More Than Human Part 2, Section 9 Summary

  • Gerry tells Stern how he and Janie made Miss Kew bring Baby back. Gerry instructed Janie to smash up the house with her telekinesis. Miss Kew kept coming up with evasive explanations for the destruction, such as an earthquake, until Janie got squeaky rats. That made Miss Kew bring Baby back, though she made up some excuse afterward about how she'd sent Baby for a medical checkup.
  • Stern agrees with Gerry that people don't believe what they don't want to believe. Gerry suddenly asks him how much of these memories the psychotherapist believes. Stern says it doesn't matter. Gerry taunts him. Sterns asks whom the teen killed.
  • Before he can stop himself, Gerry confesses to killing Miss Kew. Stern asks why he did it. The teen says that's what he came to the office to learn. Stern says he must have really hated her. Gerry cries.
  • The teen tells Stern his first memory: being punched because he was crying due to hunger and cold, and how he just wanted to be left alone at the orphanage. He contrasts that time with being in the shelter with Lone and the kids, which he describes as all he needed. Next came his time with Miss Kew, a big change with boring schoolbooks and the lake and probably no Bubble Trouble games, since they didn't have computers back then. The teen speeds up the conversation, feeling he has to get it all out.
  • Gerry tells Stern he grew sick of all the rules. Everyone was happy, but something was wrong, so he had to kill. Stern asks why, pointing out that Gerry hasn't explained it to him. The teen says they were all obeying someone else's rules. The group wasn't bleshing like it was supposed to.
  • Stern stops to think. Then he says that although choices might be wrong, the mind picks them according to a coherent logic. He sees that killing Alicia could restore the bleshing, but doesn't see the logic that bleshing was necessarily better than the security at the Kew home.
  • Gerry asks how they can find out why. The psychotherapist tells him that finding out requires detailing the unpleasant part: killing Miss Kew. Gerry tries to remember, but he can't recall much or find the logic. He asks aloud why he had to do it, punching the couch and saying he should be hurt.
  • Stern asks Gerry to recount the details from after killing Miss Kew to the time of arriving at his office. Gerry says he killed her last night, stole her checkbook, and found Stern. He made a banker cash the check because he can make anyone do anything, he says, as long as it's in their nature.
  • Stern paces, trying to figure out how to find out why Gerry killed Miss Kew. He says the answer must be in that missing spot Gerry neglected describing. Stern prompts him by bringing him back to the moment of his being in the library with Miss Kew, telling her about the children.
  • Gerry lies back, still and tense. The psychotherapist walks over and starts a tape recorder. (Tape recorder? The book was written in 1953, remember?) It plays back Gerry's own voice saying the Baby is three phrase earlier and the scream he let out after that. The teen passes out.