"Robert A Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land v1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

NOTICE: All men, gods; and planets in this story are imaginary, Any coincidence of names is regretted.

Part One HIS MACULATE ORIGIN, 5

Part Two HIS PREPOSTEROUS HERITAGE, 81

Part Three HIS ECCENTRIC EDUCATION, 261

Part Four HIS SCANDALOUS CAREER, 363

Part Five HIS HAPPY DESTINY, 425

Preface

      IF YOU THINK that this book appears to be thicker and contain more words than you found in the first published edition of Stranger in a Strange Land, your observation is correct. This edition is the original one-the way Robert Heinlein first conceived it, and put it down on paper.

      The earlier edition contained a few words over 160,000, while this one runs around 220,000 words. Robert's manuscript copy usually contained about 250 to 300 words per page, depending on the amount of dialogue on the pages. So, taking an average of about 275 words, with the manuscript running 800 pages, we get a total of 220,000 words, perhaps a bit more.

      This book was so different from what was being sold to the general public, or to the science fiction reading public in 1961 when it was published, that the editors required some cutting and removal of a few scenes that might then have been offensive to public taste.

      The November 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction contained a letter to the editor suggesting titles for the issue of a year hence. Among the titles was to be a story by Robert A. Heinlein-"Gulf."

      In a long conversation between that editor, John W. Campbell, Jr., and Robert, it was decided that there would be sufficient lead time to allow all the stories that the fan had titled to be written, and the magazine to come out in time for the November 1949 date. Robert promised to deliver a short story to go with the title. Most of the other authors also went along with the gag. This issue came to be known as the "Time Travel" issue.

      Robert's problem, then, was to find a story to fit the title assigned to him.

      So we held a "brainstorming" session. Among other unsuitable notions, I suggested a story about a human infant, raised by an alien race. The idea was just too big for a short story, Robert said, but he made a note about it. That night he went into his study, and wrote some lengthy notes, and set them aside.

      For the title "Gulf" he wrote quite a different story.

      The notes sat in a file for several years, at which time Robert began to write what was to be Stranger in a Strange Land. Somehow, the story didn't quite jell, and he set it aside. He returned to the manuscript a few times, but it was not finished until 1960: this was the version you now hold in your hands.

      In the context of 1960, Stranger in a Strange Land was a book that his publishers feared-it was too far off the beaten path. So, in order to minimize possible losses, Robert was asked to cut the manuscript down to 150,000 words-a loss of about 70,000 words. Other changes were also requested, before the editor was willing to take a chance on publication.

      To take out about a quarter of a long, complicated book was close to an impossible task. But, over the course of some months, Robert accomplished it. The final word count came out at 160,087 words. Robert was convinced that it was impossible to cut out any more, and the book was accepted at that length.

      For 28 years it remained in print in that form.

      In 1976, Congress passed a new Copyright Law, which said, in part, that in the event an author died, and the widow or widower renewed the copyright, all old contracts were cancelled. Robert died in 1988, and the following year the copyright for Stranger in a Strange Land came up for renewal.

      Unlike many other authors, Robert had kept a copy of the original typescript, as submitted for publication, on file at the library of the University of California at Santa Cruz, his archivists. I asked for a copy of that manuscript, and read that and the published versions side by side. And I came to the conclusion that it had been a mistake to cut the book.

      So I sent a copy of the typescript to Eleanor Wood, Robert's agent. Eleanor also read the two versions together, and agreed with my verdict. So, after the notification to the publisher, she presented them with a copy of the new/old version.

      No one remembered the fact that such drastic cutting had been done on this book; over the course of years all the editors and senior officers at the publishing house had changed. So this version was a complete surprise to them.

      They decided to publish the original version, agreeing that it was better than the cut one.

      You now have in your hands the original version of Stranger in a Strange Land, as written by Robert Anson Heinlein.

      The given names of the chief characters have great importance to the plot. They were carefully selected: Jubal means "the father of all," Michael stands for "Who is like God?" I leave it for the reader to find out what the other names mean. -Virginia Heinlein Carmel, California

Part one HIS MACULATE ORIGIN

I

      ONCE UPON A TIME when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith.

      Valentine Michael Smith was as real as taxes but he was a race of one.

      The first human expedition from Terra to Mars was selected on the theory that the greatest danger to man in space was man himself. At that time, only eight Terran years after the founding of the first human colony on Luna, any interplanetary trip made by humans necessarily had to be made in weary free-fail orbits, doubly tangent semi-ellipses--from Terra to Mars, two hundred fifty-eight days, the same for the return journey, plus four hundred fifty-five days waiting at Mars while the two planets crawled slowly back into relative positions which would permit shaping the doubly-tangent orbit-a total of almost three Earth years.

      Besides its wearing length, the trip was very chancy. Only by refueling at a space station, then tacking back almost into Earth's atmosphere, could this primitive flying coffin, the Envoy, make the trip at all. Once at Mars she might be able to return-if she did not crash in landing, if water could be found on Man to fill her reaction-mass tanks, if some sort of food could be found on Mars, if a thousand other things did not go wrong.

      But the physical danger was judged to be less important than the psychological stresses. Eight humans, crowded together like monkeys for almost three Terran years, had better get along much better than humans usually did. An all-male crew had been vetoed as unhealthy and sociaily unstable from lessons learned earlier. A ship's company of four married couples had been decided on as optimum, if the necessary specialties could be found in such a combination.

      The University of Edinburgh, prime contractor, sub-contracted crew selection to the Institute for Social Studies. After discarding the chaff of volunteers useless through age, health, mentality, training, or temperament, the Institute still had over nine thousand candidates to work from, each sound in mind and body and having at least one of the necessary special skills. It was expected that the Institute would report several acceptable four-couple crews.

      No such crew was found. The major skills needed were astrogator, medical doctor, cook, machinist, ship's commander, semantician, chemical engineer, electronics engineer, physicist, geologist, biochemist, biologist, atomics engineer, photographer, hydroponicist, rocket engineer. Each crew member would have to possess more than one skill, or be able to acquire extra skills in time. There were hundreds of possible combinations of eight people possessing these skills; there turned up three combinations of four married couples possessing them, plus health and intelligence.-but in all three cases the group-dynamicists who evaluated the temperament factors for compatibility threw up their hands in horror.

      The prime contractor suggested lowering the compatibility figure-ofmerit; the Institute stiffly offered to return its one dollar fee. In the meantime a computer programmer whose name was not recorded had the machines hunt for three-couple rump crews. She found several dozen compatible combinations, each of which defined by its own characteristics the couple needed to complete it. In the meantime the machines continued to review the data changing through deaths, withdrawals, new volunteers, etc.

      Captain Michael Brunt, M.S., Cmdr. D. F. Reserve, pilot (unlimited license), and veteran at thirty of the Moon run, seems to have had an inside track at the Institute, someone who was willing to look up for him the names of single female volunteers who might (with him) complete a crew, and then pair his name with these to run trial problems through the machines to determine whether or not a possible combination would be acceptable. This would account for his action in jetting to Australia and proposing marriage to Doctor Winifred Coburn, a horse-faced spinster semantician nine years his senior. The Carlsbad Archives pictured her with an expression of quiet good humor but otherwise lacking in attractiveness.

      Or Brant may have acted without inside information, solely through that trait of intuitive audacity necessary to command an exploration. In any case lights blinked, punched cards popped out, and a crew for the Envoy had been found:

      Captain Michael Brant, commanding-pilot, astrogator, relief cook, relief photographer, rocketry engineer;

      Dr. Winifred Coburn Brant, forty-one, semantician, practical nurse, stores officer, historian;

      Mr. Francis X. Seeney, twenty-eight, executive officer, second pilot, astrogator, astrophysicist, photographer;

      Dr. Olga Kovalic Seeney, twenty-nine, cook, biochemist, hydroponicist;

      Dr. Ward Smith, forty-five, physician and surgeon, biologist;

      Dr. Mary Jane Lyle Smith, twenty-six, atomics engineer, electronics and power technician;

      Mr. Sergei Rimsky, thirty-five, electronics engineer, chemical engineer, practical machinist & instrumentation man, cryologist;

      Mrs. Eleanora Alvarez Rimsky, thirty-two, geologist and selenologist, hydroponicist.

      The crew had a well-rounded group of skills, although in some cases their secondary skills had been acquired by intensive coaching during the last weeks before blast-off. More important, they were mutually compatible in their temperaments.

      Too compatible, perhaps.

      The Envoy departed on schedule with no mishaps. During the early part of the voyage her daily reports were picked up with ease by private listeners. As she drew away and signals became fainter, they were picked up and rebroadcast by Earth's radio satellites. The crew seemed to be both healthy and happy. An epidemic of ringworm was the worst that Dr. Smith had to cope with-the crew adapted to free fall quickly and no antinausea drugs were used after the first week. If Captain Brant had any disciplinary problems, he did not choose to report them to Earth.

      The Envoy achieved a parking orbit just inside the orbit of Phobos and spent two weeks in photographic survey. Then Captain Brant radioed: "We will attempt a landing at 1200 tomorrow GST just south of Lacus Soli." No further message was ever received.

II

      IT WAS A QUARTER of an Earth century before Mars was again visited by humans. Six years after the Envoy was silent, the drone probe Zombie, sponsored jointly by the Geographic Society and La Sociйtй Astronautique Internationale, bridged the void and took up an orbit for the waiting period, then returned. The photographs taken by the robot vehicle showed a land unattractive by human standards; her recording instruments confirmed the thinness and unsuitability of the Arean atmosphere to human life.

      But the Zombie's pictures showed clearly that the "canals" were engineering works of some sort and there were other details which could only be interpreted as ruins of cities. A manned expedition on a major scale and without delay surely would have been mounted had not World War III intervened.

      But the war and the delay resulted eventually in a much stronger, safer expedition than that of the lost En my. The Federation Ship Champion, manned by an all-male crew of eighteen experienced spacemen and carrying more than that number of male pioneers, made the crossing under Lyle Drive in only nineteen days. The Champion landed just south of Lacus Soli, as Captain van Tromp intended to search for the Envoy. The second expedition reported to Earth by radio daily, but three despatches were of more than scientific interest. The first was:

      "Rocket Ship Envoy located. No survivors."

      The second worldshaker was: "Mars is inhabited."

      The third was: "Correction to despatch 23-105: One survivor of Envoy located."

III

      CAPTAIN WILLEM VAN TROMP was a man of humanity and good sense. He radioed ahead: "My passenger must not, repeat, must not be subjected to the strain of a public reception. Provide low-gee shuttle, stretcher and ambulance service, and anned guard."

      He sent his ship's surgeon Dr. Nelson along to make sure that Valentine Michael Smith was installed in a suite in Bethesda Medical Center, transferred gently into a hydraulic bed, and protected from outside contact by marine guards. Van Tromp himself went to an extraordinary session of the Federation High Council.

      At the moment when Valentine Michael Smith was being lifted into bed, the High Minister for Science was saying testily, "Granted, Captain, that your authority as military commander of what was nevertheless primarily a scientific expedition gives you the right to order unusual medical service to protect a person temporarily in your charge, I do not see why you now presume to interfere with the proper functions of my department. Why, Smith is a veritable treasure trove of scientific information!"

      "Yes. I suppose he is, sir."

      "Then why-" The science minister broke off and turned to the High Minister for Peace and Military Security. "David? This matter is obviously now in my jurisdiction. Will you issue the necessary instructions to your people? After all, one can't keep persons of the caliber of Professor Kennedy and Doctor Okajima, to mention just two, cooling their heels indefinitely. They won't stand for it."

      The peace minister did not answer but glanced inquiringly at Captain van Tromp. The captain shook his head. "No, sir."

      "Why not?" demanded the science minister. "You have admitted that he isn't sick."

      "Give the captain a chance to explain, Pierre," the peace minister advised. "Well, Captain?"

      "Smith isn't sick, sir," Captain van Tromp said to the peace minister, "but he isn't well, either. He has never before been in a one-gravity field. He now weighs more than two and one half times what he is used to and his muscles aren't up to it. He's not used to Earth-normal air pressure. He's not used to anything and the strain is likely to be too much for him. Hell's bells, gentlemen, I'm dog tired myself just from being at one-gee again-and I was born on this planet."

      The science minister looked contemptuous. "If acceleration fatigue is all that is worrying you, let me assure you, my dear Captain, that we had anticipated that. His respiration and heart action will be watched carefully. We are not entirely without imagination and forethought. After all, I've been out myself. I know how it feels. This man Smith must-"

      Captain van Tromp decided that it was time to throw a tantrum. He could excuse it by his own fatigue-very real fatigue, he felt as if he had just landed on Jupiter-and he was smugly aware that even a high councilor could not afford to take too stiff a line with the commander of the first successful Martian expedition.

      So he interrupted with a snort of disgust. "link! 'This man Smith-' This 'man!' Can't you see that that is just what he is not?"

      "Eh?"

      "Smith ... is . . . not . . . a . . . man."

      "Huh? Explain yourself, Captain."

      "Smith is not a man. He is an intelligent creature with the genes and ancestry of a man, but he is not a man. He's more a Martian than a man. Until we came along he had never laid eyes on a human being. He thinks like a Martian, he feels like a Martian. He's been brought up by a race which has nothing in common with us. Why, they don't even have sex. Smith has never laid eyes on a woman-still hasn't if my orders have been carried out. He's a man by ancestry, a Martian by environment. Now, if you want to drive him crazy and waste that 'treasure trove of scientific information,' call in your fat-headed professors and let them badger him. Don't give him a chance to get well and strong and used to this madhouse planet. Just go ahead and squeeze him like an orange. It's no skin off me; I've done my job!"

      The ensuing silence was broken smoothly by Secretary General Douglas himself. "And a good job, too, Captain. Your advice will be weighed, and be assured that we will not do anything hastily. If this man, or manMartian, Smith, needs a few days to get adjusted, I'm sure that science can wait-so take it easy, Pete. Let's table this part of the discussion, gentlemen, and get on to other matters. Captain van Tromp is tired."

      "One thing won't wait," said the Minister for Public Information.

      "Eh, Jock?"

      "If we don't show the Man from Mars in the stereo tanks pretty shortly, you'll have riots on your hands, Mr. Secretary."

      "Hmm- You exaggerate, Jock. Mars stuff in the news, of course. Me decorating the captain and his brave crew-tomorrow, that had better be. Captain van Tromp telling of his experiences-after a night's rest of course, Captain."

      The minister shook his head.

      "No good, Jock?"

      "The public expected the expedition to bring back at least one real live Martian for them to gawk at. Since they didn't, we need Smith and need him badly."

      "'Live Martians?'" Secretary General Douglas turned to Captain van Tromp. "You have movies of Martians, haven't you?"

      "Thousands of feet."

      "There's your answer, Jock. When the live stuff gets thin, trot on the movies of Martians. The people will love it. Now, Captain, about this possibility of extraterritoriality: you say the Martians were not opposed to it?"

      "Well, no, sir-but they were not for it, either."

      "I don't follow you?"

      Captain van Tromp chewed his lip. "Sir, I don't know just how to explain it. Talking with a Martian is something like talking with an echo. You don't get any argument but you don't get results either."

      "Semantic difficulty? Perhaps you should have brought what's-hisname, your semantician, with you today. Or is he waiting outside?"

      "Mahmoud, sir. No, Doctor Mahmoud is not well. A-a slight nervous breakdown, sir." Van Tromp reflected that being dead drunk was the moral equivalent thereof.

      "Space happy?"

      "A little, perhaps." These damned groundhogs!

      "Well, fetch him around when he's feeling himself. young man Smith should be of help as an interpreter."

