Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
"But you don't want to hear all this. He--he made love to me, and I
repulsed him. There was a scene with Father, and Father had our
lackeys throw him out. That was a year ago. He cursed horribly. He
vowed then that some day he--he would have me; and get revenge on
Father. But he has kept away. I have not seen him for a twelvemonth."
* * * * *
We were silent. I chanced to glance at Alten, and a strange look was
on his face.
He said abruptly, "What is this cripple's name, Mistress Mary?"
"Tugh. He is known to all the city as Tugh. Just that. I never heard
any Christian name."
Alten rose sharply to his feet. "A cripple named Tugh?"
"Yes," she affirmed wonderingly. "Does it mean anything to you?"
Alten swung on me. "What is the number of that house on Patton Place?
Did you happen to notice?"
I had, and wondering I told him.
"Just a minute," he said. "I want to use the phone."
He came back to us in a moment: his face was very solemn. "That house
on Patton Place is owned by a man named Tugh! I just called a reporter
friend; he remembers a certain case: he confirmed what I thought.
Mistress Mary, did this Tugh in your Time ever consult doctors, trying
to have his crippled body made whole?"
"Why, of course he did. I have heard that many times. But his
crippled, deformed body cannot be cured."
Alten checked Larry and me when we would have broken in with
astonished questions. He said:
"Don't ask me what it means; I don't know. But I think that this
cripple--this Tugh--has lived both in 1777 and 1935, and is traveling
between them in this Time-traveling cage. And perhaps he is the human
master of that Robot."
Alten made a vehement gesture. "But we'd better not theorize; it's too
fantastic. Here is the story of Tugh in our Time. He came to me some
three years ago; in 1932, I think. He offered any price if I could
cure his crippled body. All the New York medical fraternity knew him.
He seemed sane, but obsessed with the idea that he must have a body
like other men. Like Faust, who, as an old man, paid the price of his
soul to become youthful, he wanted to have the beautiful body of a
young man."
Alten was speaking vehemently. My thoughts ran ahead of his words; I
could imagine with grewsome fancy so many things. A cripple, traveling
to different ages seeking to be cured. Desiring a different body....
* * * * *
Alten was saying, "This fellow Tugh lived alone in that house on
Patton Place. He was all you say of him, Mistress Mary. Hideously
repulsive. A sinister personality. About thirty years old.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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