Lorry was cold, sick, mute.
"Very stupid. These hands are too fragile. There are no muscles in the
arms. I couldn't have killed you."
"Please--I ..."
"Dreaming? No. I'm surprised at--well, at your surprise. You have a
trained mind. You should have learned, long ago, to trust your senses."
"I don't understand."
"Don't look at the doorway. Nobody's coming in. Look at me. Give me a
little attention and I'll explain."
"Explain?" Lorry pulled her eyes down to the cherubic little face as she
parroted dully.
"I'll begin by reminding you that there are more things in existence
than your obscene medical books tell you about."
"Who are you? What are you?"
"One of those things."
"You're not a baby!"
"Of course not. I'm ..." The beastly, brittle voice drifted into silence
as though halted by an intruding thought. Then the thought voiced--voiced
with a yearning at once pathetic and terrible: "It would be nice to kill
you. Someday I will. Someday I'll kill you if I can find you."
"Why? Why?" Insane words in an insane world. But life had not stopped
even though madness had taken over. "Why?"
The voice was matter-of-fact again. No more time for pleasant daydreams.
"I'm something your books didn't tell you about. Naturally you're
bewildered. Did you ever hear of a bodyless entity?"
Lorry shuddered in silence.
"You've heard of bodyless entities, of course--but you denied their
existence in your smug world of precise tidy detail. I'm a bodyless
entity. I'm one of a swarm. We come from a dimension your mind wouldn't
accept even if I explained it, so I'll save words. We of the swarm seek
unfoldment--fulfillment--even as you in your stupid, blind world. Do you
want to hear more?"
"I ..."
"You're a fool, but I enjoy practicing with these new vocal chords, just
as I enjoyed flexing the fingers and muscles. That's why I revealed
myself. We are, basically of course, parasites. In the dimension where
we exist in profusion, evolution has provided for us. There, we seek out
and move into a dimensional entity far more intelligent than yourself.
We destroy it in a way you wouldn't understand, and it is not important
that you should. In fact, I can't see what importance there is in your
existing at all."
"You plan to--kill all these babies?"
"Let me congratulate you. You've finally managed to voice an intelligent
question. The answer is, no. We aren't strong enough to kill them. We
dwelt in a far more delicate dimension than this one and all was in
proportion. That was our difficulty when we came here. We could find no
entities weak enough to take possession of until we came upon this
roomful of infants."
"Then, if you're helpless ..."
"What do we plan to do? That's quite simple. These material entities
will grow. We will remain attached--ingrained, so to speak. When the
bodies enlarge sufficiently ..."
"_Thirty potential assassins...._" Lorry spoke again to herself, then
hurled the words back into her own mind as her sickness deepened.
The shrill chirping: "What do you mean, potential? The word expresses a
doubt. Here there is none." The entity's chuckle sounded like a baby,
content over a full bottle. "Thirty certain assassins."
"But why must you kill?"
Lorry was sure the tiny shoulders shrugged. "Why? I don't know. I never
thought to wonder. Why must you join with a man and propagate some day?
Why do you feel sorry for what you term an unfortunate? Explain your
instincts and I'll explain mine."
Lorry felt herself rising. Stiffly, she put Baby Newcomb back into his
basket. As she did so, a ripple of shrill, jerky laughter crackled
through the room. Lorry put her hands to her ears. "You know I can't say
anything. You'd keep quiet. They'd call me mad."
"Precisely."
Malicious laughter, like driven sleet, cut into her ears as she fled
from the room.
* * * * *
Peter Larchmont, M.D., was smoking a quick cigarette by an open
fire-escape door on the third floor. He turned as Lorry came down the
corridor, flipped his cigarette down into the alley and grinned. "Women
shouldn't float on rubber heels," he said. "A man should have warning."