      "Perhaps," van Tromp said doubtfully.

      This young man Smith was busy at that moment just staying alive. His body, unbearably compressed and weakened by the strange shape of space in this unbelievable place, was at last somewhat relieved by the softness of the nest in which these others had placed him. He dropped the effort of sustaining it, and turned his third level to his respiration and heart beat.

      He saw at once that he was about to consume himself. His lungs were beating almost as hard as they did at home, his heart was racing to distribute the influx, ail in an attempt to cope with the squeezing of space-and this in a situation in which he was smothered by a poisonously rich and dangerously hot atmosphere. He took immediate steps.

      When his heart rate was down to twenty per minute and his respiration almost imperceptible, he set them at that and watched himself long enough to assure himself that he would not inadvertently discorporate while his attention was elsewhere. When he was satisfied that they were running properly, he set a tiny portion of his second level on guard and withdrew the rest of himself. It was necessary to review the configurations of these many new events in order to fit them to himself, then cherish and praise them-lest they swallow him up.

      Where should he start? When he had left home, enfolding these others who were now his own nestlings? Or simply at his arrival in this crushed space? He was suddenly assaulted by the lights and sounds of that arrival, feeling it again with mind-shaking pain. No, he was not yet ready to cherish and embrace that configuration-back! back! back beyond his first sight of these others who were now his own. Back even before the healing which had followed his first grokking of the fact that he was not as his nestling brothers . . . back to the nest itself.

      None of his thinkings had been in Earth symbols. Simple English he had freshly learned to speak, but much less easily than a Hindu uses it to trade with a Turk. Smith used English as one might use a code book, with tedious and imperfect translation for each symbol. Now his thoughts, pure Martian abstractions from half a million years of wildly alien culture, traveled so far from any human experience as to be utterly untranslatable.

      In the adjoining room an intern, Dr. "Tad" Thaddeus, was playing cribbage with Tom Meechum, Smith's special nurse. Thaddeus had one eye on his dials and meters and both eyes on his cards; nevertheless he noted every heart beat of his patient. When a flickering light changed from ninety-two pulsations per minute to less than twenty, he pushed the cards aside, jumped to his feet, and hurried into Smith's room with Meechum at his heels.

      The patient floated in the flexible skin of the hydraulic bed. He appeared to be dead. Thaddeus swore briefly and snapped, "Get Doctor Nelson!"

      Meechum said, "Yessir!" and added, "How about the shock gear, Doc? He's far gone." 

      "Get Doctor Nelson!"

      The nurse rushed out. The interne examined the patient as closely as possible but refrained from touching him. He was still doing so when an older doctor came in, walking with the labored awkwardness of a man long in space and not yet adjusted to high gravity. "Well, Doctor?"

      "Patient's respiration, temperature, and pulse dropped suddenly, uh, about two minutes ago, sir."

      "What have you done for him, or to him?"

      "Nothing, sir. Your instructions-"

      "Good." Nelson looked Smith over briefly, then studied the instruments back of the bed, twins of those in the watch room. "Let me know if there is any change." He started to leave.

      Thaddeus looked startled. "But, Doctor-" He broke off.

      Nelson said grimly, "Go ahead, Doctor. What is your diagnosis?"

      "Uh, I don't wish to sound off about your patient, sir."

      "Never mind. I asked for your diagnosis."

      "Very well, sir. Shock-atypical, perhaps," he hedged, "but shock, leading to termination."

      Nelson nodded. "Reasonable enough. But this isn't a reasonable case. Relax, son. I've seen this patient in this condition half a dozen times during the trip back. It doesn't mean a thing. Watch." Nelson lifted the patient's right arm, let it go. It stayed where he had left it.

      "Catalepsy?" asked Thaddeus.

      "Call it that if you like. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one. Don't worry about it, Doctor. There is nothing typical about this case. Just keep him from being bothered and call me if there is any change." He replaced Smith's arm.

      When Nelson had left, Thaddeus took one more look at the patient, shook his head and joined Meechum in the watch room. Meechum picked up his cards and said, "Crib?"

      "No."

      Meechuin waited, then added, "Doc, if you ask me, that one in there is a case for the basket before morning."

      "No one asked you."

      "My mistake."

      "Go out and have a cigarette with the guards. I want to think."

      Meechum shrugged and left. Thaddeus opened a bottom drawer, took out a bottle and poured himself a dose intended to help his thinking. Meechum joined the guards in the corridor; they straightened up, then saw who it was and relaxed. The taller marine said, "Howdy, pal. What was the excitement just now?"

      "Nothing much. The patient just had quintuplets and we were arguing about what to name them. Which one of you monkeys has got a butt? And a light?"

      The other marine dug a pack of cigarettes out of a pocket. "How're you fixed for Suction?" he asked bleakly.

      "Just middlin'. Thanks." Meechum stuck the cigarette in his face and talked around it. "Honest to God, gentlemen, I don't know anything about this patient. I wish I did."

      "What's the idea of these orders about 'Absolutely No Women'? Is he some kind of a sex maniac?"

      "Not that I know of. All that I know is that they brought him in from the Champion and said that he was to have absolute quiet."

      "'The Champion!' "the first marine said. "Of course! That accounts for it."

      "Accounts for what?"

      "It stands to reason. He ain't had any, he ain't seen any, he ain't touched any-for months. And he's sick, see? If he was to lay hands on any, they're afraid he'd kill hisself." He blinked and blew out a deep breath. "I'll bet I would, under similar circumstances. No wonder they don't want no bims around him."

      Smith had been aware of the visit by the doctors but he had grokked at once that their intentions were benign; it was not necessary for the major part of him to be jerked back from where he was.

      At the hour in the morning when human nurses slap patient's faces with cold, wet cloths under the pretense of washing them, Smith returned from his journey. He speeded up his heart, increased his respiration, and again took note of his surroundings, viewing them with serenity. He looked the room over, noting without discrimination and with praise all its details, both important and unimportant. He was, in fact, seeing it for the first time, as he had been incapable of enfolding it when he had been brought there the day before. This commonplace room was not commonplace to him; there was nothing remotely like it on all Mars, nor did it resemble the wedge-shaPed~ metal-walled compartments of the Champion. But, having relived the events linking his nest to this place, he was now prepared to accept it, commend it, and in some degree to cherish it.

      He became aware that there was another living creature in the room with him. A granddaddy longlegs was making a futile journey down from the ceiling, spinning as it went. Smith watched it with delight and wondered if it were a nestling form of man.

      Doctor Archer Frame, the interne who had relieved Thaddeus, walked in at that moment. "Good morning," he said. "How do you feel?"

      Smith turned the question over in his mind. The first phrase he recognized as a formal sound, requiring no answer but which could be repeated-or might not be. The second phrase was listed in his mind with several possible translations. If Doctor Nelson used it, it meant one thing; if Captain van Tromp used it, it was a formal sound, needing no reply.

      He felt that dismay which so often overtook him in trying to communicate with these creatures-a frightening sensation unknown to him before he met men. But he forced his body to remain calm and risked an answer. "Feel good."

      "Good!" the creature echoed. "Doctor Nelson will be along in a minute. Feel like some breakfast?"

      All four symbols in the query were in Smith's vocabulary but he had trouble believing that he had heard them rightly. He knew that he was food, but he did not "feel like" food. Nor had he had any warning that he might be selected for such an honor. He had not known that the food supply was such that it was necessary to reduce the corporate group. He was filled with mild regret, since there was still so much to grok of these new events, but no reluctance.

      But he was excused from the effort of translating an answer by the entrance of Dr. Nelson. The ship's doctor had had little rest and less sleep; he wasted no time on speech but inspected Smith and the array of dials in silence.

      Then he turned to Smith. "Bowels move?" he asked.

      Smith understood this; Nelson always asked about it. "No, not yet."

      "We'll take care of that. But first you eat. Orderly, fetch in that tray."

      Nelson fed him two or three bites, then required him to hold the spoon and feed himself. It was tiring but gave him a feeling of gay triumph, for it was the first unassisted action he had taken since reaching this oddly distorted space. He cleaned out the bowl and remembered to ask, "Who is this?" so that he could praise his benefactor.

      "What is this, you mean," Nelson answered. "It's a synthetic food jelly, based on amino acids-and now you know as much as you did before. Finished? All right, climb out of that bed."

      "Beg pardon?" It was an attention symbol which he had learned was useful when communication failed.

      "I said get out of there. Sit up. Stand up. Walk around. You can do it. Sure, you're weak as a kitten but you'll never put on muscle floating in that bed." Nelson opened a valve at the head of the bed; water drained out. Smith restrained a feeling of insecurity, knowing that Nelson cherished him. Shortly he lay on the floor of the bed with the watertight cover wrinkled around him. Nelson added, "Doctor Frame, take his other elbow. We'll have to help him and steady him."

      With Dr. Nelson to encourage him and both of them to help him, Smith stood up and stumbled over the rim of the bed. "Steady. Now stand up on your own," Nelson directed. "Don't be afraid. We'll catch you if necessary."

      He made the effort and stood alone-a slender young man with underdeveloped muscles and overdeveloped chest. His hair had been cut in the Champion and his whiskers removed and inhibited. His most marked feature was his bland, expressionless, almost babyish face-set with eyes which would have seemed more at home in a man of ninety.

      He stood alone for a moment, trembling slightly, then tried to walk. He managed three shuffling steps and broke into a sunny, childlike smile. "Good boy!" Nelson applauded.

      He tried another step, began to tremble violently and suddenly collapsed. They barely managed to break his fall. "Damn!" Nelson fumed. "He's gone into another one. Here, help me lift him into the bed. No-fill it first."

      Frame did so, cutting off the flow when the cover skin floated six inches from the top. They lugged him into it, awkwardly because he had frozen into the foetal position. "Get a collar pillow under his neck," instructed Nelson, "and call me when he comes out of it. No-let me sleep, I need it. Unless something worries you. We'll walk him again this afternoon and tomorrow we'll start systematic exercise. In three months I'll have him swinging through the trees like a monkey. There's nothing really wrong with him."

      "Yes, Doctor," Frame answered doubtfully.

      "Oh, yes, when he comes out of it, teach him how to use the bathroom. Have the nurse help you; I don't Want him to fall."

      "Yes, sir. Uh, any particular method-I mean, how-"

      "Eh? Show him, of course! Demonstrate. He probably won't understand much that you say to him, but he's bright as a whip. He'll be bathing himself by the end of the week."

      Smith ate lunch without help. Presently a male orderly came in to remove his tray. The man glanced around, then came to the bed and leaned over him. "Listen," he said in a low voice, "I've got a fat proposition for you."

      "Beg pardon?"

      "A deal, a bargain, a way for you to make a lot of money fast and easy."

      "'Money?' What is 'money'?"

      "Never mind the philosophy; everybody needs money. Now listen I'll have to talk fast because I can't stay in here long-and it's taken a lot of fixing to get me in here at all. I represent Peerless Features. We'll pay you sixty thousand for your exclusive story and it won't be a bit of trouble to you-we've got the best ghost writers in the business. You just talk and answer questions; they put it together." He whipped out a piece of paper. "Just read this and sign it. I've got the down payment with me."

      Smith accepted the paper, stared thoughtfully at it, holding it upside down. The man looked at him and muffled an exclamation. "Lordyl Don't you read English?"

      Smith understood this well enough to answer. "No."

      "Well- Here, I'll read it to you, then you just put your thumb print in the square and I'll witness it. 'I, the undersigned, Valentine Michael Smith, sometimes known as the Man from Mars, do grant and assign to Peerless Features, Limited, all and exclusive rights in my true-fact story to be titled I Was a Prisoner on Mars in exchange for-"

      "Orderly!"

      Dr. Frame was standing in the door of the watch room; the paper disappeared into the man's clothes. "Coming, sir. I was just getting this tray."

      "What were you reading?"

      "Nothing."

      "I saw you. Never mind, come out of there quickly. This patient is not to be disturbed." The man obeyed; Dr. Frame closed the door behind them. Smith lay motionless for the next half hour, but try as he might he could not grok it at all.

IV

      GILLIAN BOARDMAN WAS CONSIDERED professionally competent as a nurse; she was judged competent in wider fields by the bachelor internes and she was judged harshly by some other women. There was no harm in her and her hobby was men. When the grapevine carried the word that there was a patient in special suite K-12 who had never laid eyes on a woman in his life, she did not believe it. When detailed explanation convinced her, she resolved to remedy it. She went on duty that day as floor supervisor in the wing where Smith was housed. As soon as possible she went to pay a call on the strange patient.

      She knew of the "No Female Visitors" rule and, while she did not Consider herself to be a visitor of any sort, she sailed on past the marine guards without attempting to use the door they guarded-marines, she had found, had a stuffy habit of construing their orders literally. Instead she went into the adjacent watch room. Dr. "Tad" Thaddeus was on duty there alone.

      He looked up. "Well, if it ain't 'Dimples!' Hi, honey, what brings you here?"

      She sat on the corner of his desk and reached for his cigarettes. "'Miss Dimples,' to you, chum; I'm on duty. This call is part of my rounds. What about your patient?"

      "Don't worry your fuzzy head about him, honey chile; he's not your responsibility. See your order book."

      "I read it. I want to have a look at him."

      "In one word-no."

      "Oh, Tad, don't go regulation on me. I know you."

      He gazed thoughtfully at his nails. "Ever worked for Doctor Nelson?"

      "No. Why?"

      "If I let you put your little foot inside that door, I'd find myself in Antarctica early tomorrow, prescribing for penguins' chilblains. So switch your fanny out of here and go bother your own patients. I wouldn't want him even to catch you in this watch room."

      She stood up. "Is Doctor Nelson likely to come popping in?"

      "Not likely, unless I send for him. He's still sleeping off low-gee fatigue."

      "So? Then what's the idea of being so duty struck?"

      "That's all, Nurse."

      "Very well, Doctor!" She added, "Stinker."

      "Jill!"

      "And a stuffed shirt, too."

      He sighed. "Still okay for Saturday night?"

      She shrugged. "I suppose so. A girl can't be fussy these days." She went back to her duty station, found that her services were not in immediate demand, picked up the pass key. She was balked but not beaten, as she recalled that suite K- 12 had a door joining it to the room beyond it, a room sometimes used as a sitting room when the suite was occupied by a Very Important Person. The room was not then in use, either as part of the suite or separately. She let herself into it. The guards at the door beyond paid no attention, unaware that they had been flanked.

      She hesitated at the inner door between the two rooms, feeling some of the sharp excitement she used to feel when sneaking out of student nurses' quarters. But, she told herself, Dr. Nelson was asleep and Tad wouldn't tell on her even if he caught her. She didn't blame him for keeping his finger on his number-but he wouldn't report her. She unlocked the door and looked in.

      The patient was in bed, he looked at her as the door opened. Her first impression was that here was a patient too far gone to care. His lack of expression seemed to show the complete apathy of the desperately ill. Then she saw that his eyes were alive with interest; she wondered if his face were paralysed? No, she decided; the typical sags were lacking.

      She assumed her professional manner. "Well, how are we today? Feeling better?"

      Smith translated and examined the questions. The inclusion of herself in the first query was confusing, but he decided that it might symbolize a wish to cherish and grow close. The second part matched Nelson's speech forms. "Yes," he answered.

      "Good!" Aside from his odd lack of expression she saw nothing strange about him-and if women were unknown to him, he was certainly managing to conceal it. "Is there anything I can do for you?" She glanced around, noted that there was no glass on the bedside shelf. "May I get you water?"

