Read Online Baby Is Three by Theodore Sturgeon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Theodore Sturgeon
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minute and you’ll know that.”
“Look, Flower was just out of sorts. I’ll work on her. Next time you come there’ll be a real difference. You’ll see.”
“I’m sure I will, Jud. But drop it, will you? There’s no harm done.” And I thought, next time I come will be six months after the Outbounders get back. That gives me sixty centuries or so to get case-hardened.
About a week after Jud’s wedding, I was in the Upper Central corridor where it ramps into the Gate passageway. Now whether it was some sixth sense, or whether I actually did smell something, I don’t know. I got a powerful, sourceless impression of methyl-caffeine in the air, and at the same time I looked down the passage and saw the Gate just closing.
I got down there altogether too fast to do my leaky valves any good. I palmed the doors open and sprinted across the court. When anything my size and shape gets to sprinting, it’s harder to stop it than let it keep going. One of the ship ports was open and I was heading for it. It started to swing closed. I lost all thought of trying to slow down and put what little energy I could find into pumping my old legs faster.
With a horrible slow-motion feeling of disaster, I felt one toe tip my other heel, and my center of gravity began to move forward faster than I was traveling. I was in mid-air for an age—long enough to chew and swallow a tongue—and then I hit on my stomach, rocked forward on my receding chest and two of my chins, and slid. I had my hands out in front of me. My left hit the bulkhead and buckled. My right shot through what was left of the opening of the door, which crunched shut on my forearm. Then my forehead hit the sill and I blacked out.
When the lights dimmed on again, I was spread out on a ship’s bunk, apparently alone. My left arm hurt more than I could bear, and my right arm hurt worse, and both of them together couldn’t match what was going on in my head.
A man appeared from the service cubicle when I let out a groan. He had a bowl of warm water and the ship’s B first-aid kit in his hands. He crossed quickly to me, and began to stanch the blood from between some of my chins. It wasn’t until then that my blurring sight made out who he was.
“Clinton, you hub-forted son of a bastich!” I roared at him. “Leave the chin alone and get some plexicaine into these arms!”
He had the gall to laugh at me. “One thing at a time, old man. You are bleeding. Let’s try to be a patient, not an impatient.”
“Impatient, out-patient,” I yelped, “get that plex into me! I am just not the strong, silent type!”
“Okay, okay.” He got the needle out of the kit, squirted it upward, and plunged it deftly into my arms. A good boy. He hit the biceps on one, the forearm on the other, and got just the right ganglia. The pain vanished. That left my head, but he fed me an analgesic and that cataclysmic ache began to recede.
“I’m afraid the left is broken,” he said. “As for the right—well, if I hadn’t seen that hand come crawling in over the sill like a pet puppy, and reversed the door control, I’d have cut your fingernails clear up to the elbow. What in time did you think you were doing?”
“I can’t remember; maybe I’ve got a concussion. For some reason or other it seemed I had to look inside the ship. Can you splint this arm?”
“Let’s call the medic.”
“You can do just as well.”
He went for the C kit and got a traction splint out. He whipped the prepared cushioning around the swelling arm, clamped the ends of the splint at the wrist and elbow, and played an infra-red lamp on it. In a few seconds the splint began to lengthen. When the broken forearm was a few millimeters longer than the other, he shut off the heat and the thermoplastic splint automatically set and snugged into the cushioning. Clinton threw off the clamps. “That’s good enough for now. All right, are you ready to tell me what made you get in my
“Look, Flower was just out of sorts. I’ll work on her. Next time you come there’ll be a real difference. You’ll see.”
“I’m sure I will, Jud. But drop it, will you? There’s no harm done.” And I thought, next time I come will be six months after the Outbounders get back. That gives me sixty centuries or so to get case-hardened.
About a week after Jud’s wedding, I was in the Upper Central corridor where it ramps into the Gate passageway. Now whether it was some sixth sense, or whether I actually did smell something, I don’t know. I got a powerful, sourceless impression of methyl-caffeine in the air, and at the same time I looked down the passage and saw the Gate just closing.
I got down there altogether too fast to do my leaky valves any good. I palmed the doors open and sprinted across the court. When anything my size and shape gets to sprinting, it’s harder to stop it than let it keep going. One of the ship ports was open and I was heading for it. It started to swing closed. I lost all thought of trying to slow down and put what little energy I could find into pumping my old legs faster.
With a horrible slow-motion feeling of disaster, I felt one toe tip my other heel, and my center of gravity began to move forward faster than I was traveling. I was in mid-air for an age—long enough to chew and swallow a tongue—and then I hit on my stomach, rocked forward on my receding chest and two of my chins, and slid. I had my hands out in front of me. My left hit the bulkhead and buckled. My right shot through what was left of the opening of the door, which crunched shut on my forearm. Then my forehead hit the sill and I blacked out.
When the lights dimmed on again, I was spread out on a ship’s bunk, apparently alone. My left arm hurt more than I could bear, and my right arm hurt worse, and both of them together couldn’t match what was going on in my head.
A man appeared from the service cubicle when I let out a groan. He had a bowl of warm water and the ship’s B first-aid kit in his hands. He crossed quickly to me, and began to stanch the blood from between some of my chins. It wasn’t until then that my blurring sight made out who he was.
“Clinton, you hub-forted son of a bastich!” I roared at him. “Leave the chin alone and get some plexicaine into these arms!”
He had the gall to laugh at me. “One thing at a time, old man. You are bleeding. Let’s try to be a patient, not an impatient.”
“Impatient, out-patient,” I yelped, “get that plex into me! I am just not the strong, silent type!”
“Okay, okay.” He got the needle out of the kit, squirted it upward, and plunged it deftly into my arms. A good boy. He hit the biceps on one, the forearm on the other, and got just the right ganglia. The pain vanished. That left my head, but he fed me an analgesic and that cataclysmic ache began to recede.
“I’m afraid the left is broken,” he said. “As for the right—well, if I hadn’t seen that hand come crawling in over the sill like a pet puppy, and reversed the door control, I’d have cut your fingernails clear up to the elbow. What in time did you think you were doing?”
“I can’t remember; maybe I’ve got a concussion. For some reason or other it seemed I had to look inside the ship. Can you splint this arm?”
“Let’s call the medic.”
“You can do just as well.”
He went for the C kit and got a traction splint out. He whipped the prepared cushioning around the swelling arm, clamped the ends of the splint at the wrist and elbow, and played an infra-red lamp on it. In a few seconds the splint began to lengthen. When the broken forearm was a few millimeters longer than the other, he shut off the heat and the thermoplastic splint automatically set and snugged into the cushioning. Clinton threw off the clamps. “That’s good enough for now. All right, are you ready to tell me what made you get in my
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