Authors: Theodore Sturgeon
B
OBBY DEAR, SHE WROTE
, I can’t bear to think of you getting letters back with “address unknown” on them. I’m all right. That’s first and foremost. I’m all right, monkey-face, and you’re not to worry. Your big sister is
all right.
I’m also all mixed up. Maybe in that nice orderly hospital this will make more sense to you. I’ll try to make it short and simple.
I was working one morning at the office when that awful Judge Bluett came in. He had to wait for a few minutes before he could see old Wattles Hartford, and he used it to make his usual wet soggy string of verbal passes. My brush worked fine until the seamy old weasel got on the subject of Daddy’s money. You know that we’ll get it when I’m 21—unless that old partnership deal comes up again. It would have to go to court. Bluett not only was the partner—he’s the Surrogate. Even if we could get him disqualified from hearing the case, you know how he could fix anyone else who might take the bench. Well, the idea was that if I would be nice and sweet to Hizzoner, in any nasty way he wanted, the will wouldn’t be contested. I was terribly frightened, Bobby; you know the rest of your training has to come out of that money. I didn’t know what to do. I needed time to think. I promised to meet him that night, real late, in a nightclub.
Bobby, it was awful. I was just at the point of blowing up, there at the table, when the old drooler left the room for a minute. I didn’t know whether to fight or run away. I was scared, believe me. All of a sudden there was somebody standing there talking to me. I think he must be my guardian angel. Seems he had overheard the Judge talking to me. He wanted me to cut and run. I was afraid of him, too, at first, and then I saw his face. Oh, Bobby, it was such a
nice
face! He wanted to give me some money, and before I could say no he told me I could return it whenever I wanted to. He told me to get out of town right now—take a train, any train; he didn’t even want to know which one. And before I could stop him he shoved $300 into my bag and walked off. The last thing he said was to accept a date for the next evening with the Judge. I couldn’t do a thing—he’d only been there two minutes and he was talking practically every second of it. And then the Judge came back. I flapped my eyelids at the old fool like a lost woman, and cut out. I got a train to Eltonville twenty minutes later and didn’t even register in a hotel when I got here. I waited around until the stores opened and bought an overnight case and a tooth brush and got myself a room. I slept a few hours and the very same afternoon I had a job in the only record shop in the place. It’s $26 a week but I can make it fine.
Meanwhile I don’t know what’s happening back home. I’m sort of holding my breath until I hear something. I’m going to wait, though. We have time, and in the meantime, I’m all right. I’m not going to give you my address, honey, though I’ll write often. Judge Bluett just might be able to get his hands on mail, some way. I think it pays to be careful. He’s dangerous.
So, honey, that’s the situation as far as it’s gone. What next? I’ll watch the home town papers for any item about His Dishonor the Surrogate, and hope for the best. As for you, don’t worry your little square head about me, darling. I’m doing fine. I’m only making a few dollars a week less than I was at home and I’m a lot safer here. And the work isn’t hard; some of the nicest people like music. I’m sorry I can’t give you my exact address, but I do think it’s better not to just now. We can let this thing ride for a year if we have to, and small loss. Work hard, baby; I’m behind you a thousand percent. I’ll write often.
XXX
Your loving
Big Sis Kay.
(This is the letter that Armand Bluett’s hired second-story man found in Undergraduate Robert Hallowell’s room at the State Medical School.)
“Y
ES—I AM PIERRE
Monetre. Come in.” He stood aside and the girl entered.
“This is good of you, Mr. Monetre. I know you must be terribly busy. And probably you won’t be able to help me at all.”
“I might not if I were able,” he said. “Sit down.”
She took a molded plywood chair which stood at the end of the half desk, half lab bench which took up almost an end wall of the trailer. He looked at her coldly. Soft yellow hair, eyes sometimes slate-blue, sometimes a shade darker than sky-blue; a studied coolness through which he, with his schooled perceptions, could readily see. She is disturbed, he thought; frightened and ashamed of it. He waited.