      Smith had spotted at once that this creature was different from the others who had come to see him. Almost as quickly he compared what he was seeing with pictures Nelson had shown him on the trip from home to this place-pictures intended to explain a particularly difficult and puzzling configuration of this people group. This, then, was a "woman."

      He felt both oddly excited and disappointed. He suppressed both in order that he might grok deeply, with such success that Dr. Thaddeus noticed no change in the dial readings in the next room.

      But when he translated the last query he felt such a surge of emotion that he almost let his heartbeat increase. He caught it in time and chided himself for an undisciplined nestling. Then he checked his translation.

      No, he was not mistaken. This woman creature had offered him the water ritual. It wished to grow closer.

      With great effort, scrambling for adequate meanings in his pitifully poor list of human words, he attempted to answer with due ceremoniousness. "I thank you for water. May you always drink deep."

      Nurse Boardman looked startled. "Why, how sweetl" She found a glass, filled it, and handed it to him.

      He said, "You drink."

      Wonder if he thinks I'm trying to poison him? she asked herself-but there was a compelling quality to his request. She took a sip, whereupon he took the glass from her and took one also, after which he seemed content to sink back into the bed, as if he had accomplished something important.

      Jill told herself that, as an adventure, this was a fizzle. She said, "Well, if you don't need anything else, I must get on with my work."

      She started for the door. He called out, "Not"

      She stopped. "Eh? What do you want'~"

      "Don't go away."

      "Well I have to go, pretty quickly." But she came back to the bedside, "Is there anything you want?"

      He looked her up and down. "You are ... 'woman'?"

      The question startled Jill Boardxnafl. Her sex had not been in doubt to the most casual observer for many years. Her first impulse was to answer flippantly.

      But Smith's grave face and oddly disturbing eyes checked her. She became aware emotionallY that the impossible fact about this patient was true: he did not know what a woman was. She answered carefully, "Yes, I am a woman."

      Smith continued to stare at her without expression. Jill began to be embarrassed by it. To be looked at appreciativelY by a male she expected and sometimes enjoyed, but this was more like being examined under a microscope. She stirred restively. "Well? I look like a woman, don't I?"

      "I do not know," Smith answered slowly. "How does woman look? What makes you woman?"

      "Well, for pity's sake!" Jill realized confusedly that this conversation was further out of hand than any she had had with a male since about her twelfth birthday. "You don't expect me to take off my clothes and show you!"

      Smith took time to examine these verbal symbols and try to translate them. The first group he could not grok at all. It might be one of those formal sound groups these people so often used . . . yet it had been spoken with surprising force, as if it might be a last communication before withdrawaL Perhaps he had so deeply mistaken right conduct in dealing with a woman creature that the creature might be ready to discorporate at once.

      He knew vaguely that he did not want the nurse to die at that moment, even though it was certainly its right and possibly its obligation to do so. The abrupt change from the rapport of the Water ritual to a situation in which a newly won water brother might possibly be considering withdrawal or discorporatiOn would have thrown him into panic had he not been consciously suppressing such disturbance. But he decided that if Jill died now he must die at once also-he could not grok it in any other wise, not after the giving of water.

      The second half of the communication contained only symbols that he had encountered before. He grokked imperfectly the intention but there seemed to be an implied way Out for him to avoid this crisis-by acceding to the suggested wish. Perhaps if the woman took its clothes off neither of them need discorporate. He smiled happily. "Please."

      Jill opened her mouth, closed it hastily. She opened it again. "Huh? Well, I'll be darned!"

      Smith could grok emotional violence and knew that somehow he had offered the wrong reply. He began to compose his mind for discorporation, savoring and cherishing all that he had been and seen, with especial attention to this woman creature. Then he became aware that the woman was bending over him and he knew somehow that it was not about to die. It looked into his face. "Correct me if I am wrong," it said, "but were you asking me to take my clothes off?"

      The inversions and abstractions required careful translation but Smith managed it. "Yes," he answered, while hoping that it would not stir up a new crsis.

      "That's what I thought you said. Brother, you aren't ill."

      The word "brother" he considered first-the woman was reminding him that they had been joined in the water ritual. He asked the help of his nestlings that he might measure up to whatever this new brotheT wanted. "I am not ill," he agreed.

      "Though I'm darned if I know how to cope with whatever is wrong with you. But I won't peel down. And I've got to get out of here." It straightened up and turned again toward the side door-then stopped and looked back with a quizzical smile. "You might ask me again, real prettily, under other circumstances. I'm curious to see what I might do."

      The woman was gone. Smith relaxed into the water bed and let the room fade away from him. He felt sober triumph that he had somehow comforted himself so that it was not necessary for them to die . . . but there was much new to grok. The woman's last speech had contained many symbols new to him and those which were not new had been arranged in fashions not easily understood. Out he was happy that the emotional flavor of them had been suitable for communication between water brothers-although touched with something else both disturbing and terrifyingly pleasant. He thought about his new brother, the woman creature, and felt odd tingles run through him. The feeling reminded him of the first time he had been allowed to be present at a discorporatiOn and he felt happy without knowing why.

      He wished that his brother Doctor Mahmoud were here. There was so much to grok, so little to grok from.

      Jill Boardman spent the rest of her watch in a mild daze. She managed to avoid any mistakes in medication and she answered from reflex the usual verbal overtures made to her. But the face of the Man from Mars stayed in her mind and she mulled over the crazy things he had said. No, not "crazy," she corrected-she had done her Stint ~fl psychiatric wards and she felt certain that his remarks had not been psychotic.

      She decided that "innocent" was the proper term-then she decided that the word was not adequate. His expression was innocent, but his eyes were not. What sort of creature had a face like that?

      She had once worked in a Catholic hospital; she suddenly saw the face of the Man from Mars surrounded by the head dress of a nursing Sister, a nun. The idea disturbed her, for there was nothing female about Smith's face.

      She was changing into Street clothes when another nurse stuck her head into the locker room. "Phone, Jill. For you." Jill accepted the call, sound without vision, while she continued to dress.

      "Is this Florence Nightingale?" a baritone voice asked.

      "Speaking. That you, Ben?"

      "The stalwart upholder of the freedom of the press in person. Little one, are you busy?"

      "What do you have in mind?"

      "I have in mind taking you out, buying you a bloody steak, plying you with liquor, and asking you a question."

      "The answer is still 'No.'

      "Not that question. Another one."

      "Oh, do you know another one? If so, tell me."

      "Later. I want you softened up by food and liquor first."

      "Real steak? Not syntho?"

      "Guaranteed. When you stick a fork into it, it will turn imploring eyes on you."

      "You must be on an expense account, Ben."

      "That's irrelevant and ignoble. How about it?"

      "You've talked me into it."

      "The roof of the medical center. Ten minutes."

      She put the street suit she had changed into back into her locker and put on a dinner dress kept there for emergencies. It was a demure little number, barely translucent and with bustle and bust pads so subdued that they merely re-created the effect she would have produced had she been wearing nothing. The dress had cost her a month's pay and did not look it, its subtle power being concealed like knock-out drops in a drink. Jill looked at herself with satisfaction and took the bounce tube up to the roof.

      There she pulled her cape around her against the wind and was looking for Ben Caxton when the roof orderly touched her arm. "There is a car over there paging you, Miss Boardman-that Talbot saloon."

      "Thanks, Jack." She saw the taxi spotted for take-off, with its door open. She went to it, climbed in, and was about to hand Ben a backhanded compliment on gallantry when she saw that he was not inside. The taxi was on automatic; its door closed and it took to the air, swung Out of the circle, and sliced across the Potomac. Jill sat back and waited.

      The taxi stopped on a public landing flat over Alexandria and Ben Caxton got in; it took off again. Jill looked him over grimly. "My, aren't we getting important! Since when has your time become so valuable that you send a robot to pick up your women?"

      He reached over, patted her knee, and said gently, "Reasons, little one, reasons-I can't afford to be seen picking you up-"

      "Welll"

      "-and you can't afford to be seen being picked up by me. So simmer down. I apologize. I bow in the dust. I kiss your little foot. But it was necessary."

      "Hmm ... which one of us has leprosy?"

      "Both of us, in different ways. Jill, I'm a newspaperman."

      "I was begimiing to think you were something else."

      "And you are a nurse at the hospital where they are holding the Man from Mars." He spread his hands and shrugged.

      "Keep talking. Does that make me unfit to meet your mother?"

      "Do you need a map, Jill? There are more than a thousand reporters in this area, not counting press agents, ax grinders, winchells, lippmanns, and the stampede that headed this way when the Champion landed. Every one of them has been trying to interview the Man from Mars, including me. So far as I know, none has succeeded. Do you think it would be Smart for us to be seen leaving the hospital together?"

      "Umm, maybe not. But I don't really see that it matters. I'm not the Man from Mars."

      He looked her over. "You certainly aren't. But maybe you are going to help me see him-which is why I didn't want to be seen picking you

      "Huh? Ben, you've been out in the sun without your hat. They've got a marine guard around him." She thought about the fact that she herself had not found the guard too hard to circumvent, decided not to mention it.

      "So they have. So we talk it over."

      "I don't see what there is to talk about."

      "Later. I didn't intend to let the subject come up until I had softened you with animal proteins and ethanol. Let's eat first."

      "Now you sound rational. Where? Would your expense account run to the New Mayflower? You are on an expense account, aren't you?"

      Caxton frowned. "Jill, if we eat in a restaurant, I wouldn't want to risk one closer than Louisville. It would take this hack more than two hours to get us that far. How about dinner in my apartment?"

      "'-Said the Spider to the Fly.' Ben, I remember the last time. I'm too tired to wrestle."

      "Nobody asked you to. Strictly business. King's X, cross my heart and hope to die."

      "I don't know as I like that much better. If I'm safe alone with you, I must be slipping. Well, all right, King's X."

      Caxton leaned forward and punched buttons; the taxi, which had been circling under a "hold" instruction, woke up, looked around, and headed for the apartment hotel where Ben lived. He then dialed a phone number and said to Jill, "How much time do you want to get liquored up, sugar foot? I'll tell the kitchen when to have the steaks ready."

      Jill considered it. "Ben, your mousetrap has a private kitchen."

      "Of sorts. I can grill a steak, if that is what you mean."

      "I'll grill the steak. Hand me the phone." She gave orders, stopping to make sure that Ben liked endive.

      The taxi dropped them on the roof and they went down to his flat. It was unstylish and old-fashioned; its one luxury was a live grass lawn in the living room. Jill stopped in the entrance hail, slipped off her shoes, then stepped bare-footed into the living room and wiggled her toes among the cool green blades. She sighed. "My, that feels good. My feet have hurt ever since I entered training."

      "Sit down."

      "No, I want my feet to remember this tomorrow, when I'm on duty."

      "Suit yourself." He went into his pantry and mixed drinks.

      Presently she pattered after him and became domestic. The steak was waiting in the package lift; with it were pre-baked potatoes ready to be popped into short-wave. She tossed the salad, handed it to the refrigerator, then set up a combination on the stove to grill the steak and have the potatoes hot simultaneously, but did not start the cycle. "Ben, doesn't this stove have a remote control?"

      "Of course."

      "Well, I can't find it."

      He studied the setup on the control panel, then flipped an unmarked switch. "Jill, what would you do if you had to cook over an open fire?"

      "I'd do darn well. I was a Girl Scout and a good one. How about you, smarty?"

      He ignored it, picked up a tray and went back to the living room; she followed and sat down at his feet, spreading her skirt to avoid grass stains. They applied themselves seriously to martinis. Opposite his chair was a stereovision tank disguised as an aquarium; he switched it on from his chair, guppies and tetras faded out and gave way to the face of a commentator, the well-known winchell Augustus Greaves.

      "-it can be stated authoritatively," the stereo image was saying, "that the Man from Mars is being kept constantly under hypnotic drugs to keep him from disclosing these facts. The administration would find it extremely embarrassing if-"

      Canon flipped it off. "Gus old boy," he said pleasantly, "you don't know a durn thing more about it than I do." He frowned. "Though you might be right about the government keeping him under drugs."

      "No, they aren't," Jill said suddenly.

      "Eh? How's that, little one?"

      "The Man from Mars isn't being kept under hypnotics." Having blurted more than she had meant to, she added carefully, "He's got a nurse and a doctor all to himself on continuous watch, but there aren't any orders for sedation."

      "Are you sure? You aren't one of his nurses-or are you?"

      "No. They're male nurses. Uh ... matter of fact, there's an order to keep women away from him entirely and a couple of tough marines to make sure of it."

      Caxton nodded. "I heard about that. Fact is, you don't know whether they are drugging him or not. Do you?"

      Jill stared into her empty glass. She felt annoyed to have her word doubted but realized she would have to tell on herself to back up what she had said. "Ben? You wouldn't give me away? Would you?"

      "Give you away? How?"

      "Any way at all."

      "Hmm ... that covers a lot of ground, but I'll go along."

      "All right. Pour me another one first." He did so, Jill went on. "I know they don't have the Man from Mars hopped up-because I talked with him."

      Caxton gave a slow whistle. "I knew it. When I got up this morning I said to myself, 'Go see Jill. She's the ace up my sleeve.' Honey lamb, have another drink. Have six. Here, take the pitcher."

      "Not so fast, thanks."

      "Whatever you like. May I rub your poor tired feet? Lady, you are about to be interviewed. Your public waits with quivering impatience. Now let's begin at the beginning. How-"

      "No, Ben! You promised-remember? You quote me just one little quote and I'll lose my job."

      "Mmm ... probably. How about 'from a usually reliable source'?"

      "I'd be scared."

      "Well? Are you going to tell Uncle Ben? Or are you going to let him die of frustration and then eat that steak by yourself?"

      "Oh, I'll talk-now that I've talked this much. But you can't use it." Ben kept quiet and did not press his luck; Jill described how she had outflanked the guards.

      He interrupted. "Say! Could you do that again?"

      "Huh? I suppose so, but I won't. It's risky."

      "Well, could you slip me in that way? Of course you could! Look, I'll dress up like an electrician-greasy coveralls, union badge, tool kit. You just slip me the pass key and-"

      "No!"

      "Huh? Look, baby girl, be reasonable. I'll bet you four to one that half the hospital staffers around him are ringers, stuck in there by one news service or another. This is the greatest human-interest story since Colombo conned Isabella into hocking her jewels. The only thing that worries me is that I may find another phony electrician-"

      "The only thing that worries me is me," Jill interrupted. "To you it's just a story; to me it's my career. They'd take away my cap, my pin, and ride me out of town on a rail. I'd be finished as a nurse."

      "Mmm ... there's that."

      "There sure is that."

      "Lady, you are about to be offered a bribe."

      "How big a bribe? It'll take quite a chunk to keep me in style the rest of my life in Rio."

      "Well ... the story is worth money, of course, but you can't expect me to outbid Associated Press, or Reuters. How about a hundred?"

      "What do you think I am?"

      "We settled that, we're dickering over the price. A hundred and fifty?"

      "Pour me another drink and look up the phone number of Associated Press for me, that's a lamb."

      "It's Capitol 10-9000. Jill, will you marry me? That's as high as I can

      She looked up at him, startled. "What did you say?"

      "Will you marry me? Then, when they ride you out of town on a rail, I'll be waiting at the city line and take you away from your sordid existence. You'll come back here and cool your toes in my grass-our grass- and forget your ignominy. But you've durn well got to sneak me into that hospital room first."

      "Ben, you almost sound serious. If I phone for a Fair Witness, will you repeat the offer?"

      Caxton sighed. "Jill, you're a hard woman. Send for a Witness."

