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“You have asked many times,” Mrs. Jamieson said, “how your father died. Now I will tell you the truth. Your father was one of the great ones, along with Stinson and Benjamin and Dr. Straus. He helped plan the escape; but the Agents found him in Bangkok fifteen minutes before the group left. They shot him in the back, and the others had to go on without him. Now do you know why I killed the Agent in the third cabin? I had to. Your father was a great man, and I loved him.”

“I don’t blame you, mother,” Earl said simply. “But we are freaks. Everybody says, ‘Konv’ as if it is something dirty. They write it on the walls in rest rooms.”

“Of course they do—because they don’t understand! They are afraid of us. Wouldn’t you be afraid of someone who could do the things we do, if you couldn’t do them?”

Just like that, it was over.

That is, the first shock was over. Mrs. Jamieson watched Earl leave the house, walking slowly along the river, a boy with a man’s problems. His friends called to him from the river, but he chose not to hear. He wanted to be alone. He needed to think, to feel the newness of the thing.