She said, “There’s something I’ve got to find out. It happened years ago. I’d almost forgotten about it, and then saw your posters, and I remembered… I could be wrong, but if only—” She kneaded her hands together. Monetre watched them, and then returned his cold stare to her face.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Monetre. I can’t seem to get to the point. It’s all so vague and so—terribly important. The thing is, when I was a little girl, seven or eight years old, there was a boy in my class in school who ran away. He was about my age, and had some sort of horrible run-in with his stepfather. I think he was hurt. His hand. I don’t know how badly. I was probably the last one in town to see him. No one ever saw him again.”
Monetre picked up some papers, shifted them, put them down again. “I really don’t know what I can do about that, Miss—”
“Hallowell. Kay Hallowell. Please hear me out, Mr. Monetre. I’ve come thirty miles just to see you, because I can’t afford to pass up the slightest chance—”
“If you cry, you’ll have to get out,” he rasped. His voice was so rough that she started. Then he said, with gentleness, “Please go on.”
“Th-thank you. I’ll be quick… it was just after dark, a rainy, misty night. We lived by the highway, and I went out back for something… I forget… anyway, he was there, by the traffic light. I spoke to him. He asked me not to tell anyone that I had seen him, and I never have, till now. Then—” she closed her eyes, obviously trying to bring back every detail of the memory—“—I think someone called me. I turned to the gate and left him. But I peeped out again, and saw him climbing on the back of a truck that was stopped for the light. It was one of your trucks. I’m sure it was. The way it was painted… and yesterday, when I saw your posters, I thought of it.”
Monetre waited, his deep-set eyes expressionless. He seemed to realize, suddenly, that she had finished. “That happened twelve years ago? And, I suppose, you want to know if that boy reached the carnival.”
“Yes.”
“He did not. If he had, I should certainly have known of it.”
“Oh…” It was a faint sound, stricken, yet resigned; apparently she had not expected anything else. She pulled herself together visibly, and said, “He was small for his age. He had very dark hair and eyes and a pointed face. His name was Horty—Horton.”
“Horty…” Monetre searched his memory. There was a familiar ring to those two syllables, somehow. Now, where… He shook his head. “I don’t remember any boy called Horty.”
“Please try.
Please!
You see—” She looked at him searchingly, her eyes asking a question. He answered it, saying, “You can trust me.”
She smiled. “Thank you. Well, there’s a man, a horrible person. He was once responsible for that boy. He’s doing a terrible thing to me; it’s something to do with an old law case, and he might be able to keep me from getting some money that is due me when I come of age. I need it. Not for myself; it’s for my brother. He’s going to be a doctor, and—”
“I don’t like doctors,” said Monetre. If there is a great bell for hatred as there is one for freedom, it rang in his voice as he said that. He stood up. “I know nothing about any boy named Horty, who disappeared twelve years ago. I am not interested in finding him in any case, particularly if doing so would help a man make a parasite of himself and fools of his patients. I am not a kidnapper, and will have nothing to do with a search which reeks of that and blackmail to boot. Good-by.”
She had risen with him. Her eyes were round. “I—I’m sorry. Really, I—”
“Good-by.” It was the velvet this time, used with care, used to show her that his gentleness was a virtuosity, an overlay. She turned to the door, opened it. She stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “May I leave you my address, just in case, some day, you—”
“You may not,” he said. He turned his back on her and sat down. He heard the door close.
He closed his eyes, and his arched, slit nostrils expanded until they were round holes. Humans, humans, and their complex, useless, unimportant machinations. There was no mystery about humans; no puzzle. Everything human could be brought to light by asking simply, “What does it gain you?”… What could humans know of a life-form to which the idea of gain was alien? What could a human say of his crystal-kin, the living jewels which could communicate with each other and did not dare to, which could co-operate with each other and scorned to?
And what—he let himself smile—what would humans do when they had to fight the alien? When they were up against an enemy which would make an advance and then scorn to consolidate it—and then make a different
kind
of advance, in a different way, in another place?
He sank into an esoteric reverie, marshaling his crystallines against teeming, stupid mankind; losing, in his thoughts, the pointless perturbations of a girl in a search for a child long missing, for some petty gainful reason of her own.
“Hey—Maneater.”
“Damn
it! What now?”
The door opened diffidently. “Maneater, there’s—”
“Come in, Havana, and speak up. I don’t like mumblers.”
Havana edged in, after setting his cigar down on the step. “There’s a man outside wants to see you.”
