eard
of.

I've got to check on the old flying saucer reports, she thought. They're
the only things I can remember reading about that were supposed to move
that fast.

"This is him waiting up here," Julia said to the driver. "Just pull over
to the curb."

A moment later, opening the door, she said, "Get in. I'm Julia."

"I'm Walt Johnson," he said, flexing his hands. "Let's go someplace
where we can be alone."

"Well," she said. "It's good to see you, Walt." She extended her hand.

He had sealed off his thoughts. His hand was moist in hers; it responded
uncertainly to her warm pressure. She drew him inside. She caught a wisp
of thought that he was not quite able to conceal. "Back to the hotel,"
she told the driver.

Now I'm _sure_, she thought, that he really tried to teleport me out of
my hotel room. I wonder why he wanted to? Why should he want to kill me?

I'll have to keep an eye on him. But he's such a baby. He can't even
control his emotions.

"Your clothing," she said, studying him with professional concern, "is
all wrong. We'll just have to get some more. Some to fit your
personality better. I'll do that tomorrow."

Anger crossed his face. He rubbed his hand over his knee and looked down
at his trousers. "I like them," he said in a surly voice.

She was not afraid of him. She had no need to be. He was such an
innocent!

Why, she thought, he doesn't seem to have any information to draw on
hardly at all; he'll be harmless as long as I wish him so.

"I'm a Lyrian traitor, too," he said.

"You are?"

His accent. She could not remember any accent on Earth like that. He had
not learned his English from an earthman. A Lyrian had taught him?

"What are you doing here?" he said.

Boy! she thought. Is his conversation naive! Keep him talking, girl!

She studied his face. She thought: Get 'em young and raise 'em to suit
yourself, Julia.

* * * * *

She added up the facts she had already discovered. He was, like herself,
a human mutant. (I must check, she thought, to see if there were any
human babies missing during the last flying saucer scare twenty-four
years ago, the year I was born.) The mutants had been collected at
birth, but the collectors had overlooked her. Walt had traveled here
from (where? Mars? Luna?) in order to rectify this oversight by putting
her out of the way. Why? Obviously he owed allegiance to the collectors
(Lyrians?) from whom he had probably