Sordman the Protector by Tom Purdom (classic books for 7th graders TXT) 📖

off the vator and looked around for the coffee house. Dozens of people wandered the halls and the shops. As he walked down the hall, some of them looked away or got as far from him as they could. Others ignored him or found his presence reassuring or studied him curiously.

A fat woman in a black kimono walked toward him. She had one hand on her hip and her eyes were narrowed and hard. Sordman smiled. He felt her fear and distrust, and her determination not to let such emotions conquer her.

"Good afternoon, Protector."

"Good afternoon, Citizen Mother."

He felt her triumph and her pleasure with herself.

His fellow humans often made him gawk in wonder. Some people say we're psychic cripples, he thought. And maybe we are. But we do our work and we enjoy ourselves. And we do dangerous things like putting bases on Venus and falling in love. Surrounded by death and danger, crippled though we are, we go on.

He swelled with feeling. People smiled and glanced at each other or hid shyly from the organ chords of his emotion.

An old man stepped in front of him.

"Monster! Freak!"

He was thin and perfectly dressed. Sordman stopped. God of Infinite Compassion, this is my brother....

"They ought to lock you up," the man said. "They ought to keep you away from decent people. Get out of my head! Leave me alone!"

People stared at them. A small crowd gathered. Lee appeared in the door of the coffee house.

"It's all right," Sordman told the people. "It's all right." He started to go on.

The man stepped in front of him. "Leave me alone, freak. Let me think my own thoughts!"

"Citizen, I haven't touched your mind."

"I felt it just then!"

"It was no more than I could help. I'm sorry if I've hurt you."

"Go away!"

"I'm trying to."

"Murderer! Mind witch!"

He was faced with a strong mind that valued its independence. Anything he did would be detected and resented.

"Citizens," he said, "this man deserves your respect. No matter what a man does, he's bound to offend someone. This Citizen values his privacy—which is good—and therefore I make him angry. I hope the good my Talent lets me do outweighs the bad. Forgive me, brother."

He stepped to one side. "Leave him alone," someone said. "Let the Protector work."

"Leave him alone, old man."

"I'm not an old man."

"No, you're not," Sordman said. "I admire your courage." He walked on. Behind him the old man shouted curses.

"Are you all right?" Lee said.

"Sure. Let's go in and sit down."

There were just a few people in the coffee house. Sordman ordered and told them what he had learned.

"I wish you could probe everyone in the building," George said. "All we get is gossip."

"The husband of this Raven English has a motive," Lee said. "Why don't we visit her?"

"I think we should." Sordman drank his coffee. "Citizen English herself might have killed them."

"I doubt it," George said.

"It all sounds like a lot of talk," Sordman said. "But we have to follow it up. This business is nothing but wearing out your legs running after every lead. If your legs are strong, you can run anybody down."

They finished their coffee and cigarettes and trudged out.

Raven English, one-year wife of Leonard Smith, did not meet them at the door with gracious bows. Instead, a wall panel by the door shot back. They stared at a square of one way glass.

"Who are you?" a girl's voice said.

"I'm Andrew Sordman, your Protector. I come on lawful business. May we enter?"

"No."

"Why not?" Lee asked.

"Because I don't like witches. Keep out."

"We're hunting the killer," Sordman said. "We're on your side. I've taken no drugs and made no preparations. You don't have to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid. I just don't want you in my home."

"You have to let us in," Lee said. "Our warrant gives us entry into every room in this hotel. If we have to break the door down, we can."

"I hope we don't have to break the door down."

"You're getting fat," George said. "You need the exercise."

"You won't break in," the girl said.

Sordman crossed the hall to get a good start. "I'm about to, Mylady." His shoulder filled the doorway behind him. This looks like fun, he thought. He liked to feel his body working.

The door opened. A dark-haired, slender girl stood in the doorway. Her skin was brown and her lips were pink, unpainted flesh. She wore a red kimono.

"All right. Come in."

"Gladly," Sordman said.

It was a three-room apartment, with the kitchen tucked into one wall of the parlor. A painting stood on an easel by the window. The window was a shoulder-high slit and from it, here on the hundred and forty-first floor, he could see across the park to the beach and the rolling Atlantic.

