More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

Author:Theodore Sturgeon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Part Three:

Morality

“What’s he to you, Miss Gerald?” demanded the sheriff.

“Gerard,” she corrected. She had gray-green eyes and a strange mouth. “He’s my cousin.”

“All Adam’s chillun are cousins, one way or the other. You’ll have to tell me a little more than that.”

“He was in the Air Force seven years ago,” she said. “There was some—trouble. He was discharged. Medical.”

The sheriff thumbed through the file on the desk before him. “Remember the doctor’s name?”

“Thompson first, then Bromfield. Dr Bromfield signed the discharge.”

“Guess you do know something about him at that. What was he before he did his hitch in the Air Force?”

“An engineer. I mean, he would have been if he’d finished school.”

“Why didn’t he?”

She shrugged. “He just disappeared.”

“So how do you know he’s here?”

“I’d recognize him anywhere,” she said. “I saw... I saw it happen.”

“Did you now.” The sheriff grunted, lifted the file, let it drop. “Look, Miss Gerald, it’s not my business to go advising people. But you seem like a nice respectable girl. Why don’t you just forget him?”

“I’d like to see him, if I may,” she said quietly.

“He’s crazy. Did you know that?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Slammin’ his fist through a plate glass window. For nothing.”

She waited. He tried again. “He’s dirty. He don’t know his own name, hardly.”

“May I see him?”

The sheriff uttered a wordless growl and stood up. “Them Air Force psychos had any sense, they’d’ve put him where he would never even get near a jail. This way.”

The walls were steel plates like a ship’s bulkhead, studded with rivets, painted a faded cream above and mustard color below. Their footsteps echoed. The sheriff unlocked a heavy door with one small high grating and slid it aside. They stepped through and he closed and locked it. He motioned her ahead of him and they came into a barnlike area, concrete on walls and ceiling. Built around it was a sort of balcony; under and over this were the cells, steel-walled, fronted by close-set bars. There were perhaps twenty cells. Only a half dozen were occupied. It was a cold, unhappy place.

“Well, what did you expect?” demanded the sheriff, reading her expression. “The Waldorf Plaza or something?”

“Where is he?” she asked.

They walked to a cell on the lower tier. “Snap out of it, Barrows. Lady to see you.”

“Hip! Oh, Hip!”

The prisoner did not move. He lay half on, half off a padded steel bunk, one foot on the mattress, one on the floor. His left arm was in a dirty sling.

“See? Nary a word out of him. Satisfied, Miss?”

“Let me in,” she breathed. “Let me talk to him.”

He shrugged and reluctantly unlocked the door. She stepped in, turned. “May I speak to him alone?”

“Liable to get hurt,” he warned.

She gazed at him. Her mouth was extraordinarily expressive. “Well,” he said at length, “I’ll stay in the area here. You yell if you need help. S’help me I’ll put a slug through your neck, Barrows, if you try anything.” He locked the barred door behind the girl.

She waited until he stepped away and then went to the prisoner.

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