Monetre glowered over his shoulder. “Your hair’s getting gray. What’s left of it. Dye it.”
“Okay, okay. Right away, this afternoon. I’m sorry.” He shifted his feet miserably. “About this man—”
“I’ve had my quota for today,” said Monetre. “Useless people wanting impossible things of no importance. Did you see that girl go out of here?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. So did this guy. See, he was waiting to see you. He asked Johnward where he could find you, and—”
“I think I’ll fire Johnward. He’s an advance man, not an usher. What business has he, bringing people to annoy me?”
“I guess he thought you ought to see this one. A big-shot,” said Havana timidly. “So when he got your trailer, he asked me were you busy. I told him yes, you were talking to someone. He said he’d wait. About then the door opens, and that girl comes out. She puts a hand on the side and turns back to say something to you, and this guy, this big-shot, he blows a fuse. No kidding, Maneater, I never seen anything like it. He grabs my shoulder. I’ll have a bruise there for a week. He says, ‘It’s her! It’s her!’ and I says ‘Who?’ and he says, ‘She mustn’t see me! She’s a devil! She cut those fingers off, and they’ve grown back again!’”
Monetre sat bolt upright and turned in his swivel chair to face the midget. “Go on, Havana,” he said in his gentle voice.
“Well, that’s all. ’Cept he ducked back behind Gogol’s bally-platform and hunkered down out of sight, and peeped out at that girl as she walked past him. She never saw him.”
“Where is he now?”
Havana glanced through the door. “Still right there. Looks pretty bad. I think he’s having some kind of a fit.”
Monetre left his chair and shot through the door, leaving it completely up to Havana whether he got out of the way or not. The midget leaped to the side, out of Monetre’s direct path, but not far enough to avoid the bony edge of Monetre’s pelvis, which glanced stunningly off Havana’s pudgy cheekbone.
Monetre bounded to the side of the man who cowered down behind the bally platform. He knelt and placed a sure hand on the man’s forehead, which was clammy and cold.
“It’s all right now, sir,” he said in a deep, soothing voice. “You’ll be perfectly safe with me.” He urged the idea “safe,” because, whatever the cause might be, the man was sodden, trembling, all but ecstatic with fear. Monetre asked no questions, but kept crooning, “You’re in good hands now, sir. Quite safe. Nothing can happen now. Come along; we’ll have a drink. You’ll be all right.”
The man’s watery eyes fixed themselves on him, slowly. Awareness crept into them, and a certain embarrassment. He said, “Hm. Uh—slight attack of—hm… vertigo, you know. Sorry to be… hm.”
Monetre courteously helped him up, picked up a brown homburg and dusted it off. “My office is just there. Do come in and sit down.”
Monetre kept a firm hand on the man’s elbow, led him to the trailer, handed him up the two steps, reached past him and opened the door. “Would you like to lie down for a few minutes?”
“No, no. Thank you; you’re very kind.”
“Sit here, then. I think you’ll find it comfortable. I’ll get you something that will make you feel better.” He fingered a simple combination latch, chose a bottle of tawny port. From a desk drawer he took a small phial and put two drops of liquid into a glass, filling it with the wine. “Drink this. It will make you feel better. A little sodium amytal—just enough to quiet your nerves.”
“Thank you, thank—” He drank it greedily, “—you. Are you Mr. Monetre?”
“At your service.”
“I am Judge Bluett. Surrogate, you know. Hm.”
“I am honored.”
“Not at all, not at all. I am the one who… I drove fifty miles to see you, sir, and would gladly have done twice that. You have a wide reputation.”
“I hadn’t realized it,” said Monetre, and thought, this deflated creature is as insincere as I am. “What can I do for you?”
“Hm. Well, now. Matter of—ah—scientific interest. I read about you in a magazine, you know. Said you know more about fr—ah, strange people, and things like that, than anyone alive.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Monetre. “I have worked with them for a great many years, of course. What was it you wanted to know?”
“Oh… the kind of thing you can’t get out of reference books. Or ask any so-called scientist, for that matter; they just laugh at things that aren’t in some book, somewhere.”
“I have experienced that, Judge. I do not laugh readily.”
“Splendid. Then I shall ask you. Namely, do you know anything about—ah—regeneration?”