      She stood up. "Ben," she said softly, "I won't hold you to it." She rumpled his hair and kissed him. "But don't ever joke about marriage to a spinster."

      "I wasn't joking."

      "I wonder. Wipe off the lipstick and I'll tell you everything I know, then we'll consider how you can use it without getting me ridden on that rail. Fair enough?"

      "Fair enough."

      She gave him a detailed account. "I'm sure he wasn't drugged. I'm equally sure that he was rational-although why I'm sure I don't know, for he talked in the oddest fashion and asked the darnedest questions. But I'm sure. He isn't psychotic."

      "It would be odder still if he hadn't talked in an odd fashion."

      "Huh?"

      "Use your head, Jill. We don't know much about Mars but we do know that Mars is very unlike Earth and that Martians, whatever they are, certainly are not human. Suppose you were suddenly popped into a tribe so far back in the jungle that they had never laid eyes on a white woman. Would you know all the sophisticated small talk that comes from a lifetime in a culture? Or would your conversation sound odd? That's a very mild analogy; the truth in this case is at least forty million miles stranger."

      Jill nodded. "I figured that out ... and that is why I discounted his odd remarks. I'm not dumb."

      "No, you're real bright, for a female."

      "Would you like this martini poured in your thinning hair?"

      "I apologize. Women are lots smarter than men; that is proved by our whole cultural setup. Gimme, I'll fill it."

      She accepted the peace offerings and went on, "Ben, that order about not letting him see women, it's silly. He's no sex fiend."

      "No doubt they don't want to hand him too many shocks at once."

      "He wasn't shocked. He was just ... interested. It wasn't like having a man look at me at all."

      "If you had humored him on that request for a private viewing, you might have had your hands full. He probably has all the instincts and no inhibitions."

      "Huh? I don't think so. I suppose they've told him about male and female; he just wanted to see how women are different."

      "'Vive Ia difference!'" Caxton answered enthusiastically.

      "Don't be more vulgar than you have to be."

      "Me? I wasn't being vulgar, I was being reverent. I was giving thanks to all the gods that I was born human and not Martian."

      "Be serious."

      "I was never more serious."

      "Then be quiet. He wouldn't have given me any trouble. He would probably have thanked me gravely. You didn't see his face-I did."

      "What about his face?"

      Jill looked puzzled. "I don't know how to express it. Yes, I do!-Ben, have you ever seen an angel?"

      "You, cherub. Otherwise not."

      "Well, neither have I-but that is what he looked like. He had old, wise eyes in a completely placid face, a face of unearthly innocence." She shivered.

      "'Unearthly' is surely the right word," Ben answered slowly. "I'd like to see him."

      "I wish you had. Ben, why are they making such a thing out of keeping him shut up? He wouldn't hurt a fly. I'm sure of it."

      Caxton fitted his fingertips together. "Well, in the first place they want to protect him. He grew up in Mars gravity; he's probably weak as a cat."

      "Yes, of course. You could see it, just looking at him. But muscular weakness isn't dangerous; myasthenia gravis is much worse and we manage all right with such cases."

      "They would want to keep him from catching things, too. He's like those experimental animals at Notre Dame; he's never been exposed."

      "Sure, sure-no antibodies. But from what I hear around the mess hail, Doctor Nelson-the surgeon in the Champion, I mean-Doctor Nelson took care of that on the trip back. Repeated mutual transfusion until he had replaced about half of his blood tissue."

      "Really? Can I use that, Jill? That's news."

      "All right, just don't quote me. They gave him shots for everything but housemaid's knee, too. But, Ben, even if they want to protect him from infection, that doesn't take armed guards outside his door."

      "Mmmm ... Jill, I've picked up a few tidbits you may not know. I haven't been able to use them because I've got to protect my sources, just as with you. But I'll tell you; you've earned it-just don't talk."

      "Oh, I won't."

      "It's a long story. Want a refill?"

      "No, let's start the steak. Where's the button?"

      "Right here."

      "Well, push it."

      "Me? You offered to cook dinner. Where's that Girl Scout spirit you were boasting about?"

      "Ben Caxton, I will lie right here in the grass and starve before I will get up to push a button that is six inches from your right forefinger."

      "As you wish." He pressed the button to tell the stove to carry out its pre.set orders. "But don't forget who cooked dinner. Now about Valentine Michael Smith. In the first place there is grave doubt as to his right to the name 'Smith.'"

      "Repeat, please?"

      "Honey, your pal appears to be the first interplanetary bastard of record. I mean 'love child.'"

      "The hell you say!"

      "Please be more ladylike in your speech. Do you remember anything about the crew of the Envoy? Never mind, I'll hit the high points. Eight people, four married couples. Two couples were Captain and Mrs. Brant, Doctor and Mrs. Smith. Your friend with the face of an angel appears to be the son of Mrs. Smith by Captain Brant."

      "How do they know? And, anyhow, who cares?" Jill sat up and said indignantly, "It's a pretty snivelin' thing to dig up a scandal after all this time. They're all dead-let 'em alone, I say!"

      "As to how they know, you can figure that out. Blood typing, Rh factor, hair and eye color, all those genetic things-you probably know more about them than I do. Anyhow it is a mathematical certainty that Mary Jane Lyle Smith was his mother and Captain Michael Brant was his father. All the factors are matters of record for the entire crew of the Envoy; there probably never were eight people more thoroughly measured and typed. Also it gives Valentine Michael Smith a wonderfully fine heredity; his father had an I.Q. of 163, his mother 170, and both were tops in their fields.

      "As to who cares," Ben went on, "a lot of people care very much- and a lot more will care, once this picture shapes up. Ever heard of the Lyle Drive?"

      "Of course. That's what the Champion used."

      "And every other space ship, these days. Who invented it?"

      "I don't-Wait a minute! You mean she-"

      "Hand the little lady a cigar! Dr. Mary Jane Lyle Smith. She knew she had something important, even though development work remained to be done on it. So before she left on the expedition, she applied for a dozenodd basic patents and placed it all in a corporate trust-not a non-profit corporation, mind you-then assigned control and interim income to the Science Foundation. So eventually the government got control of it-but your friend with the face of an angel owns it. No possible doubt. It's worth millions, maybe hundreds of millions; I couldn't guess."

      They brought in dinner. Caston used ceiling tables to protect his lawn; he lowered one down in front of his chair and another to Japanese height so that Jill could sit on the grass. "Tender?" he asked.

      "Ongerful!" she answered with her mouth full.

      "Thanks. Remember, I cooked it."

      "Ben," she said after swallowing, "how about Smith being a-I mean, being illegitimate? Can he inherit?"

      "He's not illegitimate. Doctor Mary Jane was at Berkeley, and California laws deny the concept of bastardy. Same for Captain Brant, as New Zealand also has civilized laws on the subject. While under the laws of the home State of Doctor Ward Smith, Mary Jane's husband, a child born in wedlock is legitimate, come hell or high water. We have here. Jill, a man who is the Simon-pure legitimate child of three different parents.

      "Huh? Now wait a minute, Ben; he can't be it both ways. One or the other but not both. I'm not a lawyer but-"

      "You sure ain't. Such legal fictions bother a lawyer not at all. Smith is legitimate different ways in different jurisdictions, all kosher and all breaking his way-even though he is probably a bastard in his physical ancestry. So he inherits. Besides that, while his mother was wealthy, both his fathers were at least well to do. Brant was a bachelor until just before the expedition; he had ploughed most of his scandalous salary as a pilot on the Moon run back into Lunar Enterprises, Limited. You know how that stuff has boomed-they just declared another three-way stock dividend. Brant had one vice, gambling-but the bloke won regularly and invested that, too. Ward Smith had family money; he was a medical man and scientist by choice. Smith is heir to both of them."

      "Whew!"

      "That ain't half, honey. Smith is heir to the entire crew."

      "Huh?"

      "All eight signed a 'Gentlemen Adventurers' contract, making them all mutually heirs to each other-all of them and their issue. They did it with great care, using as models similar contracts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that had stood up against every effort to break them. Now these were all high-powered people; among them they had quite a lot. Happened to include considerable Lunar Enterprises stock, too, besides what Brant held. Smith might turn out to own a controlling interest, or at least a key bloc in a proxy fight."

      Jill thought about the childlike creature who had made such a touching ceremony out of just a drink of water and felt sorry for him. But Caxton went on: "I wish I could sneak a look at the Envoy's log. I know they recovered it-but I doubt if they'll ever release it."

      "Why not, Ben?"

      "Because it's a nasty story. I got Just enough to be sure before my informant sobered up and clammed up. Dr. Ward Smith delivered his wife of child by Caesarian section-and she died on the table. He seems to have worn his horns complacently until then. But what he did next shows that he knew the score; with the same scalpel he cut Captain Brant's throat- then cut his own. Sorry, hon."

      Jill shivered. "I'm a nurse. I'm immune to such things."

      "You're a liar and I love you for it. I was on police beat for three years, Jill; I never got hardened to it."

      "What happened to the others?"

      "I wish I knew. If we don't break the bureaucrats and high brass loose from that log, we'll never know-and I am enough of a starry-eyed newsboy to think we should know. Secrecy begets tyranny."

      "Ben, he might be better off if they gypped him out of his inheritance. He's very . . . uh, unworldly."

      "The exact word, I'm sure. Nor does he need all that money; the Man from Mars will never miss a meal. Any of the governments and any of a thousand-odd universities and scientific institutions would be delighted to have him as a permanent, privileged guest."

      "He'd better sign it over and forget it."

      "It's not that easy. Jill, you know about the famous case of General Atomics versus Larkin, et al?"

      "Uh, not really. You mean the Larkin Decision. I had to study it in school, same as everybody. But what's it got to do with Smith?"

      "Think back. The Russians sent the first rocket to the Moon, it crashed. The United States and Canada combine to send another one; it gets back but leaves nobody on the Moon. So when the United States and the Commonwealth are getting set to send a colonizing one jointly under the nominal sponsorship of the Federation and Russia is mounting the same deal on their own, General Atomics steals a march by sending one of their own from an island leased from Ecuador-and their men are still there, sitting pretty and looking smug when the Federation vessel shows up . . . followed by the Russian one.

      "You know what happened. General Atomics, a Swiss corporation American controlled, claimed the Moon. The Federation couldn't just brush them off; that would have been too raw and anyhow the Russians wouldn't have held still. So the High Court ruled that a corporate person, a mere legal fiction, could not own a planet; therefore the real owners were the flesh-and-blood men who had maintained the occupation-Larkin and associates. So they recognized them as a sovereign nation and took them into the Federation-with some melon slicing for those on the inside and fat concessions to General Atomics and its daughter corporation, Lunar Enterprises. This did not entirely suit anybody and the Federation High Court was not all powerful in those days-but it was a compromise everybody could swallow. It resulted in some tight rules for colonizing planets, all based on the Larkin Decision and intended to avoid bloodshed. Worked, too-it's a matter of history that World War Three did not result from conflict over space travel and such. So now the Larkin Decision is solidly a part of our planetary law and applies to Smith."

      Jill shook her head. "I don't see the connection. Martinis-"

      "Think, Jill. By our laws, Smith is a sovereign nation in himself-and sole owner of the planet Mars."

V

      JILL LOOKED ROUND-EYED. "I've certainly had too many martinis Ben. I would swear that you said that that patient owns the planet Mars."

      "He does. He maintained occupation of it, unassisted, for the required length of time. Smith is the planet Mars-King, President, sole civic body, what you will. If the skipper of the Champion had not left colonists behind, Smith's tenure might have failed. But he did, and that continues occupation even though Smith came to Earth. But Smith doesn't have to split with them; they are mere immigrants until he grants them Martian citizenship."

      "Fantastic!"

      "It surely is. Also it's legal. Honey, do you now see why so many people are interested in who Smith is and where he came from? And why the administration is so damned anxious to keep him under a rug? What they are doing isn't even vaguely legal. Smith is also a citizen of the United States and of the Federation, by derivation-dual citizenship with no conflict. It's illegal to hold a citizen, even a convicted criminal, incommunicado anywhere in the Federation; that's one of the things we settled in World War Three. But I doubt if Smith knows his rights. Also, it has been considered an unfriendly act all through history to lock up a visiting friendly monarch-which is what he is-and not to let him see people, especially the press, meaning me. You still won't sneak me in as a thumbfingered electrician?"

      "Huh? You've got me worse scared than ever. Ben, if they had caught me this morning, what do you think they would have done to me?"

      "Mmm ... nothing rough. Just locked you in a padded cell, with a certificate signed by three doctors, and allowed you mail on alternate leap years. They aren't mad at you. I'm wondering what they are going to do to him."

      "What can they do?"

      "Well, he might just happen to die-from gee-fatigue, say. That would be a fine out for the administration."

      "You mean murder him?"

      "Tut, tut! Don't use nasty words. I don't think they will. In the first place he is a mine of information; even the public has some dim notion of that. He might be worth more than Newton and Edison and Einstein and six more like them all rolled into one. Or he may not be. I don't think they would dare touch him until they were sure. In the second place, at the very least, he is a bridge, an ambassador, a unique interpreter, between the human race and the only other civilized race we have as yet encountered. That is certainly important but there is no way to guess just how important. How are you on the classics? Ever read H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds?"

      "A long time ago, in school."

      "Consider the idea that the Martians might decide to make war on us-and win. They might, you know, and we have no way of guessing how big a club they can swing. Our boy Smith might be the go-between, the peacemaker, who could make the First Interplanetary War unnecessary. Even if this possibility is remote, the administration can't afford to ignore it until they know. The discovery of intelligent life on Mars is something that, politically, they haven't figured out yet."

      "Then you think he is safe?"

      "Probably, for the time being. The Secretary General has to guess and guess right. As you know, his administration is shaky."

      "I don't pay any attention to politics."

      "You should. It's only barely less important than your own heartbeat."

      "I don't pay any attention to that, either."

      "Don't talk when I'm orating. The majority headed by the United States could slip apart overnight-Pakistan would bolt at a nervous cough. In which case there would be a vote of no conlidence, a general election, and Mr. Secretary General Douglas would be out and back to being a cheap lawyer again. The Man from Mars can make or break him. Are you going to sneak me in?"

      "I am not. I'm going to enter a nunnery. Is there more coffee?"

      "I'll see."

      They both stood up. Jill stretched and said, "Oh, my ancient bones! And, Lordy, look at the time! Never mind the coffee, Ben; I've got a hard day tomorrow, being polite to nasty patients and standing clear of internes. Run me home, will you? Or send me home, I guess that's safer. Call a cab, that's a lamb."

      "Okay, though the evening is young." He went into his bedroom, caine out carrying an object about the size and shape of a small cigarette lighter. "Sure you won't sneak me in?"

      "Gee, Ben, I want to, but-"

      "Never mind. I wouldn't let you. It really is dangerous-and not just to your career. I was just softening you up for this." He showed her the little object. "Will you put a bug on him?"

      "Huh? What is it?"

      "The greatest boon to divorce lawyers and spies since the Mickey Finn. A microminiaturized wire recorder. The wire is spring driven so that it can't be spotted by a snooper circuit. The insides are transistors and resistors and capacitors and stuff, all packed in plastic-you could drop it Out of a cab and not hurt it. The power is about as much radioactivity as you would find in a watch dial, but shielded, The wire is good for twentyfour hours. Then you slide out a spool and stick in another one-the spring is part of the spool, already wound."

      "Will it explode?" she asked nervously.

      "You could bake it in a cake."

      "But, Ben, you've got me scared to go back into his room now."

      "Unnecessary. You can go into the room next door, can't you?"

      "I suppose so."

