hidden in the background.

"Who are you?" asked the awareness.

It is not in so many words, of course. A mind speaks to another mind in incredibly swift shorthand. The actual thought-impulse that came to Jerry was a thick wave of curiosity, its stress laid upon identity.

"I am a Learner," Jerry's thought replied. It was a self-sufficient response, since Jerry's concept of all that a Learner was was incorporated in the thought.

"I see," said the alien. "You have memories of antagonism which are now gone from your intent. Explain."

"I came to find a menace. I found a helpless child."

"I see," came the cold, thoughtful reply. "Yes, that is how I sensed it."

"Is your mother around?" asked Jerry. "Or father?"

"Dead," said the awareness. "I am alone."

At the thought, the intense thought of loneliness, a kindred spark flared in Jerry's own mind. The alien caught at the spark, recognized it.

"Strange," it said. "You, too, are alone. But it is a different aloneness."

Jerry's thoughts were whirling in confusion. To be read so easily by a baby was incredible to him. Yet the situation was without precedent. Perhaps a baby's mind was brighter than science gave credit. Since a mind needed no words or manual skills, the mind of a baby might be open to learn the thousand things necessary for adult survival. Maybe as a man learned to use his body, he forgot in proportion how to use his mind.

"How can you know my aloneness?" asked Jerry.

"I see it, there in your mind. It is plain to me. You have been misled. You are a helpless pawn of a singularly wicked scheme. The victim of a lie."

Jerry's recollection flashed to his conversation with Ollie Gibbs, to the things he had wanted to tell the other man but was unable to put into words. All the heaviness he had borne alone these many years was apparent to this mind he enhosted. The alien mind knew. Knew!

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