"Yes?"
"I can read thoughts better than you can. That is what scholars learn to do and I am a very good scholar."
Novi's eyes widened and her hand pulled loose from his. She seemed to be holding her breath. "You can read my thoughts?"
Gendibal held up a finger hurriedly. "I don't, Novi. I don't read your thoughts, except when I must. I do not read your thoughts."
(He knew that, in a practical sense, he was lying. It was impossible to be with Sura Novi and not understand the general tenor of some of her thoughts. One scarcely needed to be a Second Foundationer for that. Gendibal felt himself to be on the edge of blushing. But even from a Hamishwoman, such an attitude was flattering.
- And yet she had to be reassured - out of common humanity -
He said, "I can also change the way people think. I can make people feel hurt. I can..."
But Novi was shaking her head. "How can you do all that, Master? Rufirant..."
"Forget Rufirant," said Gendibal testily. "I could have stopped him in a moment. I could have made him fall to the ground. I could have made all the Hamish..." He stopped suddenly and felt uneasily that he was boasting, that he was trying to impress this provincial woman. And she was shaking her head still.
"Master," she said, "you are trying to make me not afraid, but I am not afraid except for you, so there is no need. I know you are a great scholar and can make this ship fly through space where it seems to me that no person could do aught but - I mean, anything but - be lost. And you use machines I cannot understand - and that no Hamish person could understand. But you need not tell me of these powers of mind, which surely cannot be so, since all the things you say you could have done to Rufirant, you did not do, though you were in danger."
Gendibal pressed his lips together. Leave it at that, he thought. If the woman insists she is not afraid for herself, let it go at that. Yet he did not want her to think of him as a weakling and braggart. He simply did not.
He said, "If I did nothing to Rufirant, it was because I did not wish to. We scholars must never do anything to the Hamish. We are guests on your world. Do you understand that?"
"You are our masters. That is what we always say."
For a moment Gendibal was diverted. "How is it, then, that this Rufirant attacked me?"
"I do not know," she said simply. "I don't think he knew. He must have been mind-wandering - uh, out of his mind."
Gendibal grunted. "In any case, we do not harm the Hamish. If I had been forced to stop him by - hurting him, I might have been poorly thought of by the other scholars and might perhaps have lost my position. But to save myself being badly hurt, I might have had to handle him just a small bit - the smallest possible."
Novi drooped. "Then I need not have come rushing in like a great fool myself."
"You did exactly right," said Gendibal. "I have just said I would have done ill to have hurt him. You made it unnecessary to do so. You stopped him and that was well done. I am grateful."
She smiled again - blissfully. "I see, then, why you have been so kind to me."
"I was grateful, of course," said Gendibal, a little flustered, "but the important thing is that you must understand there is no danger. I can handle an army of ordinary people. Any scholar can especially the important ones - and I told you I am the best of all of them. There is no one in the Galaxy who can stand against me."
"If you say so, Master, I am sure of it."
"I do say so. Now, are you afraid for me?"
"No, Master, except Master, is it only our scholars who can read minds and. Are there other scholars, other places, who can oppose you?"
For a moment Gendibal was staggered. The woman had an astonishing gift of penetration.
It was necessary to lie. He said, "There are none."
"But there are so many stars in the sky. I once tried to count them and couldn't. If there are as many worlds of people as there are stars, wouldn't some of them be scholars? Besides the scholars on our own world, I mean?"
"What if there are?"
"They would not be as strong as I am."
"What if they leap upon you suddenly before you are aware?"
"They cannot do that. If any strange scholar were to approach, I would know at once. I would know it long before he could harm me."
"Could you run?"
"I would not have to run. - But" (anticipating her objection) "if
I had to, I could be in a new ship soon - better than any in the Galaxy. They would not catch me."
"Might they not change your thoughts and make you stay?"
"No."
"There might be many of them. You are but one."
"As soon as they are there, long before they can imagine it would be possible, I would know they were there and I would leave. Our whole world of scholars would then turn against them and they would not stand. And they would know that, so they would not dare do anything against me. In fact, they would not want me to know of them at all - and yet I will."
"Because you are so much better than they?" said Novi, her face shining with a doubtful pride.
Gendibal could not resist. Her native intelligence, her quick understanding was such that it was simple joy to be with her. That softvoiced monster, Speaker Debra Delarmi, had done him an incredible favor when she had forced this Hamish farmwoman upon him.
He said, "No, Novi, not because I am better than they, although I am. It is because I have you with me."
"I?"
"Exactly, Novi. Had you guessed that?"