said, "Professor von Possenfeller has been telling me the story of your life. Now you tell me, Herbux. Not what you want to be when you grow up, but why."

"I don't know why, sir," Herbux replied easily. "I only know that I want to be a Destructor."

"But, Herbux, what is a Destructor?"

Herbux looked around the room. He saw Smithy's birdcage, walked over to it and stared for a moment quietly at Dicky, the doctor's parakeet.

Dicky looked back, chirped angrily twice and toppled from his perch. He landed on his back, his tiny feet rigid and unmoving. He was quite dead, Smithy observed, with a sudden, detached, unbelieving horror. Why, Dicky was seven years old and he had been as good a pet as any lonely old professor could have desired as a cheery avian companion.

"Look here, young man," he began sternly. Then, as the shock passed, he hastily changed his tone. Suppose this child did have some strange sort of power—mystic perhaps, but definitely abnormal. He may belong in the School of the Future, Smithy thought. Or perhaps in the School of the Past—the Dark Ages Department. But not here!

"Don't worry, sir," Herbux said. "I can't do it to you."

"But—do what?" Smithy cried. "What did you do?"

"I destructed."

Smithy took a deep breath. He felt as though a cruel hoax had been played on him. After all, Possy could have lied about the cat and the other creatures. And the boy was quite obviously bright enough to learn lines and play a part. But how explain Dicky?

He tried to calculate the coincidental odds that might have caused Dicky to die a natural death at one precise instant in time under unusual and exact circumstances. They proved to be incalculable to his unmathematical brain. He rubbed his face with the palms of both hands. Then he turned abruptly to Possy.

"I just don't know what to say about it," he explained. "How could I know? How could anybody know?"

He faced the boy again. "Look here, Herbux. This—this power of yours. When did you first notice you had it?"

"Last year, sir. I always knew I would do it sometime. But one day I was looking at a bird perched on my windowsill, and it fell over dead, just as your parakeet did. I thought it was an accident or a coincidence. But then the next day it happened again—with a squirrel. Soon I got to where I could do it on purpose. But I don't know how."

"Well, how do you feel about it? Do you want to kill these harmless pets?"

"Oh, no, sir. I don't want to kill them. I just want to be a Destructor."

Smithy had a sudden, disquieting conviction that he was in the presence of some completely alien, dangerous being. A cold breeze seemed to shiver through the room, though he knew that his quarters were airtight and perfectly ventilated. This is ridiculous, he told himself, turning to Possy with a helpless shrug. To feel like this over such a nice-looking young lad ...

"My friend," he said, "all this has occurred so suddenly I must have time to think. Such a thing could never have happened in my school. Perhaps you should—but doubtless it has already occurred to you—turn him over to physio-psychological rebuilding?"

Possy nodded. "It has, of course. But then I said to myself, 'Possy, they are a bunch of dunderheaded old fossils over there. They can take a criminal and tear him apart and make a good citizen out of him, granted. But do they find out why he was a criminal? Have they reduced the number of new criminals? No. And they would not find out why this boy wants to be a Destructor—nor even what a Destructor is.'

"'You're right,' I told myself. 'And besides, Herbux is a nice boy. Why, with this power of his—if he wanted to do harm—there wouldn't be an animal left alive around the whole University. And if he could do it to people he's had many an opportunity to practice on me. But has he? No, not once. Besides, if you keep him in school, you can