The Stutterer | Page 5

studied his companion for a minute.
"You stutter, don't you?"
"A little."
"There was a boy in my class 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 grass 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?"
[Illustration]

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