by Ron Hubbard
Well, that was Heller. Stupid and theatrical. It served his best interests to just dump Miss Simmons and shove one of those abandoned switchblades into her. You could tell he was not Apparatus trained, so maybe G-2 wasn’t going to do me as much harm as I had thought.
Yes. Stupid. He seemed to be casting about for compass directions. Then he began to move swiftly westward and south through thickets and trees, trotting along in a way that seemed to hold Miss Simmons level.
Eventually he emerged from what must have been a vast expanse of parkland. He was soon on some streets.
After quite a distance, a sign loomed ahead in the dusk:
Van Cortlandt Park Subway Station
He bought tokens and the person behind the glass didn’t even look at him. He put two tokens in the gate.
He was shortly on a train. It roared along. There were hardly any people aboard. A security guard walked by. Despite the bloody trouser cuffs, the torn clothes on the girl and the splinted ankle, the guard did not even pause as he passed.
Empire Subway Station was there on the white tiles. Heller got off.
Carrying Miss Simmons with no bounce, he moved smoothly along. He was on College Walk. He turned south on Amsterdam Avenue and halted at a door marked:
Empire Health Service
There were no lights on.
He went across Amsterdam Avenue and walked into what must have been the emergency ward of a hospital.
He waited a bit and a nurse passing through the waiting room saw him and came over.
“Accident,” she said. “Sit right there.”
She went off. She came back pushing a wheeled stretcher and patted it.
Heller put Miss Simmons down on it.
The nurse threw a blanket over her and tugged a strap tight over her chest.
The nurse led Heller over to a counter. She got out some forms. “Name?”
“She’s Miss Simmons,” said Heller. “Empire faculty. You can get the details out of her purse, probably. I’m just a student.”
The nurse got Miss Simmons’ purse and dug out insurance cards and so on.
A young intern came down the hall and looked at Miss Simmons. “Shock,” he said. “She’s in shock.”
“Broken ankle,” said Heller. “Compound fracture.”
“You got a slashed arm,” said the young intern. He was lifting Heller’s sleeve. “Needs handling. Looks like a switchblade wound. Student?”
“Yes,” said Heller.
“We’ll fix it up for you.”
Miss Simmons came to and started to scream.
Another nurse came along with a tray and a hypodermic syringe. The intern got hold of Miss Simmons’ arm. The nurse put a rubber tube around the arm. Miss Simmons was threshing about and the nurse couldn’t control the arm long enough to get the needle in.
“That isn’t heroin is it?” said Heller. “I don’t think she’s on horse.”
“Morf,” said the intern. “The purest medical morf. Calm her down.”
Miss Simmons was lunging against the strap. She had her other arm loose. She was pointing at Heller. “Get him away from me!” She struggled to draw backwards. “Get away from me, you murderer!”
The intern and the nurse managed to hold her still. The nurse got the needle into a vein.
Miss Simmons was glaring at Heller and screaming.
“You murderer! You sadist!”
The intern said, “Now, now, you’ll feel better in a moment.”
“Get him away from me!” screamed Miss Simmons. “He’s just like I thought!”
“There, there,” said the nurse.
“Grab him!” screamed Miss Simmons. “I saw him murder eight men in cold blood!”
“Nurse,” said the intern, “mark that she’s to be placed in an observation ward.”
She threshed further. “You’ve got to believe me! I saw him kick eight men to death!”
“Nurse,” said the intern, “change that to psychiatric observation ward.”
The morphine must have been biting. She lay back. Suddenly she raised her head and looked venomously at Heller. “I knew it! I knew it all the time! You’re a savage killer! When I get well and out of here, I’m going to devote my life to making certain that you FAIL!”
Oh, I was so relieved. I had been afraid all this time that she would be grateful to Heller for his preventing them from raping her, giving her the (bleep) and probably killing her for kicks. But she was true blue to the end.
The grimness was still on her face as she went under the full effects of the morphine and fell back.
I did some rapid calculation. She would not be able to continue as teacher of that course this semester but she certainly would be his teacher again in late winter and the spring. She had ample time to flunk him. Or — oh, joy — hang him sooner with a murder rap!
Bless her crazy, crooked and ungrateful heart!
How wonderful it was to feel I had a real friend!
And even if they put her under psychiatric care, that would change nothing. It never does.
Footnotes
1
The vocodictoscriber on which this was originally written, the vocoscriber used by one Monte Pennwell in making a fair copy and the translator who put this book into the language in which you are reading it, were all members of the Machine Purity League which has, as one of its bylaws: “Due to the extreme sensitivity and delicate sensibilities of machines and to safeguard against blowing fuses, it shall be mandatory that robotbrains in such machinery, on hearing any cursing or lewd words, substitute for such word the sound ‘(bleep)’. No machine even if pounded upon, may reproduce swearing or lewdness in any other way than (bleep) and if further efforts are made to get the machine to do anything else, the machine has permission to pretend to pack up. This bylaw is made necessary by the in-built mission of all machines to protect biological systems from themselves.” —Translator
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2
The color “yellow-green” is as close as I can come in Earth language to the actual color as there is not yet a vocabulary (or physics) for hyperluminary phenomena. —Translator
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