Theodore Sturgeon - More Than Human

Hip came forward running, starting with such a furious leap that his toes barely touched the floor in the first three paces. His fist was clenched until pain ran up his forearm and in his arm and shoulders was the residual fury of seven obsessive years. His fist sank into the taut solar plexus and Thompson went down soundlessly. So did the Negro but she rolled clear and bounced lithely to her feet. She ran to him, grinning like the moon, squeezed his biceps affectionately, patted his cheek and gabbled.

‘And I thank you! ’ he panted. He turned. Another dark girl, just as sinewy and just as naked, supported Janie who was sagging weakly. ‘Janie!’ he roared. ‘Bonnie, Beanie, whoever you are—did she…’

The girl holding her gabbled. Janie raised her eyes. They were deeply puzzled as she watched him come. They strayed from his face to Gerry Thompson’s still figure. And suddenly she smiled.

The girl with her, still gabbling, reached and caught his sleeve. She pointed to the floor. The cylinder lay smashed under their feet. A slight stain of moisture disappeared as he watched. ‘Did I?’ repeated Janie. ‘I never had a chance, once this butterfly landed on me.’ She sobered, stood up, came into his arms. ‘Gerry… is he…’

‘I don’t think I killed him,’ said Hip and added, ‘yet.’

‘I can’t tell you to kill him,’ Janie whispered.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I know.’

She said, ‘It’s the first time the twins ever touched him. It was very brave. He could have burned out their brains in a second.’

‘They’re wonderful. Bonnie!’

‘Ho.’

‘Get me a knife. A sharp one with a blade at least so long. And a strip of black cloth, so-by-so.’

Bonnie looked at Janie. Janie said, ‘What—‘

He put his hand on her mouth. Her mouth was very soft. ‘Sh.’

Janie said, panicked, ‘Bonnie, don’t—‘

Bonnie disappeared. Hip said, ‘Leave me alone with him for a while.’

Janie opened her mouth to speak then turned and fled through the door. Beanie vanished.

Hip walked over to the prone figure and stood looking down at it. He did not think. He had his thought; all he had to do was hold it there.

Bonnie came through the door. She held a length of black velvet and a dagger with an eleven-inch blade. Her eyes were very big and her mouth was very small.

‘Thanks, Bonnie.’ He took them. The knife was beautiful. Finnish, with an edge he could have shaved with, and a point drawn down almost to invisibility. ‘Beat it, Bonnie!’

She left—blip!—like a squirted appleseed. Hip put the knife and the cloth down on a table and dragged Thompson to a chair. He gazed about him, found a bell-pull and tore it down. He did not mind if a bell rang somewhere; he was rather sure he would not be interrupted. He tied Thompson’s elbows and ankles to the chair, tipped the head back and made the blindfold.

He drew up another chair and sat close. He moved his knife hand gently, not quite tossing it, just feeling the scend of its superb balance in his palm. He waited.

And while he was waiting he took his thought, all of it, and placed it like a patterned drape across the entrance to his mind. He hung it fairly, attended to its folds and saw with meticulous care that it reached quite to the bottom, quite to the top, and that there were no gaps at the sides.

The pattern read:

Listen to me, orphan boy, I am a hated boy too. You were persecuted; so was I.

Listen to me, cave boy. You found a place to belong and you learned to be happy in it. So did I.

Listen to me, Miss Kew’s boy. You lost yourself for years until you went back and learned again. So did I.

Listen to me, Gestalt boy. You found power within you beyond your wildest dreams and you used it and loved it. So did I.

Listen to me, Gerry. You discovered that no matter how great your power, nobody wanted it. So did I.

You want to be wanted. You want to be needed. So do I.

Janie says you need morals. Do you know what morals are? Morals are an obedience to rules that people laid down to help you live among them.

You don’t need morals. No set of morals can apply to you. You can obey no rules set down by your kind because there are no more of your kind. And you are not an ordinary man, so the morals of ordinary men would do you no better than the morals of an anthill would do me.

So nobody wants you and you are a monster.

Nobody wanted me when I was a monster.

But Gerry, there is another kind of code for you. It is a code which requires belief rather than obedience. It is called ethos.

The ethos will give you a code for survival too. But it is a greater survival than your own, or my species, or yours. What it is really is a reverence for your sources and your posterity. It is a study of the main current which created you, and in which you will create still a greater thing when the time comes.

Help humanity, Gerry, for it is your mother and your father now; you never had them before. And humanity will help you for it will produce more like you and then you will no longer be alone. Help them as they grow; help them to help humanity and gain still more of your own kind. For you are immortal, Gerry. You are immortal now.

And when there are enough of your kind, your ethics will be their morals. And when their morals no longer suit their species, you or another ethical being will create new ones that vault still farther up the main stream, reverencing you, reverencing those who bore you and the ones who bore them, back and back to the first wild creature who was different because his heart leapt when he saw a star.

I was a monster and I found this ethos. You are a monster. It’s up to you.

Gerry stirred.

Hip Barrows stopped tossing the knife and held it still.

Gerry moaned and coughed weakly. Hip pulled the limp head back, cupped it in the palm of his left hand. He set the point of the knife exactly on the centre of Gerry’s larynx.

Gerry mumbled inaudibly. Hip said, ‘Sit quite still, Gerry.’ He pressed gently on the knife. It went in deeper than he wanted it to. It was a beautiful knife. He said, ‘That’s a knife at your throat. This is Hip Barrows. Now sit still and think about that for a while.’

Gerry’s lips smiled but it was because of the tension at the sides of his neck. His breath whistled through the not-smile.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘What would you do?’

‘Take this thing off my eyes. I can’t see.’

‘You see all you need to.’

‘Barrows. Turn me loose. I won’t do anything to you. I promise. I can do a lot for you, Barrows. I can do anything you want.’

‘It is a moral act to kill a monster,’ said Hip. ‘Tell me something, Gerry. Is it true you can snatch out the whole of a man’s thought just by meeting his eyes?’

‘Let me go. Let me go,’ Gerry whispered.

With the knife at the monster’s throat, with this great house which could be his, with a girl waiting, a girl whose anguish for him he could breathe like ozoned air, Hip Barrows prepared his ethical act.

When the blindfold fell away there was amazement in the strange round eyes, enough and more than enough to drive away hate. Hip dangled the knife. He arranged his thought, side to side, top to bottom. He threw the knife behind him. It clattered on the tiles. The startled eyes followed it, whipped back. The irises were about to spin…

Hip bent close. ‘Go ahead,’ he said softly.

After a long time, Gerry raised his head and met Hip’s eyes again.

Hip said, ‘Hi.’

Gerry looked at him weakly. ‘Get the hell out of here,’ he croaked.

Hip sat still.

‘I could’ve killed you,’ said Gerry. He opened his eyes a little wider. ‘I still could.’