God grant me self-control, he thought. If this is the killer, grant me self-control. He made his savage thoughts lie down and purred at the world.

"I'm sorry we have to force our way in," he said. "And I'm sorry you don't approve of Talent. But please remember two men have died and a little girl may die, too. There are lots of panicky people in the Mark Twain. We've got to find the killer soon and you can help us."

"Why bother me?" the girl said.

"This is awkward," Lee said. She stood erect but looked past the girl. She felt embarrassed. "Someone told us you and Bedler were seeing each other."

"Oh, quit being prudish," George said. "These things happen all the time." He turned to the girl. "We were told you and Joe Bedler were making plans to get married when your present contract ends."

"That's a lie!"

Sordman laughed in his belly. No matter what the rules were, few women publicly admitted they had broken them. By the standards of the period from 1800 to 1990, the whole marriage system of the Twenty-First Century was immoral; but there were still prudes. And women still preserved the conventions.

"Who told you that?" Raven English said. She frowned. "Was it that Jackie Baker?"

"Why her?" George asked.

"Because she's a logical person for you to talk to and because it's the kind of thing she'd say."

"Yes," Sordman said.

"She ought to see a psycher! And that's why you came?"

"We're not accusing you," Sordman said. "But we've got to follow every lead."

The girl swore. "Why would I kill Joe? Why are you all suspicious? That's why I hate Talents! All you've done is make everyone suspicious. Everybody's afraid of everybody else."

"Are you an artist?" Sordman asked.

"What?"

"Are you an artist?"

"What's that got to do with it? No, I'm not. My husband paints."

He felt her stall and evade. She would grab at any subject to distract them. He decided he would let his mind probe at random.

"Is he a professional painter?" Lee asked.

"No, he's an engineer. They wouldn't let him go to art school. He's trying to teach himself." She shrugged and ogled the ceiling.

Her emotions said, Men are like that.

"What does your husband think of Talent?" Sordman asked. "Does he share your prejudice?"

"Didn't you meet Len?"

"Where?" He stroked his beard. "Is he the Len downstairs in the beer hall?"

"Of course!"

"I'm afraid I didn't make the connection."

He felt two other minds run like hounds down the same trail.

Lee studied the painting. "Why does your husband hate Talent?"

"Is this a survey?"

Lee grinned. "I'm the lobbyist for the Guggenheim Foundation. Asking that kind of question is a reflex."

The girl walked around the room. She looked out the window and stretched. Sordman bellowed lust at her flanks and the long curve of her hips.

"Why do men do anything?" Raven yawned. "When he was in Voc school some kid took him in the back room and showed him some tricks. Maybe that did it. Is there a psycher in the house?"

"There is," George said. "Is Citizen Smith an astronautical engineer?"

"You could say so. He works on instruments for space labs."

"That's funny." George stared at the sun flashing on the far-off ocean. "I remember I felt bitter once because I couldn't be a space engineer. I wanted to build rockets and ride to the planets. But the Voc people told me I was too weak in math. So I became a healer of the psyche and I learned my love for rockets was a hunger for power. But still I love the brutes and now I'm an old man I still sometimes wish I'd been an engineer."

"That's too bad," the girl said politely.

"Yes. I suppose your husband feels that way about art?"

"He gets drunk about it sometimes."

"Double motive!" Sordman said.

"One conscious," George said, "plain jealousy. The other half-conscious—resentment. Nobody kills at random. There's always a reason why he took these lives instead of others."

"Plus a lot of self-pity," Lee said, "and I think his wife despises him."

"What are you talking about?" Raven said. "What did you say about me?"

"We think we've got a suspect," Sordman said.

"I didn't do it!"

"I'm going to probe your husband."

"My husband hates Talent."

"We have to hurry," Sordman said. "If your husband's innocent, I'm sorry. We're not saying he's guilty. But I have to examine him."

At the door he paused and thought, God of Infinite Compassion.... The girl sat down and stared at the wall.

Many drugs activate the psi powers. The commonest, available in any drug store, is a pill of codeine and half a dried peyote bean. Leonard Smith had both in his pocket when he ran out the side door of the beer hall.