Though frivolous, Ng-Gunko was certainly of superior intelligence. It was, for instance, remarkable that a child who had lived his fourteen years in the forest should easily grasp the principle of the steam turbine, and should be able to ask the chief engineer (who showed us round the engine room) questions which made that experienced old Scot scratch his head. It was on this expedition that John had to whisper fiercely to the little monster, “If you don’t take the trouble to bottle up your blasted curiosity I’ll pitch you over-board.”
When we reached our northern suburb Ng-Gunko was installed in the Wainwright household. As we did not want him to cause more of a sensation than need be, we dyed his hair black and made him wear spectacles with a dark glass for one eye. Only in the house might he be without them. Unfortunately he was too young to be able to resist the temptation of startling the natives. Walking along the street with John or me, muffled to the eyes against the alien climate, duly spectacled and demure, he would sometimes drop a pace behind as we were approaching some old lady or child. Then, projecting his chin above his scarf, he would whip off his glasses and assume a maniacal grin of hate. How often he did this without being caught I do not know; but on one occasion he was so successful that the victim let out a scream. John turned upon his protégé and seized him by the throat. “Do that again,” he said, “and I’ll have that eye of yours right out, and step on it.” Never again did Ng-Gunko play the trick when John was present. But with me he did, knowing I was too amiable to report him.
In a few weeks, however, Ng-Gunko began to enter more seriously into the spirit of the great adventure. The conspiratorial atmosphere appealed to him. And the task of preparing himself to play his part gradually absorbed his attention. But he remained at heart a little savage. Even his extraordinary passion for machinery suggested the uncritical delight of the primitive mind in its first encounter with the marvels of our civilization. He had a mechanical gift which in some ways eclipsed even John’s. Within a few days of his arrival he was riding the motor-bicycle and making it perform incredible “stunts.” Very soon he took it to pieces and put it together again. He mastered the principles of John’s psycho-physical power unit, and found, to his intense delight, that he could perform the essential miracle of it himself. It began to be taken for granted that he would be the responsible engineer of the yacht, and of the future colony, leaving John free for more exalted matters. Yet in all Ng-Gunko’s actions, and in his whole attitude to life, there was an intensity and even a passion which was very different from John’s invariable calm. Indeed I sometimes wondered whether he was emotionally a true supernormal, whether he had anything unusual in his nature beyond brilliant intelligence. But when I suggested this to John he laughed. “Ng-Gunko’s a kid,” he said, “but Ng-Gunko’s all right. Amongst other things he has a natural gift for telepathy, and when I have trained him a bit he may beat me in that direction. But we are both beginners.”
Not long after our return from Egypt another supernormal arrived. This was the girl whom John had found in Moscow. Like others of her kind, she looked much younger than she was. She seemed a child, not yet on the threshold of womanhood, but was actually seventeen. She had run away from home, taken a job as stewardess on a Soviet steamer, and slipped ashore at an English port. Thence, equipped with a sufficiency of English money, which she had secured in Russia, she had found her way to the Wainwrights.
Lo was at first glance a much more normal creature than either Ng-Gunko or John. She might have been Jacqueline’s youngest sister. No doubt her head was strikingly large, and her eyes occupied more of her face than was normal, but her features were regular, and her sleek black hair was long enough to pass for a “shingle.” She was clearly of Asiatic origin, for her cheek bones were high, and her eyes, though great, were deeply sunk within their half-closed and slanting lids. Her nose was broad and flat, like an ape’s, her complexion definitely “yellow.” She suggested to me a piece of sculpture come to life, something in which the artist had stylized the human in terms of the feline. Her body, too, was feline, “so lean and loose,” said John. “It feels breakable, and yet it’s all steel springs covered with loose velvet.”
During the few weeks which passed before the sailing of the yacht, Lo occupied the room which had once belonged to Anne, John’s sister. Relations between her and Pax were never easy, yet always amicable. Lo was exceptionally silent. This, I am sure, would not trouble Pax, for she was generally drawn to silent persons. Yet with Lo she seemed to feel constantly an obligation to talk, and an inability to talk naturally. To all her remarks Lo would reply appropriately, even amiably, yet whatever she said seemed to make matters worse. Whenever Lo was present, Pax would seem ill at ease. She would make silly little mistakes in her work, putting things into wrong drawers, sewing buttons on in the wrong place, breaking her needle, and so on. And everything took longer than it should.
I never discovered why Pax was so uncomfortable with Lo. The girl was, indeed, a disconcerting person, but I should have expected Pax to be more, not less, able to cope with her than others were. It was not only Lo’s silence that was so disturbing, but also her almost complete lack of facial expression, or rather of changes of expression for her very absence of expression was itself expressive of a profound detachment from the world around her. In all ordinary social situations, when others would show amusement or pleasure or exasperation, and Ng-Gunko would register intense emotion, Lo’s features remained unmoved.
At first I imagined that she was simply insensitive, perhaps dull-witted; but one curious fact about her soon proved that I was wrong. She discovered a passion for the novel, and most of all for Jane Austen. She read all the works of that incomparable authoress over and over again, indeed so often that John, whose interest ran in very different channels, began to chaff her. This roused her to deliver her one long speech. “Where I come from,” she said, “there is nothing like Jane Austen. But in me there is something like that, and these old hooks are helping me to know myself. Of course, they are only ‘sapient,’ I know; but that is half the fun. It’s so interesting to transpose it all to suit us. For instance, if Jane could understand me, which she couldn’t, what, I ask myself, would she say about me? I find the answer extraordinarily enlightening. Of course, our minds are quite outside her range, but her attitude can be applied to us. Her attitude to her little world is so intelligent and sprightly that it gives it a significance that it could never have discovered in itself. Well, I want to regard even us, even our virtuous Colony, in a Jane-like manner. I want to give it a kind of significance that would have remained hidden even from its earnest and noble leader. You know, John, I fancy Homo sapiens has still quite a lot to teach you about personality. Or if you are too busy to learn, then I must, or the colony will be intolerable.”
To my surprise John replied by giving her a hearty kiss, and she remarked, demurely, “ Odd John, you have indeed a lot to learn.”
This incident may suggest to the reader that Lo was lacking in humour. She was not. Indeed she had a gift of not unkindly wit. Though she seemed incapable of smiling, she often roused others to laughter. And yet, as I say, she was mysteriously disconcerting to most of us. Even John was sometimes uncomfortable in her presence. Once when he was giving me some instructions about finance he broke off to say, “That girl’s laughing at me, in spite of her solemn face. She never laughs at all, and yet she’s always laughing. Now tell me, Lo, what’s amusing you.” Lo replied, “Dear and important John, it is you who are laughing, at your own reflection in me.”