More Than Human

‘Just natural revulsion,’ he guessed. ‘How about this? You had a distaste for assuming a female ego, even for a second.’

‘You told me yourself, right at the beginning, that I didn’t have that kind of a problem.’

‘Well, how does this sound to you? You say you felt pain in that episode. So – you wouldn’t go back into it for fear of re-experiencing the pain.’

‘Let me think, let me think. Yeah, yeah, that’s part of it – that thing of going into someone’s mind. She opened up to me because I reminded her of Lone. I went in. I wasn’t ready; I’d never done it before, except maybe a little, against resistance. I went all the way in and it was too much; it frightened me away from trying it for years. And there it lay, wrapped up, locked away. But as I grew older, the power to do that with my mind got stronger and stronger, and still I was afraid to use it. And the more I grew, the more I felt, down deep, that Miss Kew had to be killed before she killed the… what I am. My God!’ I shouted. ‘Do you know what I am?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Like to tell me about it?’

‘I’d like to,’ I said. ‘Oh, yes, I’d like that.’

He had that professional open-minded expression on his face, not believing or disbelieving, just taking it all in. I had to tell him, and I suddenly realized that I didn’t have enough words. I knew the things, but not the names for them.

Lone took the meanings and threw the words away.

Further back: ‘ You read books. Read books for me.’

The look of his eyes. That – ‘opening up’ thing.

I went over to Stern. He looked up at me, I bent close. First he was startled, then he controlled it, then he came even closer to me.

‘My God,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t look at those eyes before. I could have sworn those irises spun like wheels…’

Stern read books. He’d read more books than I ever imagined had been written. I slipped in there, looking for what I wanted.

I can’t say exactly what it was like. It was like walking in a tunnel, and in this tunnel, all over the roof and walls, wooden arms stuck out at you, like the thing at the carnival, the merry-go-round, the thing you snatch the brass rings from. There’s a brass ring on the end of each of these arms, and you can take anyone of them you want to.

Now imagine you make up your mind which rings you want, and the arms hold only those. Now picture yourself with a thousand hands to grab the rings off with. Now just suppose the tunnel is a zillion miles long, and you can go from one end of it to the other, grabbing rings, in just the time it takes you to blink once. Well, it was like that, only easier.

It was easier for me to do than it had been for Lone.

Straightening up, I got away from Stern. He looked sick and frightened.

‘It’s all right,’ I said.

‘What did you do to me?’

‘I needed some words. Come on, come on. Get professional.’

I had to admire him. He put his pipe in his pocket and gouged the tips of his fingers hard against his forehead and cheeks. Then he sat up and he was okay again.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s how Miss Kew felt when Lone did it to her.’

‘What are you?’

‘I’ll tell you. I’m the central ganglion of a complex organism which is composed of Baby, a computer; Bonnie and Beanie, teleports; Janie, telekineticist; and myself, tele-path and central control. There isn’t a single thing about any of us that hasn’t been documented: the teleportation of the Yogi, the telekinetics of some gamblers, the idiosavant mathematicians, and most of all, the so-called poltergeist, the moving about of household goods through the instrumentation of a young girl. Only in this case every one of my parts delivers at peak performance.

‘Lone organized it, or it formed around him; it doesn’t matter which. I replaced Lone, but I was too underdeveloped when he died, and on top of that I got an occlusion from that blast from Miss Kew. To that extent you were right when you said the blast made me subconsciously afraid to discover what was in it. But there was another good reason for my not being able to get in under that „Baby is three” barrier.

‘We ran into the problem of what it was I valued more than the security Miss Kew gave us. Can’t you see now what it was? My gestalt organism was at the point of death from that security. I figured she had to be killed or it – I -would be. Oh, the parts would live on: two little coloured girls with a speech impediment, one introspective girl with an artistic bent, one mongoloid idiot, and me – ninety per cent short-circuited potentials and ten per cent juvenile delinquent.’ I laughed. ‘Sure,’ she had to be killed. It was self-preservation for the gestalt.’

Stern bobbled around with his mouth and finally got out: ‘I don’t – ’