      "This thing has donkey's ears. Fasten the concave side flat against a wall-surgical tape will do nicely-and it picks up every word spoken in the room beyond. Is there a closet or something?"

      She thought about it. "I'm bound to be noticed if I duck in and out of that adjoining room too much; it's really part of the suite he's in. Or they may start using it. Look, Ben, his room has a third wall in common with a room on another corridor. Will that do?"

      "Perfect. Then you'll do it?"

      "Umm ... give it to me. I'll think it over and see how the land lies."

      Caxton stopped to polish it with his handkerchief. "Put on your gloves."

      "Why?"

      "Possession of it is slightly illegal, good for a short vacation behind bars. Always use gloves on it and the spare spools-and don't get caught with it."

      "You think of the nicest thingsl"

      "Want to back out?"

      Jill let out a long breath. "No. I've always wanted a life of crime. Will you teach me gangster lingo? I want to be a credit to you."

      "Good girl!" A light blinked over the door, he glanced up. "That must be your cab. I rang for it when I went to get this."

      "Oh. Find my shoes, will you? No, don't come up to the roof. The less I'm seen with you from here on the better."

      "As you wish."

      As he straightened up from putting her shoes on, she took his head in both hands and kissed him. "Dear Ben! No good can come of this and I hadn't realized you were a criminal type-but you're a good cook, as long as I set up the combination . . . and I just might marry you if I can trap you into proposing again."

      "The offer remains open."

      "Do gangsters marry their molls? Or is it 'frails'? We'll see" She left hurriedly.

      Jill Boardman placed the bug without difficulty. The patient in the adjacent room in the next corridor was bedfast; Jill often Stopped to gossip. She stuck it against the wall over a closet shelf while chattering about how the maids just never dusted high in the closets.

      Removing the spool the next day and inserting a fresh one was just as easy; the patient was asleep. She woke while Jill was still perched on a chair and seemed surprised; Jill diverted her with a spicy and imaginary ward rumor.

      Jill sent the exposed wire by mail, using the hospital's post office as the impersonal blindness of the postal System seemed safer than a cloak & dagger ruse. But her attempt to insert a third fresh spool she muffed. She had waited for a time when the patient was asleep but had just mounted the chair when the patient woke up. "Oh! Hello, Miss Boardman."

      Jill froze with one hand on the wire recorder. "Hello, Mrs. Fritschlie," she managed to answer. "Have a nice nap?"

      "Fair," the woman answered peevishly. "My back aches."

      "I'll rub it."

      "Doesn't help much. Why are you always fiddling around in my closet? Is something wrong?"

      Jill tried to reswallow her stomach. The woman wasn't really suspicious, she told herself. "Mice," she said vaguely.

      "'Mice?' Oh, I can't abide mice! I'll have to have another room, right away!"

      Jill tore the little instrument off the closet wall and stuffed it into her pocket, jumped down from the chair and spoke to the patient. "Now, now, Mrs. Fritschlie-I was just looking to see if there were any mouse holes in that closet. There aren't."

      "You're sure?"

      "Quite sure. Now let's rub the back, shall we? Easy over."

      Jill decided she could not plant the bug in that room again and concluded that she would risk attempting to place it in the empty room which was part of K-12, the Suite of the Man from Mars. But it was almost time for her relief before she was free again. She got the pass key.

      Only to find that she did not need it; the door was unlocked and held two more marines; the guard had been doubled. One of them glanced up as she opened the door. "Looking for someone?"

      "No. Don't sit on the bed, boys," she said crisply. "If you need more chairs, we'll send for them." She kept her eye on the guard while he got reluctantly up; then she left, trying to conceal her trembling.

      The bug was still burning a hole in her pocket when she went off duty; she decided to return it to Caxton at once. She changed clothes, shifted it to her bag, and went to the roof. Once in the air and headed toward Ben's apartment she began to breathe easier. She phoned him in flight.

      "Caxton speaking."

      "Jill, Ben. I want to see you. Are you alone?"

      He answered slowly, "I don't think it's smart, kid. Not now."

      "Ben, I've got to see you. I'm on my way over."

      "Well, okay, if that's how it's got to be."

      "Such enthusiasm!"

      "Now look, hon, it isn't that I-"

      "'Bye!" She switched off calmed down and decided not to take it out on poor Ben-fact was they both were playing out of their league. At least she was-she should have stuck to nursing and left politics alone.

      She felt better when she saw Ben and better yet when she kissed him and snuggled into his arms. Ben was such a dear-maybe she really should marry him. But when she tried to speak he put a hand over her mouth, then whispered close against her ear, "Don't talk. No names and nothing but trivialities. I may be wired by now."

      She nodded and he led her into the living room. Without speaking she got out the wire recorder and handed it to him. His eyebrows went up when he saw that she was returning not just a spool but the whole works but he made no comment. Instead he handed her a copy of the afternoon Post.

      "Seen the paper?" he said in a natural voice. "You might like to glance at it while I wash up."

      "Thanks." As she took it he pointed to a column; he then left, taking with him the recorder. Jill saw that the column was Ben's own syndicated outlet.

THE CROW'S NEST by Ben Caxton

      Everyone knows that jails and hospitals have one thing in common: they both can be very hard to get out of. In some ways a prisoner is less cut off than a patient; a prisoner can send for his lawyer, can demand a Fair Witness, he can invoke habeas corpus and require the jailor to show cause in Open court.

      But it takes only a simple NO VISITORS sign, ordered by one of the medicine men of our peculiar tribe, to consign a hospital patient to oblivion more thoroughly than ever was the Man in the Iron Mask.

      To be sure, the patient's next of kin cannot be kept out by this device -but the Man from Mars seems to have no next of kin. The crew of the ill-fated Envoy had few ties on Earth; if the Man in the Iron Mask- pardon me I mean the "Man from Mars"-has any relative who is guarding his interests, a few thousand inquisitive reporters (such as your present scrivener) have been unable to verify it.

      Who speaks for the Man from Mars? Who ordered an armed guard placed around him? What is his dread disease that no one may catch a glimpse of him, nor ask him a question? I address you, Mr. Secretary General; the explanation about "physical weakness" and "gee-fatigue" won't wash; if that were the answer, a ninety-pound nurse would do as well as an armed guard.

      Could this disease be financial in nature? Or (let's say it softly) is it political?

      There was more, all in the same vein; Jill could see that Ben was deliberately baiting the administration, trying to force them to bring Smith out into the open. What that would accomplish she did not know, her own horizon not encompassing high politics and high finance. She felt, rather than knew, that Caxton was taking serious risk in challenging the established authorities, but she had no notion of the size of the danger, nor of what form it might take.

      She thumbed through the rest of the paper. It was well loaded with follow-up stories on the return of the Champion. with pictures of Secretary General Douglas pinning medals on the crew, interviews with Captain van Tromp and other members of his brave company, pictures of Martians and Martian cities. There was very little about Smith, merely a medical bulletin that he was improving slowly but satisfactorily from the effects of his trip.

      Ben came out and dropped some sheets of onion skin in her lap. "Here's another newspaper you might like to see," he remarked and left agan.

      Jill soon saw that the other "newspaper" was a transcription of what her first wire had picked up. As typed out, it was marked "First Voice," "Second Voice," and so on, but Ben had gone back and written in names wherever he had been able to make attributions later. He had written across the top: "All voices, identified or not, are masculine."

      Most of the items were of no interest. They simply showed that Smith had been fed, or washed, or massaged, and that each morning and afternoon he had been required to get up and exercise under the supervision of a voice identified as "Doctor Nelson" and a second voice marked "second doctor." Jill decided that this must be Dr. Thaddeus.

      But one longish passage had nothing to do with the physical care of the patient. Jill read it and reread it:

      Doctor Nelson: How are you feeling, boy? Are you strong enough to talk for a while?

      Smith: Yes.

      Doctor Nelson: A man wants to talk to you.

      Smith: (pause) Who? (Caxton had written in: All of Smith's speeches are preceded by long pauses, some longer than others.)

      Nelson: This man is our great (untranscribable guttural word-Martian?). He is our oldest Old One. Will you talk with him?

      Smith: (very long pause) I am great happy. The Old One will talk and I will listen and grow.

      Nelson: No, no! He wants to ask you questions.

      Smith: I cannot teach an Old One.

      Nelson: The Old One wishes it. Will you let him ask you questions?

      Smith: Yes.

      (Background noises, short delay.)

      Nelson: This way, sir. Uh, I have Doctor Mahmoud standing by, ready to translate for you.

      Jill read "New Voice." Caxton had scratched this out and had written in: "Secretary General Douglasilt"

      Secretary General: I won't need him. You say Smith understands English.

      Nelson: Well, yes and no, Your Excellency. He knows quite a number of words, but, as Mahmoud says, he doesn't have any cultural context to hang the words on. It can be rather confusing.

      Secretary General: Oh, we'll get along all right, I'm sure. When I was a youngster I hitchhiked all through Brazil, without knowing a word of Portuguese when I started. Now, if you will just introduce us-then leave us alone.

      Nelson: Sir? I think I had better stay with my patient.

      Secretary General: Really, Doctor? I'm afraid I must insist. Sorry.

      Nelson: And I am afraid that I must insist. Sorry, sir. Medical ethics-

      Secretary General: (interrupting) As a lawyer, I know a little something of medical jurisprudence-so don't give me that "medical ethics" mumbo-jumbo, really. Did this patient select you?

      Nelson: Not exactly, but- 

      Secretary General: Just as I thought. Has he had any opportunity to make a choice of physicians? I doubt it. His present status is that of ward of the state. I am acting as his next of kin, defacto-and, you will find, de jure as well. I wish to interview him alone.

      Nelson: (long pause, then very stiffly) If you put it that way, Your Excellency, I withdraw from the case.

      Secretary General: Don't take it that way, Doctor; I didn't mean to get your back hair up. I'm not questioning your treatment. But you wouldn't try to keep a mother from seeing her son alone, now would you? Are you afraid that I might hurt him?

      Nelson: No, but- Secretary General: Then what is your objection? Come now, introduce us and let's get on with it. This fussing may be upsetting your patient.

      Nelson: Your Excellency, I will introduce you. Then you must select another doctor for your . . . ward.

      Secretary General: I'm sorry, Doctor, I really am. I can't take that as final-we'll discuss it later. Now, if you please?

      Nelson: Step over here, sir. Son, this is the man who wants to see you. Our great Old One.

      Smith: (untranscribable)

      Secretary General: What did he say?

      Nelson: Sort of a respectful greeting. Mahmoud says it translates: "I am only an egg." More or less that, anyway. He used to use it on me. It's friendly. Son, talk man-talk.

      Smith: Yes.

      Nelson: And you had better use simple one-syllable words, if I may offer a last advice.

      Secretary General: Oh, I will.

      Nelson: Good-by, Your Excellency. Good-by, son.

      Secretary General: Thanks, Doctor. See you later.

      Secretary General: (continued) How do you feel?

      Smith: Feel fine.

      Secretary General: Good. Anything you want, just ask for it. We want you to be happy. Now I have something I want you to do for me. Can you write?

      Smith: 'Write?' What is 'write?'

      Secretary General: Well, your thumb print will do. I want to read a paper to you. This paper has a lot of lawyer talk, but stated simply it says that you agree that in leaving Mars you have abandoned-I mean, given up-any claims that you may have there. Understand me? You assign them in trust to the government.

      Smith: (no answer)

      Secretary General: Well, let's put it this way. You don't own Mars, do you?

      Smith: (longish pause) I do not understand.

      Secretary General: Mmm . . . let's try it this way. You want to stay here, don't you?

      Smith: I do not know. I was sent by the Old Ones. (Long untranscribable speech, sounds like a bullfrog fighting a cat.)

      Secretary General: Damn it, they should have taught him more English by now. See here, son, you don't have to worry about these things. Just let me have your thumb print here at the bottom of this page. Let me have your right hand. No, don't twist around that way. Hold still! I'm not going to hurt you . . . Doctor! Doctor Nelson!

      Second Doctor: Yes, sir?

      Secretary General: Get Doctor Nelson.

      Second Doctor: Doctor Nelson? But he has left, sir. He said you took him off the case.

      Secretary General: Nelson said that? Damn him! Well, do something. Give him artificial respiration. Give him a shot. Don't just stand there- can't you see the man is dying?

      Second Doctor: I don't believe there is anything to be done, sir. Just let him alone until he comes out of it. That's what Doctor Nelson always did.

      Secretary General: Blast Doctor Nelson!

      The Secretary General's voice did not appear again, nor that of Doctor Nelson. Jill could guess, from gossip she had picked up around the hospital, that Smith had gone into one of his cataleptic withdrawals. There were only two more entries, neither of them attributed. One read: No need to whisper. He Can't hear you. The other read: Take that tray away. We'll feed him when he comes out of it.

      Jill was giving the transcription a third reading when Ben reappeared. He was carrying more onionskin sheets but he did not offer them to her; instead he said, "Hungry?"

      She glanced inquiringly at the papers in his hand but answered, "Starved."

      "Let's get out of here and shoot a cow."

      He said nothing more while they went to the roof and took a taxi, and he still kept quiet during a flight to the Alexandria platform, where they switched to another cab. Ben selected one with a Baltimore serial number. Once in the air he set it for Hagerstown, Maryland, then settled back and relaxed. "Now we can talk."

      "Ben, why all the mystery?"

      "Sorry, pretty foots. Probably just nerves and my bad conscience. I don't know that there is a bug in my apartment-but if I can do it to them, they can do it to me . . . and I've been showing an unhealthy interest in things the administration wants kept doggo. Likewise, while it isn't likely that a cab signaled from my flat would have a recorder hidden in the cushions, still it might have; the Special Service squads are thorough. But this cab-" He patted its seat cushions. "They can't gimmick thousands of cabs. One picked at random should be safe."

      Jill shivered. "Ben, you don't really think they would..." She let it trail off.

      "Don't I, now! You saw my column. I filed that copy nine hours ago. Do you think the administration will let me kick it in the stomach without doing something about it?"

      "But you have always opposed this administration."

      "That's okay. The duty of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition is to oppose. They expect that. But this is different; I have practically accused them of holding a political prisoner . . . one the public is very much interested in. Jill, a government is a living organism. Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive. You hit it, it will fight back. This time I've really hit it." He gave her a sidelong look. "I shouldn't have involved you in this."

      "Me? I'm not afraid. At least not since I turned that gadget back over to you."

      "You're associated with me. If things get rough, that could be enough."

      Jill shut up. She had never in her life experienced the giant ruthlessness of giant power. Outside of her knowledge of nursing and of the joyous guerilla warfare between the sexes, Jill was almost as innocent as the Man from Mars. The notion that she, Jill Ooardman, who had never experienced anything worse than a spanking as a child and an occasional harsh word as an adult, could be in physical danger was almost impossible for her to believe. As a nurse, she had seen the consequences of ruthlessness, violence, brutality-but it could not happen to her.

      Their cab was circling for a landing in Hagerstown before she broke the moody silence. "Ben? Suppose this patient does die. What happens?"

      "Huh?" He frowned. "That's a good question, a very good question. I'm glad you asked it; it shows you are taking an interest in the work. Now if there are no other questions, the class is dismissed."

      "Don't try to be funny."

      "Hmm ... Jill, I've been awake nights when I should have been dreaming about you, trying to answer that one. It's a two-part question, political and financial-and here are the best answers I have now: If Smith dies, his odd legal claim to the planet Mars vanishes. Probably the pioneer group the Champion left behind on Mars starts a new claim-and almost certainly the administration worked out a deal with them before they left Earth. The Champion is a Federation ship but it is more than possible that the deal, if there was one, leaves all the strings in the hands of that redoubtable defender of human rights, Mr. Secretary General Douglas. Such a deal could keep him in power for a long time. On the other hand, it might mean nothing at all."

