Incongruously I found myself staring at her low-heeled shoes, the ones she always wore when we danced at the Prom. I restrained the impulse to take her in my arms. "I saw the crown you made for Kohnke," I said carefully, making a special effort to keep my inner thoughts hidden. "It's beautiful." "Thank you." Those simple words meant much to me. I had succeeded in getting her to admit that she had made the crown. Which meant we still had a chance! "Then you'll be able to make the fuel we need," I said casually. Her expression became wary, shifting instantly to petulance. She reached over and put one hand on my arm. "Why do you want to leave me, Bill?" * * * * * I tried to explain, but she couldn't or wouldn't understand. I tried another tack. "Why are you afraid of Kohnke?" I asked. My theory was that she did not understand insanity, and so her inability to follow the illogical thought processes of the demented man frightened her. "He is so intelligent," she startled me by saying. "He's crazy," I protested. "What is crazy?" "His reasoning faculties do not function properly." She seemed to be reading my thoughts carefully, trying to understand better what I meant. After a minute she smiled and her teeth showed white and even against her tan. "Isn't it possible that his mind works too swiftly for you to follow, and the only way you can explain your lack of understanding is to say that he is insane?" So that was why she feared Kohnke. To her he was a brilliant intellect. So great that she could neither understand nor influence him as she did the others of us. His aborted reasoning, his sudden shifts of interest, his small concern with a situation that aroused our distress, were all evidence of that superior intellect. I did not try to disabuse her of the belief. It fitted well with my semi-formed plan. "He is like the Masters," the anamorph interrupted my thoughts. I quickly took up the diversion she offered: I did not want her to see what lay in my thoughts. Also she had aroused my curiosity. "Who are the Masters?" I asked. "I'm not certain. I think...." Her voice trailed off. "I'm never too sure that what I'm thinking are my own thoughts, or what I'm reading in your mind, or have read in others," she said. "Perhaps if I looked away from you.... "Many years ago the Masters landed on this small world to make repairs on the meteor shield of their space ship," she began again in a low voice. "They were passing through this part of the Galaxy on their way home from a distant planet. I belonged to one of them. For some reason they left me behind when they went away." She stopped talking, saddened by the recollection of her desertion. I saw her in a new light then. She had been a pet, a plaything, who perhaps had strayed just before ship leaving time.