The Stutterer Part 2

"h.e.l.lo," the boy said. "I've been walking behind you most of a mile, but I guess you didn't hear me."

"It looks as though you've been p-p-picking raspberries," Hall said.

"Yup. My dad owns a patch by the river. Want some?" He proffered the basket.

"No, thank you," Hall answered. He resumed his walk up the highway with the boy at his side.

"D-do you live around here," he asked.

"Just up the road a ways." The lad studied his companion for a minute.

"You stutter, don't you?"

"A little."

"There was a boy in my cla.s.s who used to stutter. The teacher said it was because he thought so far ahead of what he said he got all tangled up." The boy reached in his basket for a handful of berries and chewed them thoughtfully. "She was always after him to talk slower, but I guess it didn't do any good. He still stutters."

"Is there a p-power plant around here?" Hall asked. "You know, where the electricity comes from."

"You mean the place where they have the nu-nuclear fission"--the boy stumbled on the unfamiliar word, but got it out--"and they don't let you in because you get poisoned or something?"

"Yes, I think that's it."

"There are two places. There's one over at Red Mountain and another over at Ballarat."

"Where are they?"

"Well--" The boy stopped to think. "Red Mountain's straight ahead, maybe ten miles, and Ballarat's over there"--he pointed west across the orange groves--"maybe fifteen miles."

"Good," Hall said. "Good." And he felt glad inside of himself. Maybe it could be done, he thought.

They walked along together. Hall sometimes listening to the chattering of the boy beside him, sometimes listening to and answering the distant voices of the seventeen. Abruptly, a few hundred yards before the house that the boy had pointed out as his father's, a small sports car whipped down the highway, coming on them almost without warning. The lad jumped sideways, and Hall, to avoid touching him, stepped off the concrete road. His leg sank into the earth up to the mid-calf. He pulled it out as quickly as he could.

The boy was looking at the fast retreating rear of the sports car.

"Gee," he said. "I sure didn't see them coming." Then he caught sight of the deep hole alongside the road, and he stared at it. "Gosh, you sure made a footprint there," he said wonderingly.

"The ground was soft," Hall said. "C-come along."

But instead of following, the boy walked over to the edge of the road and stared into the hole. He tentatively stamped on the earth around it.

"This ground isn't soft," he said. "It's hard as a rock." He turned and looked at Hall with big eyes.

Hall came close to the boy and took hold of his jacket. "D-don't pay any attention to it, son. I just stepped into a soft spot."

The boy tried to pull away. "I know who you are," he said. "I heard about you on the teledepth."

Suddenly, in the way of children, panic engulfed him and he flung his basket away and threw himself back and forth, trying to tear free. "Let me go," he screamed. "Let me go. Let me go."

"Just l-listen to me, son," Hall pleaded. "Just listen to me. I won't hurt you."

But the boy was beyond reasoning. Terror stricken, he screamed at the top of his voice, using all his little strength to escape.

"If you p-promise to l-listen to me, I'll let you go," Hall said.

"I promise," the boy sobbed, still struggling.

But the moment Hall let go of his coat, he tore away and ran as fast as he could over the adjacent field.

"W-wait--don't run away," Hall shouted. "I won't hurt you. Stay where you are. I couldn't follow you anyway. I'd sink to my hips."

The logic of the last sentence appealed to the frightened lad. He hesitated and then stopped and turned around, a hundred feet or so from the highway.

"L-listen," said Hall earnestly. "The teledepths are wr-wrong. They d-didn't tell you the t-truth about us. I d-don't want to hurt anyone.

All I n-need is a few hours. D-don't tell anyone for j-just a few hours and it'll be all right." He paused because he didn't know what to say next.

The boy, now that he seemed secure from danger had recovered his wits.

He plucked a blade of gra.s.s from the ground and chewed on an end of it, looking for all the world like a grownup farmer thoughtfully considering his fields. "Well, I guess you could have hurt me plenty, but you didn't," he said. "That's something."

"Just a few hours," Hall said. "It won't take long. Y-you can tell your father tonight."

The boy suddenly remembered his raspberries when he saw his basket and its spilled contents on the highway.

"Why don't you go along a bit," he said. "I would like to pick up those berries I dropped."

"Remember," Hall said, "just a few hours." He turned and started walking again toward Red Mountain. Inside his mind, the seventeen asked anxiously, "Do you think he'll give the alarm? Will he report your presence?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Back on the highway, the boy was gathering the berries back into his basket while he tried to make his mind up.

Jordan reached Earth atmosphere about two o'clock in the afternoon. He immediately reported in to the Terrestrial police force, and via the teledepth screen spoke with a bored lieutenant. The lieutenant, after listening to Jordan's account of his mission, a.s.sured him without any particular enthusiasm of the willingness of the Terrestrial forces to cooperate, and of more value, gave him the location of all licensed sources of radiation in the western hemisphere.

The galactic agent set eagerly to work, and in the next several hours uncovered two unlisted radiation sources, both of which he promptly investigated. In one case, north of Eugene, he found in the backyard of a metal die company a small atomic pile. The owner was using it as an illegal generator of electricity, and when he saw Jordan snooping about with his detection instruments, he immediately offered the agent a sizable bribe. It was a grave mistake since Jordan filed charges against him, via teledepth, not only for evading taxes, but also for attempted bribery.

The second strike seemed more hopeful. He picked up strong radiation in a rather barren area of Montana; however when he landed, he found that it was arising from the earth itself. From a short conversation with the local authorities, he learned that the phenomenon was well known: an atomic fission plant had been destroyed at that site during the Third World War.

He was flying over the lovely blue water of Lake Bonneville, when his teledepth screen flickered. He flipped the switch on and the lieutenant's picture flooded in.

"I have a call I think you ought to take," the Earth official said. "It seems as though it might be in your line. It's from a sheriff in a small town in California. I'll have the operator plug him in."

Abruptly the picture switched to that of a stout red-faced man wearing the brown uniform of a county peace officer.

"You're the galactic man?" the sheriff asked.