      "Huh? Why?"

      "The Larkin Decision might not apply. Luna was uninhabited, but Mars is inhabited-by Martians. At the moment, Martians are a legal zero. But the High Court might take a look at the political situation, stare at its collective navel, and decide that human occupancy meant nothing on a planet already inhabited by non-human natives. Then rights on Mars, if any, would have to be secured from the Martians themselves."

      "But, Ben, that would logically be the case anyhow. This notion of a single man owning a planet ...it' s fantastic!"

      "Don't use that word to a lawyer; he won't understand you. Straining at gnats and swallowing camels is a required course in all law schools. Besides, there is a case in point. In the fifteenth century the Pope deeded the entire western hemisphere to Spain and Portugal and nobody paid the slightest attention to the fact that the real estate was already occupied by several million Indians with their own laws, customs, and notions of property rights. His grant deed was pretty effective, too. Take a look at a western hemisphere map sometime and notice where Spanish is spoken and where Portuguese is spoken-and see how much land the Indians have left."

      "Yes, but- Ben, this isn't the fifteenth century."

      "It is to a lawyer. They still cite Blackwell, Code Napoleon, or even the laws of Justinian. Mark it down, Jill; if the High Court rules that the Larkin Decision applies, Smith is in a position to grant or withhold concessions on Mars which may be worth millions, or more likely billions. If he assigns his claim to the present administration, then Secretary Douglas is the man who will hand out the plums. Which is just what Douglas is trying to rig. You saw that bug transcript."

      "Ben, why should anybody want that sort of power?"

      "Why does a moth fly toward a light? The drive for power is even less logical than the sex urge . . . and stronger. But I said this was a two-part question. Smith's financial holdings are almost as important as his special position as nominal king-emperor of Mars. Possibly more important, for a High Court decision could knock out his squatter's rights on Mars but I doubt if anything could shake his ownership of the Lyle Drive and a major chunk of Lunar Enterprises; the eight wills are a matter of public record- and in the three most important cases he inherits with or without a will. What happens if he dies? I don't know. A thousand alleged cousins would pop up, of course, but the Science Foundation has fought off a lot of such money-hungry vermin in the past twenty years. It seems possible that, if Smith dies without making a will, his enormous fortune will revert to the state."

      "'The state?' Do you mean the Federation or the United States?"

      "Another very good question to which I do not know the answer. His natural parents come from two different member countries of the Federation and he was born outside all of them . . . and it is going to make a crucial difference to some people who votes those blocks of stock and who licenses those patents. It won't be Smith; he won't know a stock proxy from a traffic ticket. It is likely to be whoever can grab him and hang onto him. In the meantime I doubt if Lloyd's would write a policy on his life; he strikes me as a very poor risk."

      "The poor baby! The poor, poor infant!"

VI

      THE RESTAURANT IN HAGERSTOWN had "atmosphere" as well as good food, which meant that it had tables scattered not only over a lawn leading down to the edge of a little lake but also had tables in the boughs of three enormous old trees. Over all was a force field roof which kept the outdoors dining area perpetually summer even in rain and snow.

      Jill wanted to eat up in the trees, but Ben ignored her and bribed the maоtre d'hфtel to set up a table near the water in a spot of his choice, then ordered a portable stereo tank placed by their table.

      Jill was miffed. "Ben, why bother to come here and pay these prices if we can't eat in the trees and have to endure that horrible jitterbox?"

      "Patience, little one. The tables up in the trees all have microphone circuits; they have to have them for service. This table is not gimmicked- I hope-as I saw the waiter take it from a stack of unused ones. As for the tank, not only is it unAmerican and probably subversive to eat without watching stereo but also the racket from it would interfere even with a directional mike aimed at us from a distance . . . assuming that Mr. Douglas's investigators are beginning to take an interest in us, which I misdoubt they are."

      "Do you really think they might be shadowing us, Ben?" Jill shivered. "I don't think I'm cut out for a life of crime."

      "Pish and likewise tush! When I was working on the General Synthetics bribery scandals I never slept twice in the same place and ate nothing but packaged food I had bought myself. After a while you get to like it- stimulates the metabolism."

      "My metabolism doesn't need it, thank you. All I require is one elderly, wealthy private patient."

      "Not going to marry me, Jill?"

      "After my future husband kicks off, yes. Or maybe I'll be so rich I can afford to keep you as a pet."

      "Best offer I've had in months. How about starting tonight?"

      "After he kicks off."

      During their cocktails the musical show plus lavish commercials which had been banging their eardrums from the stereo tank suddenly stopped. An announcer's head and shoulders filled the tank; he smiled sincerely and said, "NWNW, New World Networks and its sponsor of the hour, Wise Girl Maithusian Lozenges, is honored and privileged to surrender the next few minutes to a special, history-making broadcast by the Federation Government. Remember, friends, every wise girl uses Wise Girls. Easy to carry, pleasant to take, guaranteed no-fail, and approved for sale without prescription under Public Law 1312, Why take a chance on old-fashioned, unesthetic, harmful, unsure methods? Why risk losing his love and respect? Remember The lovely, lupine announcer glanced aside and hurried through the rest of his commercial: "I give you the Wise Girl, who in turn brings you the Secretary General-and the Man from Mars!"

      The 3-D picture dissolved into that of a young woman, so sensuous, so unbelievably mammalian, so seductive, as to make every male who saw her unsatisfied with local talent. She stretched and wiggled and said in a bedroom voice, "I always use Wise Girl."

      The picture dissolved and a full orchestra played the opening bars of Hail to Sovereign Peace. Ben said, "Do you use Wise Girl?"

      "None o' your business!" She looked ruffled and added, "It's a quack nostrum. Anyhow, what makes you think I need it?"

      Caxton did not answer; the tank had filled with the fatherly features of Mr. Secretary General Douglas. "Friends," he began, "fellow citizens of the Federation, I have tonight a unique honor and privilege. Since the triumphant return of our trail-blazing ship Champion-" He continued in a few thousand well-chosen words to congratulate the citizens of Earth on their successful contact with another planet, another civilized race. He managed to imply that the exploit of the Champion was the personal accomplishment of every citizen of the Federation, that any one of them could have led the expedition had he not been busy with other serious work-and that he, Secretary Douglas, had been chosen by them as their humble instrument to work their will. The flattering notions were never stated baldly, but implied; the underlying assumption being that the common man was the equal of anyone and better than most-and that good old Joe Douglas embodied the common man. Even his mussed cravat and cowlicked hair had a "just folks" quality.

      Bert Caxton wondered who had written the speech. Jim Sanforth, probably-Jim had the most subtle touch of any member of Douglas' staff in selecting the proper loaded adjective to tickle and soothe an audience; he had written advertising commercials before he went into politics and had absolutely no compunctions. Yes, that bit about "the hand that rocks the cradle" was clearly Jim's work-Jim was the sort of jerk who would entice a young girl with candy and consider it a smart operation.

      "Turn it off!" Jill said urgently.

      "Huh? Shut up, pretty foots. I've got to hear this."

      "-and so, friends, I have the honor to bring you now our fellow citizen Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from Mars! Mike, we all know you are tired and have not been well-but will you say a few words to your friends? They all want to see you."

      The stereo scene in the tank dissolved to a semi-close-up of a man in a wheel chair. Hovering over him like a favorite uncle was Douglas and on the other side of the chair was a nurse, stiff, starched, and photogenic.

      Jill gasped. Ben whispered fiercely, "Keep quiet! I don't want to miss a word of this."

      The interview was not long. The smooth babyface of the man in the chair broke into a shy smile; he looked at the cameras and said, "Hello, folks. Excuse me for sitting down. I'm still weak." He seemed to speak with difficulty and once the nurse interrupted to take his pulse.

      In answer to questions from Douglas he paid compliments to Captain van Tromp and the crew of the Champion, thanked everyone for his rescue, and said that everyone on Mars was terribly excited over contact with Earth and that he hoped to help in welding strong and friendly relations between the two planets. The nurse interrupted again, but Douglas said gently. "Mike, do you feel strong enough for just one more question?"

      "Sure, Mr. Douglas-if I can answer it."

      "Mike? What do you think of the girls here on Earth?"

      "Gee!"

      The baby face looked awestruck and ecstatic and turned pink. The scene dissolved again to the head and shoulders of the Secretary General. "Mike asked me to tell you," he went on in fatherly tones, "that he will be back to see you as soon as he can. He has to build up his muscles, you know. The gravity of Earth is as rough on him as the gravity of Jupiter would be to us. Possibly next week, if the doctors say he is strong enough." The scene shifted back to the exponents of Wise Girl lozenges and a quick one-act playlet made clear that a girl who did not use them was not only out of her mind but undoubtedly a syntho in the hay as well; men would cross the street to avoid her. Ben switched to another channel, then turned to Jill and said moodily, "Well, I can tear up tomorrow's column and look around for a new subject to plug. They not only made my today's squawk look silly but it appears that Douglas has him safely under his thumb."

      "Ben!"

      "Huh?"

      "That's not the Man from Mars!"

      "What? Baby, are you sure?"

      "Sure I'm sure! Oh, it looked like him, it looked a great deal like him. Even the voice was similar. But it was not the patient I saw in that guarded room."

      Ben tried to shake her conviction. He pointed out that several dozen other persons were known to have seen Smith-guards, internes, male nurses, the captain and crew members of the Champion, probably others. Quite a few of that list must have seen this newscast-or at least the administration would have to assume that some of them would see it and spot the substitution . . . if there had been a substitution. It did not make sense-too great a risk.

      Jill did not offer logical rebuttal; she simply stuck Out her lower lip and insisted that the person on Stereo was not the patient she had met. Finally she said angrily, "All right, all right, have it your own way! I can't prove I'm right-so I must be wrong. Men!"

      "Now, Jill ..."

      "Please take me home."

      Ben silently went for a cab. He did not accept one from outside the restaurant even though he no longer thought that anyone would be taking interest in his movements; he selected one from the landing flat of a hotel across the way. Jill remained chilly on the flight back. Presently Ben got out the transcripts of the sounds picked up from Smith's hospital room and reread them. He read them still again, thought for a while, and said, "Jill?"

      "Yes, Mr. Caxton?"

      "I'll 'mister' you! Look, Jill, I'm sorry, I apologize. I was wrong."

      "And what leads you to this momentous conclusion?"

      He slapped the folded papers against his palm. "This. Smith could not possibly have been showing this behavior yesterday and the day before and then have given that interview tonight. He would have flipped his controls and gone into one of those trance things."

      "I am gratified that you have finally seen the obvious."

      "Jill, will you kindly kick me in the face a couple of times, then let up? This is serious. Do you know what this means?"

      "It means they used an actor to fake an interview. I told you that an hour ago."

      "Sure. An actor and a good one, carefully typed and coached. But it implies much more than that. As I see it, there are two possibilities. The first is that Smith is dead and-"

      "Dead!" Jill suddenly was back in that curious water-drinking ceremony and felt the strange, warm, unworldly flavor of Smith's personality, felt it with unbearable sorrow.

      "Maybe. In which case this ringer will be allowed to stay 'alwe' for a week or ten days, until they have time to draw up whatever papers they want him to sign. Then the ringer will 'die' and they will ship him Out of town, probably with a hypnotic injunction not to talk so strong that he would choke up with asthma if he tried to spill it-or maybe even a transorbital lobotomy if the boys are playing for keeps. But if Smith is dead, we can just forget it; we'll never be able to prove the truth. So let's assume that he is still alive."

      "Oh, I do hope so!"

      "What is Hecuba to you, or you to Hecuba?" Caxton misquoted. "If he is still alive, it could be that there is nothing especially sinister about it. After all, a lot of public figures use doubles for some of their appearances;•. it does not even annoy the public because every time a yokel thinks that he has spotted a double it makes him feel smart and in the know, So it may be that the administration has just yielded to public demand and given them that look at the Man from Mars we have all been yapping for. It could be that in two or three weeks our friend Smith will be in shape to stand the strain of public appearances, at which time they will trot him Out. But I doubt it like hell!"

      "Why?"

      "Use your pretty curly head. The Honorable Joe Douglas has already made one attempt to squeeze out of Smith what he wants . . . and failed miserably. But Douglas can't afford to fail. So I think he will bury Smith deeper than ever . . . and that is the last we will ever see of the true Man from Mars."

      "Kill him?" Jill said slowly.

      "Why be rough about it? Lock him in a private nursing home and never let him learn anything. He may already have been removed from Bethesda Center."

      "Oh, dear! Ben, what are we going to do?"

      Caxton scowled and thought. "I don't have a good plan. They own both the bat and the ball and are making the rules. But what I am going to do is this~ I'm going to walk into that hospital with a Fair Witness on one side and a tough lawyer on the other and demand to see Smith. Maybe I can force them to drag it out into the open."

      "I'll be right behind you!"

      "Like mischief you will. You stay Out of this. As you pointed Out, it would ruin you professionally."

      "But you need me to identify him."

      "Not so. I flatter myself that I can tell a man who was raised by nonhumans from an actor pretending to be such a man in the course of a very short interview. But if anything goes wrong, you are my ace in the hole-a person who knows that they are pulling hanky-panky concerning the Man from Mars and who has access to the inside of Bethesda Center. Honey, if you don't hear from me, you are on your own."

      "Ben, they wouldn't hurt you?"

      "I'm fighting Out of my weight, youngster. There is no telling."

      "Uh ... oh, Ben, I don't like this. Look, if you do get in to see him, what are you going to do?"

      "I'm going to ask him if he wants to leave the hospital. If he says he does, I'm going to invite him to come along with me. In the presence of a Fair Witness they won't dare stop him. A hospital isn't a prison; they don't have any legal right to hold him."

      "Uh ... then what? He really does need medical attention, Ben; he's not able to take care of himself. I know."

      Caxton scowled again. "I've been thinking of that. I can't nurse him. You could, of course, if you had the facilities. We could put him in my flat-"

      "-and I could nurse him. We'll do it, Ben!"

      "Slow down. I thought of that. Douglas would pull some legal rabbit out of his hat, a deputation in force would call, and Smith would go right back to pokey. And so would both of us, maybe." He wrinkled his brow. "But I know one man who could give him shelter and possibly get away with it."

      "Ever heard of Jubal Harshaw?"

      "Huh? Who hasn't?"

      "That's one of his advantages; everybody knows who he is. It makes him hard to shove around. Being both a doctor of medicine and a lawyer he is three times as hard to shove around. But most important he is so rugged an individualist that he would fight the whole Federation Departtflent of Security with just a potato knife if it suited his fancy-and that makes him eight times as hard to shove around. But the point is that I got well acquainted with him during the disaffection trials; he is a friend I can count on in a pinch. If I can get Smith out of Bethesda, I'll take him to Harshaw's place over in the Poconos-and then just let those jerks try to hide him under a rug again! Between my column and Harshaw's love for a fight we'll give 'em a bad time."

VII

      DESPITE A LATE EVENING Jill was ready to relieve the night floor nurse ten minutes early the next morning. She intended to obey Ben's order to stay out of his proposed attempt to see the Man from Mars but she was determined to be close by when it happened . . . just in case. Ben might need reinforcements.

      There were no longer marine guards in the corridor. Trays, medications, and two patients to be prepared for surgery kept her busy the first two hours; she had only time to check the knob of the door to suite K- 12. It was locked, as was the door to the adjoining sitting room. The door to the watch room on its other side was closed. She considered sneaking in again to see Smith through the connecting sitting room, now that the guards were gone, but decided to postpone it; she was too busy. Nevertheless she managed to keep a close check on everyone who came Onto her floor.

