeping on Nicki’s breast now, sobs tearing at her.
“A really alien thought?” inquired the Terrestrial. “But ff sl-ie can’t read our minds, how could she read this?”
“Wave-patterns vary.” Sean’s answer was harsh. “This chanced to be one more like her own than mads is. But the content of it was-otber.”
“Micah, what do you make of this?” asked Joachim.
“Well-assuming it wasn’t a mistake or sometbing-hm.” Trevelyan rubbed his chin. “Humans in the one case, aliens in the other. Could they be operating independently, maybe unaware of each other?”
“Well,” said Joachim dubiously, “I reckon they could, but it just doesn’t seem very believable.”
“Maybe not. I have an idea, though-” Trevelyan saw that Ilaloa was sitting up. She trembled still, but the tears weren’t running. He noticed that weeping didn’t clisfigure her as it does a human.
“Go easy on her,” said Nicki quietly.
“I will.” Trevelyan went over and sat on the desk, swinging his legs. The Lorinyan’s violet eyes met his with a forlom kind of steadiness. “Ilaloa,” he asked, “do you want to talk about this?”
“No,” she said. “But I will do so, since it is necessary.”
“Good girl!” Trevelyan smiled. Looking on the warmth of his face, Nick-1 wondered how much of it was acting. “Just describe to me what the thought in Kaukasu was like. How did it feel? Did it say anything?”
“If you have never felt thought, I have no words.”
“Oh, I have. It comes all at once, doesn’t it? A main thread, but there are all sorts of little sidelines and overtones, hints, whispers, glimpses. And the whole thing is never the same; it’s always changing. Is that right?”
She nodded. “As well as words can put it, that is right.” “Very well, then, Ilaloa. As nearly as you can, will you tell me what this thought you sensed was like?”
She stared before her, and the slim fingers gripped the
chair arms until the knuckles stood white. “It was all at once,” she whispered. “It came, pulsing, as if something lay
unde a pool and moved up, and then sank back into dark.
A shiver went across her. Sean started forward, but Joachim pushed him back. “It was of power, and scorn, and hugeness,” she told them. “A hand gripping a universe, like iron. But slow, patient, watchful. And there was a shiningness against sky-black, a field of light, stars all around. They curved like a sickle to reap the field. And there was one star brighter than all, high and cold, and there was another sbining coil which was so far away that the farness made me want to scream and-” She shook her head. “No,” she breathed shakily. “No more.”
“I see.” Trevelyan clasped his bands and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Do you think you could draw a picture of those stars?”
“A-picture? Why-”
“I’d Eke to put you under hypnosis, Ilaloa,” he said. “That’s just a sleep. I want total recall. You won’t know it. And by that means I, can take the fear from you.”
She looked down, then up again, and her mouth quivered. “Yes,” she said. “You may do that. I want to help you.”
The hypnotism didn’t take long. Ilaloa went under fast. Sean winced at the violence of her re-enactment, but the peace that followed was worth it. Trevelyan gave her a pencil and she sketched a star-field with snvift assurance, adding the forms of nebulae and a section of Milky Way. The Coordinator took the paper and brought her out of the trance. She siniled sleepily, got up, and came into Scan’s arms.