More Than Human

She started to speak, stopped, bent her head. Down she bent, to hide her face on the bed.

He strode furiously up and down the room, then stood over her. His face softened. ‘Janie,’ he said, ‘help me…’

She lay very still. He knew she was listening. He said, ‘If there’s danger… if something is going to try to kill me… tell me what. At least let me know what to look for.’

She turned her head, faced the wall, so he could hear her but not see her. In a laboured voice she said, ‘I didn’t say anything will try to kill you. I said you would be killed.’

He stood over her for a long time. Then he growled. ‘All right. I will. Thanks for everything, Janie. You better go home.’

She crawled off the bed slowly, weakly, as if she had been flogged. She turned to him with such a look of pity and sorrow in her face that his heart was squeezed. But he set his jaw, looked towards the door, moved his head towards it.

She went, not looking back, dragging her feet. It was more than he could bear. But he let her go.

The bedspread was lightly rumpled. He crossed the room slowly and looked down at it. He put out his hand, then fell forward and plunged his face into it. It was still warm from her body and for an instant so brief as to be indefinable, he felt a thing about mingled breaths, two spellbound souls turning one to the other and about to be one. But then it was gone, everything was gone and he lay exhausted.

Go on, get sick. Curl up and die. ‘All right,’ he whispered.

Might as well. What’s the difference anyway? Die or get killed, who cares?

Not Janie.

He closed his eyes and saw a mouth. He thought it was Janie’s, but the chin was too pointed. The mouth said, ‘Just lie down and die, that’s all,’ and smiled. The smile made light glance off the thick glasses which must mean he was seeing the whole face. And then there was a pain so sharp and Swift that he threw up his head and grunted. His hand, his hand was cut. He looked down at it, saw the scars which had made the sudden, restimulative pain. ‘Thompson, I’m gonna kill that Thompson.’

Who was Thompson who was Bromfield who was the half-wit in the cave… cave, where is the cave where the children… children… no, it was children’s… where the children’s… clothes, that’s it! Clothes, old, torn, rags; but that’s how he…

Janie… You will be killed. Just lie down and die.

His eyeballs rolled up, his tensions left him in a creeping lethargy. It was not a good thing but it was more welcome than feeling. Someone said, ‘Up forty or better on your right quadrant, corp’r’l, or the pixies’ll degauss your fuses.’ Who said that?

He, Hip Barrows. He said it.

Who’d he say it to?

Janie with her clever hand on the ack-ack prototype.

He snorted faintly. Janie wasn’t a corporal,’ Reality isn’t the most pleasant of atmospheres, Lieutenant. But we like to think we’re engineered for it. It’s a pretty fine piece of engineering, the kind an engineer can respect. Drag in an obsession and reality can’t tolerate it. Something has to give; if reality goes, your fine piece of engineering is left with nothing to operate on. Nothing it was designed to operate on. So it operates badly. So kick the obsession out; start functioning the way you were designed to function.’

Who said that? Oh – Bromfield. The jerk! He should know better than to try to talk engineering to an engineer. ‘Cap’n Bromfield’ (tiredly, the twenty damn thousandth time), ‘if I wasn’t an engineer I wouldn’t’ve found it, I wouldn’t’ve recognized it, and I wouldn’t give a damn now.’ Ah, it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter. Just curl up and as long as Thompson don’t show his face. Just curl up and … ‘No, by God,’ roared Hip Barrows. He sprang off the bed, stood quaking in the middle of the room. He clapped his hands over his eyes and rocked like a storm-blown sapling. He might be all mixed up, Bromfield’s voice, Thompson’s face, a cave full of children’s clothes, Janie who wanted him killed; but there was one thing he was sure of, one thing he knew. Thompson wasn’t going to make him curl up and die. Janie had rid him of that one!

He whimpered as he rocked, ‘Janie…?’

Janie didn’t want him to die.

Janie didn’t want him killed; what’s the matter here? Janie just wants… go back. Take time.

He looked at the brightening window.

Take time? Why, maybe today he could get that address and see those children and find the half-wit and… well, find him anyway; that’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? Today. Then by God he’d show Bromfield who had an obsession!

If he lived, he’d show Bromfield.