      Ben did not show up and discreet questions asked of her assistant on the switchboard reassured her that neither Ben nor anyone else had gone in to see the Man from Mars while Jill was busy elsewhere. It puzzled her; while Ben had not set a time, she had had the impression that he had intended to storm the citadel as early in the day as possible.

      Presently she felt that she just had to snoop a bit. During a lull she knocked at the door of the Suite's watch room, then stuck her head in and pretended surprise. "Oh! Good morning, Doctor. I thought Doctor Frame was in here."

      The physician at the watch desk was strange to Jill. He turned away from the displayed physio data, looked at her, then smiled as he looked her up and down. "I haven't seen Dr. Frame, Nurse. I'm Dr. Brush. Can I help?"

      At the typical male reaction Jill relaxed. "Nothing special. To tell the truth I was curious. How is the Man from Mars?"

      She smiled and winked. "It's no secret to the staff, Doctor. Your patient-" She gestured at the inner door.

      "Huh?" He looked startled. "Did they have him in this suite?"

      "What? Isn't he here now?"

      "Not by six decimal places. Mrs. Rose Bankerson-Dr. Garner's patient. We brought her in early this morning."

      "Really? But what happened to the Man from Mars? Where did they put him?"

      "I haven't the faintest. Say, did I realiy just miss seeing Valentine Smith?"

      "He was here yesterday. That's all I know."

      "And Dr. Frame was on his case? Some people have all the luck. Look what I'm stuck with." He switched on the Peeping Tom above his desk; Jill saw framed in it, as if she were looking down, a water bed; floating in it was a tiny old woman. She seemed to be asleep.

      "What's her trouble?"

      "Mmm ... Nurse, if she didn't have more money than any person ought to have, you might be tempted to call it senile dementia. As it is, she is in for a rest and a check-up."

      Jill made small talk for a few moments more, then pretended to see a call light. She went back to her desk, dug out the night log-yes, there it was: V M. Smith, K-12-zransfer. Below that entry was another: Rose ~ Bankerson (Mrs.)-red K-12 (diet kitchen instrd by Dr. Garner-no orders-fir nt respnbl).

      Having noted that the rich old gal was no responsibility of hers, Jill turned her mind back to Valentine Smith. Something about Mrs. Bankerson's case struck her as odd but she could not put her finger on it, so she put it Out of her mind and thought about the matter that did interest her. Why had they moved Smith in the middle of the night? To avoid any possible contact with outsiders, probably. But where had they taken him? Ordinarily she would simply have called "Reception" and asked, but Ben's opinions plus the phony broadcast of the night before had made her jumpy about showing curiosity; she decided to wait until lunch and see what she could pick up on the gossip grapevine.

      But first Jill went to the floor's public booth and called Ben. His office informed her that Mr. Caxton had just left town, to be gone a few days. She was startled almost speechless by this-then pulled herself together and left word for Ben to call her.

      She then called his home. He was not there; she recorded the same message.

      Ben Caxton had wasted no time in preparing his attempt to force his way into the presence of Valentine Michael Smith. He was lucky in being able to retain James Oliver Cavendish as his Fair Witness. While any Fair Witness would do, the prestige of Cavendish was such that a lawyer was hardly necessary-the old gentleman had testified many times before the High Court of the Federation and it was said that the wills locked up in his head represented not billions but trillions. Cavendish had received his training in total recall from the great Dr. Samuel Renshaw himself and his professional hypnotic instruction had been undergone as a fellow of the Rhine Foundation. His fee for a day or fraction thereof was more than Ben made in a week, but Ben expected to charge it off to the Post syndicate-in any case, the best was none too good for this job.

      Caxton picked up the junior Frisby of Biddle, Frisby, Frisby, Biddle, & Reed as that law firm represented the Post syndicate, then the two younger men called for Witness Cavendish. The long, spare form of Mr. Cavendish, wrapped chin to ankle in the white cloak of his profession, reminded Ben of the Statue of Liberty . . . and was almost as conspicuous. Ben had already explained to Mark Fnsby what he intended to try (and Frisby had already pointed Out to him that he had no status and no rights) before they called for Cavendish; once in the Fair Witness's presence they conformed to protocol and did not discuss what he might be expected to see and hear.

      The cab dropped them on top of Bethesda Center; they went down to the Director's office. Ben handed in his card and said that he wanted to see the Director.

      An imperious female with a richly cultivated accent asked if he had an appointment. Ben admitted that he had none.

      "Then I am afraid that your chance of seeing Dr. Broemer is very slight. Will you state your business?"

      "Just tell him," Caxton said loudly, so that others waiting would hear, "that Caxton of the Crow's Nest is here with a lawyer and a Fair Witness to interview Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from Mars."

      She was startled almost out of her professional hauteur. But she recovered and said frostily, "I shall inform him. Will you be seated, please?"

      "Thanks, I'll wait right here."

      They waited. Frisby broke out a cigar, Cavendish waited with the calm patience of one who has seen all manner of good and evil and now counts them both the same, Caxton uttered and tried to keep from biting his nails. At last the snow queen behind the desk announced, "Mr. Berquist will see you."

      "Berquist? Gil Berquist?"

      "I believe his name is Mr. Gilbert Berquist."

      Caxton thought about it-Gil Berquist was one of Secretary Douglas's large squad of stooges, or "executive assistants." He specialized in chaperoning official visitors. "I don't want to see Berquist; I want the Director."

      But Berquist was already coming out, hand shoved out before him, greeter's grin plastered on his face. "Benny Caxton! How are you, chum? Long time and so forth. Still peddling the same old line of hoke?" He glanced at the Fair Witness, but his expression admitted nothing.

      Ben shook hands briefly. "Same old hoke, sure. What are you doing here, Gil?"

      "If I ever manage to get Out of public service I'm going to get me a column, too-nothing to do but phone in a thousand words of rumors each day and spend the rest of the day in debauchery. I envy you, Ben."

      "I said, 'What are you doing here, Gil?' I want to see the Director, then get five minutes with the Man from Mars. I didn't come here for your high-level brush off."

      "Now, Ben, don't take that attitude. I'm here because Dr. Broemer has been driven almost crazy by the press-so the Secretary General sent me over to take some of the load off his shoulders."

      "Okay. I want to see Smith."

      "Ben, old boy, don't you realize that every reporter, special correspondent, feature writer, commentator, free-lance, and sob sister wants the same thing? You winchells are just one squad in an army; if we let you all have your way, you would kill off the poor jerk in twenty-four hours. Polly Peepers was here not twenty minutes ago. She wanted to interview him on love life among the Martians." Berquist threw up both hands and looked helpless.

      "I want to see Smith, Do I see him, or don't I?"

      "Ben, let's find a quiet place where we can talk over a long, tall glass. You can ask me anything you want to."

      "I don't want to ask you anything; I want to see Smith. By the way, this is my attorney, Mark Frisby-Biddle & Frisby." As was customary, Ben did not introduce the Fair Witness; they all pretended that he was not present.

      "I've met Frisby," Berquist acknowledged. "How's your father, Mark? Sinuses still giving him fits?"

      "About the same."

      "This foul Washington climate. Well, come along, Ben. You, too,Mark."

      "Hold it," said Caxton. "I don't want to interview you, Gil. I want to see Valentine Michael Smith. I'm here as a member of the press, directly representing the Post syndicate and indirectly representing over two hundred million readers. Do I see him? If I don't, say so out loud and state your legal authority for refusing me."

      Berquist sighed. "Mark, will you tell this keyhole historian that he can't go busting into a sick man's bedroom just because he has a syndicated column? Valentine Smith made one public appearance just last night -against his physician's advice I might add. The man is entitled to peace and quiet and a chance to build up his strength and get oriented. That appearance last night was enough, more than enough."

      "There are rumors," Caxton said carefully, "that the appearance last night was a fake."

      Berquist stopped smiling. "Frisby," he said coldly, "do you want to advise your client on the law concerning slander?"

      "Take it easy, Ben."

      "I know the law on slander, Gil. In my business I have to. But whom am I slandering? The Man from Mars? Or somebody else? Name a name. I repeat," he went on, raising his voice, "that I have heard that the man interviewed on TV last night was not the Man from Mars. I want to see him myself and ask him."

      The crowded reception hail was very quiet as everyone present bent an ear to the argument. Berquist glanced quickly at the Fair Witness, then got his expression under control and said smilingly to Caxton, "Ben, it's just possible that you talked yourself into the interview you wanted-as well as a lawsuit. Wait a moment."

      He disappeared into the inner office, came back fairly soon. "I arranged it," he said wearily, "though God knows why. You don't deserve it, Ben. Come along. Just you-Mark, I'm sorry but we can't have a crowd of people; after all, Smith is a sick man."

      "No," said Caxton.

      "Huh?"

      "All three of us, or none of us. Take your choice."

      "Ben, don't be silly; you're receiving a very special privilege. Tell you what-Mark can come along and wait outside the door But you certainly don't need him." Berquist glanced toward Cavendish; the Witness seemed not to hear.

      "Maybe not. But I've paid his fee to have him along. My column will state tonight that the administration refused to permit a Fair Witness to see the Man from Mars."

      Berquist shrugged. "Come along, then. Ben, I hope that slander suit really clobbers you."

      They took the patients' elevator rather than the bounce tube out of deference to Cavendish's age, then rode a slide-away for a long distance past laboratories, therapy rooms, solaria, and ward after ward. They were stopped once by a guard who phoned ahead, then let them through; they were at last ushered into a physio-data display room used for watching critically ill patients. "This is Dr. Tanner," Berquist announced. "Doctor, this is Mr. Caxton and Mr. Frisby." He did not, of course, introduce Cavendish.

      Tanner looked worried. "Gentlemen, I am doing this against my better judgment because the Director insists. I must warn you of one thing. Don't do or say anything that might excite my patient. He is in an extremely neurotic condition and falls very easily into a state of pathological withdrawal-a trance, if you choose to call it that."

      "Epilepsy?" asked Ben.

      "A layman might easily mistake it for that. It is more like catalepsy. But don't quote me; there is no clinical precedent for this case."

      "Are you a specialist, Doctor? Psychiatry, maybe?"

      Tanner glanced at Berquist. "Yes," he admitted.

      "Where did you do your advanced work?"

      Berquist said, "Look, Ben, let's see the patient and get it over with. You can quiz Dr. Tanner afterwards."

      "Okay."

      Tanner glanced over his dials and graphs, then flipped a switch and stared into a Peeping Tom, He left the desk, unlocked a door and led them into an adjoining bedroom, putting a finger to his lips as he did so. The other four followed him in. Caxton felt as if he were being taken to "view the remains" and suppressed a nervous need to laugh.

      The room was quite gloomy. "We keep it semi-darkened because his eyes are not accustomed to our light levels," Tanner explained in a hushed voice. He turned to a hydraulic bed which filled the center of the room. "Mike, I've brought some friends to see you."

      Caxton pressed closer, Floating therein, half concealed by the way his body sank into the plastic skin covering the liquid in the tank and farther concealed by a sheet up to his armpits, was a young man. He looked back at them but said nothing; his smooth, round face was expressionless.

      So far as Ben could tell this was the man who had been on stereo the night before. He had a sudden sick feeling that little Jill, with the best of intentions, had tossed him a live grenade-a slander suit that might very well bankrupt him. "You are Valentine Michael Smith?"

      "Yet"

      "The Man from Mars?"

      "Yet"

      "You were on stereo last night?"

      The man in the tank bed did not answer. Tanner said, "I don't think he knows the word. Let me try. Mike, you remember what you did with Mr. Douglas last night?"

      The face looked petulant. "Bright lights. Hurt."

      "Yes, the lights hurt your eyes. Mr. Douglas had you say hello to people."

      The patient smiled slightly. "Long ride in chair."

      "Okay," agreed Caxton. "I catch on. Mike, are they treating you all right here?"

      "Yes."

      "You don't have to stay here, you know. Can you walk?"

      Tanner said hastily, "Now see here, Mr. Caxton-" Berquist put a hand on his arm and he shut up.

      "I can walk ... a little. Tired."

      "I'll see that you have a wheel chair. Mike, if you don't want to stay here, I'll help you get out of bed and take you anywhere you want to go."

      Tanner shook off Berquist's hand and said, "I can't have you interfering with my patient!"

      "He's a free man, isn't he?" Caxton persisted. "Or is he a prisoner here?"

      Berquist answered, "Of course he is a free man! Keep quiet, Doctor. Let the fool dig his own grave."

      "Thanks, Gil. Thanks all to pieces. So he is free to leave if he wants to. You heard what he said, Mike. You don't have to stay here. You can go anywhere you like. I'll help you."

      The patient glanced fearfully at Tanner. "No! No, no, no!"

      "Okay, okay."

      Tanner snapped, "Mr. Berquist, this has gone quite far enough! My patient will be upset the rest of the day."

      "All right, Doctor. Ben, let's get the show on the road. You've had enough, surely."

      "Ub ... just one more question." Caxton thought hard, trying to think what he could squeeze out of it. Apparently Jill had been wrong- yet she had not been wrong!-or so it had seemed last night. But something did not quite fit although he could not tell what it was.

      "One more question," Berquist begrudged.

      "Thanks. Uh ... Mike, last night Mr. Douglas asked you some questions." The patient watched him but made no comment. "Let's see, he asked you what you thought of the girls here on Earth, didn't he?"

      The patient's face broke into a big smile. "Gee!"

      "Yes. Mike ... when and where did you see these girls?"

      The smile vanished. The patient glanced at Tanner, then he stiffened, his eyes rolled up, and he drew himself into the foetal position, knees drawn up, head bent, and arms folded across his chest.

      Tanner snapped, "Get them out of here!" He moved quickly to the tank bed and felt the patient's wrist.

      Berquist said savagely, "That tears it! Caxton, will you get out? Or shall I call the guards and have you thrown out?"

      "Oh, we're getting out all right," Caxton agreed. All but Tanner left the room and Berquist closed the door.

      "Just one point, Gil," Caxton insisted. "You've got him boxed up in there . . . so just where did he see those girls?"

      "Eh? Don't be silly. He's seen lots of girls. Nurses ... laboratory technicians. You know."

      "But I don't know. I understood he had nothing but male nurses and that female visitors had been rigidly excluded."

      "Eh? Don't be any more preposterous than you have to be." Berquist looked annoyed, then suddenly grinned. "You saw a nurse with him on stereo just last night."

      "Oh. So I did." Caxton shut up and let himself be led out.

      They did not discuss it further until the three were in the air, headed for Cavendish's home. Then Frisby remarked, "Ben, I don't suppose the Secretary General will demean himself to sue you, since you did not print it. Still, if you really do have a source for that rumor you mentioned, we had better perpetuate the evidence. You don't have much of a leg to stand on, you know."

      "Forget it Mark. He won't sue." Ben glowered at the floor of the cab. "How do we know that was the Man from Mars?"

      "Eh? Come off it, Ben."

      "How do we know? We saw a man about the right age in a hospital bed. We have Berquist's word for it-and Berquist got his start in politics issuing denials; his word means nothing. We saw a total stranger, supposed to be a psychiatrist . . . and when I tried to find out where he had studied psychiatry I got euchred out. How do we know? Mr. Cavendish, did you see or hear anything that convinced you that this bloke was the Man from Mars?"

      Cavendish answered carefully, "It is not my function to form opinions. I see, I hear-that is all."

      "Sorry."

      "By the way, are you through with me in my professional capacity?"

