" "No pardon needed, my dear." "No pardon needed, my dear. Those were different days, as they say." He slapped his palms down on his desk and half-rose from his chair. "Would you like to go to the quarters? That's where we have Thomas." He chuckled at my raised eyebrow. "The fathers have named the boy Thomas, as they have doubts about him. An attempt at humor, you see." He chuckled again, then held the door for me and gestured toward our left, down a long corridor. "Doubts?" My heels echoed in the long hallway, their taps on the hard slate floor seeming to announce our progress. "Doubts as to his authenticity?" "Doubts about him being human, Doctor." I turned my head quickly and looked at the priest, but his face was completely blank. "You shall see what I mean in a moment." I could feel the expression on his face as he spoke. "God have mercy on the child." He said. ***** "Subject is male, approximately seventeen years of age. Only very crude mental development tests have been administered to date, and this data seems to indicate sub-moronic to moronic status. Language skills are non-existent." Doctor Roberts touched the pause button on her recorder and sat for a moment staring at the potted fern on her desk. The events which had taken place earlier that evening still haunted her. It was rare that one could ever encounter anything disturbing in the field of linguistics, even though her specialty had led to some strange researches in the past, but what she had seen and done tonight was as vivid in her brain now as it had been in that tiny room behind the two-way mirror. The images made her uncomfortable. She had tried to dismiss it, had tried from the moment she had first seen Thomas in his confinement, tried to analyze her feelings into that cool container where she kept such things in her head. |