ceased to develop. But for
Forential's intercession, the council would have had him destroyed long
ago; Forential, like a proud parent, kept hoping to overcome Calvin's
heredity.

Forential waved his tentacles in exasperation. "You, here, Walt," he
said. "We'll have to hurry. I'll show you how, and you can do it."

Walt, the most adept mutant in the compartment, listened attentively and
then began to heal John. His face wrinkled in deep concentration. Flesh
came together; blood ceased to flow; bone knitted. Forential grunted
approval.

"Watch Walt, now," the alien instructed. "He's doing it nicely."

The others, breath held, watched.

At length John's head was healed. John stirred. He opened his eyes and
looked about angrily. He stood up and hit Calvin in the face with his
fist. Calvin, tears streaming down his cheeks, fingered his nose and
sobbed brokenly. He put out a hand to touch Walt reassuringly.

Walt was his friend.

Walt--he had no other name--was six feet two inches tall, and, as Julia
observed, handsome. His parents--he did not know this--were Americans;
he had never seen them. He had been stolen from the hospital by
Forential shortly after he was born. The alien, invisible, had come for
him, clucked softly, wrapped him in a warm, invisible mantle, and taken
him away; and the council of aliens had drawn a line through the names
of another set of parents who had been exposed to the powerful,
mutation-inducing field. Walt thought of Forential--in charge of their
compartment--as a friend, as a parent, as a playmate, and as a
counselor.

* * * * *

Shortly after Walt had healed John, the mutants of the smaller
compartment gathered at the observation screen in the floor--or what was
to them the floor: it was actually the broad rim of the wheel. They
could look down at the screen and see a somewhat flickering image of
Earth lying below their feet.

"Forential told us we'd get many strange powers...." one said.

_Just before we went down to the planet_, another completed the thought.

_It's growing time, then._

They laughed together with excitement, and Calvin cracked his knuckles
nervously.

"Let's play a trick on Forential," Calvin said. "Let's see if we can go
through the bulkhead." His face was bright and hopeful. "Let's huh?"

Calvin raced to the far end of the compartment. "Come on!"

Like guilty children, they looked at one another. Then a few of them
join