“Yes,” said Sayona with a sigh, “you would have. You were designed—if you’ll forgive the harsh word—to react at full maturity to whatever man in the galaxy stood out above all others.” A little of Sayona’s gravity lifted for a moment, and a twinkle crept into his eyes. “That, my dear, was by no means difficult to provide for; it would have been near impossible to prevent it! Surely you see that the oldest and greatest of the female instincts is to find and conserve the strength of the strongest male she can discover. And the ultimate conservation is to bear his children.”

“But—there was Donal!” she said, her face lighting up.

“Quite so,” Sayona chuckled. “If the strongest male in the galaxy were wrongly directed, misusing his great strength—still, for the sake of the great value of that strength, you would have sought him out. Strength, abilities, are tools; these are important. How they are used is a separate matter.

“But with Donal on the scene . . . Well, he was the ruin of all our theories, all our plans. The product of one of those natural accidents, outside our domain, a chance combining of genes even superior to William’s. The blending of a truly great line of thinkers, with an equally great line of doers.

“I failed to realize this, even when we tested him.” Sayona shook his head as though to clear it. “Or . . . perhaps our tests were just not capable of measuring the really important characteristics in him. We . . . well, we don’t know. It’s that that worries me. If we’ve failed to discover a true mutation—someone with a great new talent that could benefit the race, then we have failed badly.”

“Why, what would it have to do with you?” she asked.

“It would be in the area where we are supposed to have knowledge. If a cyberneticist fails to recognize that his companion has a broken bone, he is not culpable; if a physician makes the same mistake, he merits severe punishment.

“It would be our duty to recognize the new talent, isolate it, and understand it, we on the Exotics. It may be that Donal has something he does not recognize himself.” He looked at her. “And that is the question I must ask you. You are closer to him than anyone else; do you think Donal may have something—something markedly different about him? I don’t mean simply his superior genius; that would be simply more of the same kind of thing other men have had; I mean some true ability over and above that of the normal human.”

Anea became very still for a long moment, looking beyond rather than at Sayona. Then she looked at Sayona again, and said, “Do you want me to guess? Why don’t you ask him?”