Case and the Dreamer by Theodore Sturgeon Page A

fourth.
    Jan’s brassard?
    He took it gingerly and spread it out. Jan’s brassard. He made an animal cry and leaped for the clown-creature, but it skipped back out of the way. It stood there grinning at him, and, in a most humanlike way, waving him on.
    Slowly he followed it.
    It led him inland, making no particular effort to stay out of his reach—knowing, he realized, that he would not harm it as long as it might lead him to Jan’s body. He wondered if it knew the boat was protecting him, could drop a shield over him in a twentieth ofa second, scorch the ground around him for thirty meters, could flash to his side in a blink (for its drive was inertia-less), could even follow and find an escaping attacker, earth, sea, or sky.
    But he played it the clown’s way, toiling through the sand and rocks and into the forest, where in a small clearing, the clown-creature, grinning, began to dig.
    Case watched it until it stopped and looked up, grinning its stupid grin (under those bright eyes), and motioned for him to help.
    And he did, with his bare hands, shoulder to shoulder with this improbable creature, until curved white metal showed in the earth.
    And then he dug! There was, somehow, a glory in the pain of broken nails and aching muscles and rasping, labored breathing. Slowly the length of the coffin saw the light, and they freed it. Side by side they got fingers under one end, and heaved. Case didn’t care what he put into it; the strength of the clown-creature was astonishing. Up it came, with Case dusting earth from its flanks and crying, crying like a child.
    He fingered the control and his boat lanced in through the trees and settled to the forest floor. The ramp dropped and two small winchers, like drifting saucers, appeared and flew to the end of the coffin. The clown-thing made as if to help manhandle the coffin up the ramp, but Case waved it back. The winch-plates lifted the coffin, turned it, and carried it through the air, up the ramp and into the boat.
    Case leaped up the ramp and turned at the top. “Thanks a heap hell of a lot, friend, whoever you are, and good-bye.”
    The clown-creature also leaped up the ramp and looked pleadingly at Case, its head on one side.
    “Look, I’m grateful and all that, but I’ve got to go. And to tell you the truth, I want no part of this place or anything that belongs to it. Now beat it.” He made a go-away gesture, but the thing just stood there pleading, so he gave it a push and it toppled off the ramp, half unfolding its strange wings to keep its balance.
    Case went inside as the ramp raised. The clown-thing laughed once, dwindled to a black shiny button, and bounced up the moving ramp and into the boat just before the ramp closed.
    Case settled at the controls. Behind him was the curved cabin bench, padded in glossy black material which was held in place by a series of shiny black buttons. Unseen by Case, a shiny black button bounced up on the bench, up on the backrest, and became a button exactly in line with all the others.
    After watching the Doctor for an interminable time, Case left him to his work and went to his quarters, wondering if he should have himself knocked out for a dozen hours, knowing he could not, not until he knew … The Doctor had said only, “It’s been a terrible time, a terrible long time …” and had not wanted Case to look at her. He had said a strange thing: “
She
wouldn’t want you to look at her,” and Case had said why not, and the Doctor had said, “Because she’s a woman.”
    Everybody seemed to know something about women that Case did not.
    He thumped down in his quarters and looked around him. Jan … try not to think of Jan, with the Jan-ness of her permeating the ship. Try not to think of her, with the spearpoints and the voicewriter lying there on the …
    He picked up the voicewriter,
“Shining in the light …”
Her voice, a half-whisper. He set it back a bit, and played:
“… if only he could be outside