      "Huh? Oh, sure. Thanks, Mr. Cavendish."

      "Thank you, sir. It was an interesting assignment." The old gentleman took off the cloak that set him apart from ordinary mortals, folded it carefully and laid it on the seat. He sighed, relaxed, and his features lost professional detachment, warmed and mellowed. He took out cigars, offered them to the others; Frisby took one and they shared a light. "I do not smoke," Cavendish remarked through a thick cloud, "while on duty. It interferes with optimum functioning of the senses."

      "If I had been able to bring along a crew member of the Champion," Caxton persisted, "I could have tied it down. But I thought surely I could tell."

      "I must admit," remarked Cavendish, "that I was a little surprised at one thing you did not do."

      "Huh? What did I miss?"

      "Calluses"

      "Calluses?"

      "Surely. A man's life history can be told from his calluses. I once did a monograph on them, published in The Witness Quarterly- like Sherlock Holmes' famous monograph on tobacco ash. This young man from Mars since he has never worn our sort of shoes and has lived in gravity about one third of ours, should display foot calluses consonant with his former environment. Even the time he recently spent in space should have left their traces. Very interesting."

      "Damn! Good Lord, Mr. Cavendish, why didn't you suggest it to me?"

      "Sir?" The old man drew himself up and his nostrils dilated. "It would not have been ethical. I am a Fair Witness, not a participant. My professional association would suspend me for much less. Surely you know that."

      "Sorry. I forgot myself." Caxton frowned. "Let's wheel this buggy around and go back. We'll take a look at his feet-or I'll bust the place down with Berquist's fat head!"

      "I'm afraid you will have to find another Witness ... in view of my indiscretion in discussing it, even after the fact."

      "Uh, yes, there's that." Caxton frowned.

      "Better just calm down, Ben," advised Frisby. "You're in deep enough now. Personally, I'm convinced it was the Man from Mars. Occam's razor, least hypothesis, just plain horse sense."

      Caxton dropped them, then set the cab to cruise while he thought. Presently he punched the combination to take him back to Bethesda Medical Center.

      He was less than half way back to the Center when he realized that his trip was useless. What would happen? He would get as far as Berquist, no farther. He had been allowed in once-with a lawyer, with a Fair Witness. To demand to be allowed to see the Man from Mars a second time, all in one morning, was unreasonable and would be refused. Nor, since it was unreasonable, could he make anything effective out of it in his column.

      But he bad not acquired a widely syndicated column through being balked. He intended to get in.

      How? Well, at least he now knew where the putative "Man from Mars" was being kept. Get in as an electrician? Or as a janitor? Too obvious; he would never get past the guard, not even as far as "Dr. Tanner."

      Was "Tanner" actually a doctor? It seemed unlikely. Medical men, even the worst of them, tended to shy away from hanky-panky contrary to their professional code. Take that ship's surgeon, Nelson-he had quit, washed his hands of the case simply because- Wait a minute! Dr. Nelson was one man who could tell offhand whether that young fellow was the Man from Mars, without checking calluses, using trick questions, or anything. Caxton reached for buttons, ordered his cab to ascend to parking level and hover, and immediately tried to phone Dr. Nelson, relaying through his office for the purpose since he neither knew where Dr. Nelson was, nor had with him the means to find out. Nor did his assistant Osbert Kilgallen know where he was, either, but he did have at hand resources to find out; it was not even necessary to draw on Caxton's large account of uncollected favors in the Enclave, as the Post syndicate's file on Important Persons placed him at once in the New Mayflower. A few minutes later Caxton was talking with him.

      To no purpose-Dr. Nelson had not seen the broadcast. Yes, he had heard about it; no, he had no reason to think the broadcast had been faked. Did Dr. Nelson know that an attempt had been made to coerce Valentine Smith into surrendering his rights to Mars under the Larkin Decision? No, he did not know it, had no reason to believe so . . . and would not be interested if it were true; it was preposterous to talk about anyone "owning" Mars; Mars belonged to the Martians. So? Let's propose a hypothetical question, Doctor; if someone were trying to- But Dr. Nelson had switched off. When Caxton tried to reconnect, a recorded voice stated sweetly: "The subscriber has voluntarily suspended service temporarily. If you care to record-" Caxton switched off.

      Caxton made a foolish statement concerning Dr. Nelson's parentage. But what he did next was much more foolish; he phoned the Executive Palace, demanded to speak to the Secretary General.

      His action was more a reflex than a plan. In his years as a snooper, first as a reporter, then as a lippmann, he had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger's tail was dangerous, for he understood the psychopathology of great power as thoroughly as Jill Boardman lacked knowledge of it-but he had habitually relied on his relative safety as a dealer in still another sort of power almost universally feared and appeased by the powerful.

      What he forgot was, that in phoning the Palace from a taxicab, he was not doing so publicly.

      Caxton was not put through to the Secretary General, nor had he expected to be. Instead he spoke with half a dozen underlings and became more aggressive with each one. He was so busy that he did not notice it when his cab ceased to hover and left the parking level.

      When he did notice it, it was too late; the cab refused to obey the orders he at once punched into it. Caxton realized bitterly that he had let himself be trapped by a means no professional hoodlum would fall for: his call had been traced, his cab identified, its idiot robot pilot placed under orders of an over-riding police frequency-and the cab itself was being used to arrest him and fetch him in, all most privately and with no fuss,

      He wished keenly that he had kept Fair Witness Cavendish with him. But he wasted no time on this futility but cleared the useless call from the radio and tried at once to call his lawyer, Mark Frisby.

      He was still trying when the taxicab landed inside a courtyard landing fiat and his signal was cut off by its walls. He then tried to leave the cab, found that the door would not open-and was hardly surprised to discover that he was becoming very light-headed and was fast losing consciousness-

VIII

      JILL TRIED TO TELL HERSELF that Ben had gone charging off on another Scent and simply had forgotten (or had not taken time) to let her know. But she did not believe it. Ben, incredibly busy as he was, owed much of his success, both professional and social, to meticulous attention to human details. He remembered birthdays and would rather have weiched on a poker debt than have forgotten to write a bread-and-butter note. No matter where he had gone, nor how urgent the errand, he could have-and would have!-at least taken two minutes while in the air to record a reassuring message to her at her home or at the Center. It was an unvarying characteristic of Ben, she reminded herself, the thing that made him a lovable beast in spite of his many faults.

      He must have left word for her! She called his office again at her lunch break and spoke with Ben's researcher and office chief, Osbert Kilgallen. He assured her solemnly that Ben had left no message for her, nor had any come in since she had called earlier.

      She could see past his head in the screen that there were other people in the office; she decided it was a poor time to mention the Man from Mars. "Did he say where he was going? Or when he would be back?"

      "No. But that is not unusual. We always have a few spare columns on the hook to fill in when one of these things comes up."

      "Well ... where did he call you from? Or am I being too snoopy?"

      "Not at all, Miss floardman. He did not call; it was a statprint message, filed from Paoli Flat in Philadelphia as I recall."

      Jill had to be satisfied with that. She lunched in the nurses' dining room and tried to interest herself in food. It wasn't, she told herself, as if anything were really wrong . . . or as if she were in love with the lunk or anything silly like that.

      "Hey! Boardman! Snap out of the fog-I asked you a question."

      Jill looked up to find Molly Wheelwright, the wing's dietician, looking at her. "Sorry. I was thinking about something else."

      "I said, 'Since when does your floor put charity patients in luxury suites?'

      "Isn't K-12 on your floor? Or have they moved you?"

      "K-12? Certainly. But that's not a charity case; it's a rich old woman, wealthy that she can pay to have a doctor watch every breath she draws."

      "Humph! If she's wealthy, she must have come into money awfully suddenly. She's been in the N.P. ward of the geriatrics sanctuary for the past seventeen months."

      "Must be some mistake."

      "Not mine-I don't let mistakes happen in my diet kitchen. That tray is a tricky one and I check it myself-fat-free diet (she's had her gall bladder out) and a long list of sensitivities, plus concealed medication. Believe me, dear, a diet order can be as individual as a fingerprint." Miss Wheelwright stood up. "Gotta run, chicks. I wish they would let me run this kitchen for a while. Hogwallow Cafeteria!"

      "What was Molly sounding off about?" one of the nurses asked.

      "Nothing. She's just mixed up." But Jill continued to think about it. It occurred to her that she might locate the Man from Mars by making inquiries around the diet kitchens. She put the idea out of her mind; it would take a full day to visit all the diet kitchens in the acres of ground covered by the sprawling buildings. Bethesda Center had been founded as a naval hospital back in the days when wars were fought on oceans; it had been enormous even then. It had been transferred later to Health, Education, & Welfare and had expanded; now it belonged to the Federation and was still larger, a small city.

      But there was something odd about Mrs. Bankerson's case. The hospital accepted all classes of patients, private, charity, and government; the floor Jill was working on usually had only government patients and its luxury suites were occupied by Federation Senators or other official guests able to command flossy service. It was unusual for a paying private patient to have a suite on her floor, or to be on her floor in any status.

      Of course Mrs. Bankerson could be overflow, if the part of the Center open to the fee-paying public had no such suite available. Yes, probably that was it.

      She was too rushed for a while after lunch to think about it, being busy with incoming patients. Shortly a situation came up in which she needed a powered bed. The routine action would be to phone for one to be sent up-but the storage room was in the basement a quarter of a mile away and Jill wanted the bed at once. She recalled that she had seen the powered bed which was normally in the bedroom of suite K-l2 parked in the sitting room of that suite; she remembered telling one of those marine guards not to sit on it. Apparently it had Simply been shoved in there to get it out of the way when the flotation bed had been installed for Smith.

      Possibly it was still sitting there, gathering dust and still charged out to the floor. Powered beds were always in short supply and cost six times as much as an ordinary bed. While, strictly speaking, it was the wing superintendent's worry, Jill saw no reason to let overhead charges for her floor run up unnecessarily-and besides, if it was still there, she could get it at once. She decided to find out.

      The sitting room door was still locked. She was startled to find that her pass key would not open it. Making a mental note to tell maintenance to repair the lock, she went on down the corridor to the watch room of the suite, intending to find out about the bed from the doctor watching over Mrs. Bankerson.

      The physician on watch was the same one she had met before, Dr. Brush. He was not an intern, nor a resident, but had been brought in for this patient, Jill had learned from him, by Dr. Garner. Brush looked up as she put her head in. "Miss Boardman! Just the person I want to see!"

      "Why didn't you ring? How's your patient?"

      "She's all right," he answered, glancing up at the Peeping Tom, "But I definitely am not."

      "Trouble?"

      "Some trouble. About five minutes' worth. And my relief is not in the building. Nurse, could you spare me about that many minutes of your valuable time? And then keep your mouth shut afterwards?"

      "I suppose so. I told my assistant floor supervisor I would be away for a few minutes. Let me use your phone and I'll tell her where to find me."

      "No!" he said urgently. "Just lock that door after I leave and don't let anybody in until you hear me rap 'Shave and a Haircut' on it, that's a good girl."

      "All right, sir," Jill said dubiously. "Am I to do anything for your patient?"

      "No, no, just sit there at the desk and watch her in the screen. You won't have to do anything. Don't disturb her."

      "Well, if anything does happen, where will you be? In the doctors' lounge?"

      "I'm not going that far-just to the men's washroom down the corridor. Now shut up, please, and let me go-this is urgent."

      He left and Jill obeyed his order to lock the door after him. Then she looked at the patient through the viewer and ran her eye over the dials. The elderly woman was again asleep and the displays showed her pulse strong and her breathing even and normal; Jill wondered why Dr. Garner considered a "death watch" necessary?

      Then she remembered why she had come in there in the first place and decided that she might as well find out if the bed was in the far room without bothering Dr. Brush about it. While it was not quite according to Dr. Brush's instructions, she would not be disturbing his patient-certainly she knew how to walk through a room without waking a sleeping patient!-and she had decided years ago that what doctors did not know rarely hurt them. She opened the door quietly and went in.

      A quick glance assured her that Mrs. Bankerson was in the typical sleep of the senile. Walking noiselessly she went past her to the door to the sitting room. It was locked but her pass key let her in.

      She was pleased to see that the powered bed was there. Then she saw that the room was occupied-sitting in an arm chair with a picture book in his lap was the Man from Mars.

      Smith looked up and gave her the beaming smile of a delighted baby.

      Jill felt dizzy, as if she had been jerked out of sleep. Jumbled ideas raced through her mind. Valentine Smith here? But he couldn't be; he had been transferred somewhere else; the log showed it. But he was here.

      Then all the ugly implications and possibilities seemed to line themselves up . - - the fake "Man from Mars" on stereo ... the old woman out there, ready to die, but in the meantime covering the fact that there was another patient in here . . . the door that would not open to her pass-key-and, lastly, a horrid vision of the "meat wagon" wheeling out of here some night, with a sheet concealing the fact that it carried not one cadaver, but two.

      When this last nightmare rushed through her mind, it carried in its train a cold wind of fear, the realization that she herself was in peril through having stumbled Onto this top-secret fact.

      Smith got clumsily up from his chair, held out both hands while still smiling and said, "Water brother!"

      "Hello. Uh ... how are you?"

      "I am well. I am happy." He added something in a strange, choking speech, then corrected himself and said carefully, "You are here, my brother. You were away. Now you are here. I drink deep of you."

      Jill felt herself helplessly split between two emotions, one that crushed and melted her heart-and an icy fear of being caught here. Smith did not seem to notice. Instead he said, "See? I walk! I grow strong." He demonstrated by taking a few steps back and forth, then stopped, triumphant, breathless, and smiling in front of her.

      She forced herself to smile. "We are making progress, aren't we? You keep growing stronger, that's the spirit! But I must go now-I just stopped in to say hello."

      His expression changed instantly to distress. "Do not go!"

      "Oh, but I must!"

      He continued to look woebegone, then added with tragic certainty, "I have hurted you. I did not know."

      "Hurt me? Oh, no, not at all! But I must go-and quickly!"

      His face was without expression. He stated rather than asked, "Take me with you, my brother."

      "What? Oh, I can't. And I must go, at once. Look, don't tell anyone that I was in here, please!"

      "Not tell that my water brother was here?"

      "Yes. Don't tell anyone. Uh, I'll try to come back, I really will. You be a good boy and wait and don't tell anyone."

      Smith digested this, looked serene. "I will wait. I will not tell."

      "Good!" Jill wondered how the devil she possibly could get back in to see him-she certainly couldn't depend on Dr. Brush having another convenient case of trots. She realized now that the "broken" lock had not been broken and her eye swept around to the corridor door-and she saw why she had not been able to get in. A hand bolt had been screwed to the surface of the door, making a pass key useless. As was always the case with hospitals, bathroom doors and other doors that could be bolted were so arranged as to open also by pass key, so that patients irresponsible or unruly could not lock themselves away from the nurses. But here the locked door kept Smith in, and the addition of a simple hand bolt of the sort not permitted in hospitals served to keep out even those with pass keys.

      Jill walked over and opened the bolt. "You wait. I'll come back."

      "I shall waiting."

      When she got back to the watch room she heard already knocking the Tock! Tocki Ti-toe/c tocki - . . Tock, tock! signal that Brush had said he would use; she hurried to let him in.

      He burst in, saying savagely, "Where the hell were you, nurse? I knocked three times." He glanced suspiciously at the inner door.

      "I saw your patient turn over in her sleep," she lied quickly. "I was in arranging her collar pillow."

      "Damn it, I told you simply to sit at my desk!"

      Jill knew suddenly that the man was even more frightened than she was-and with more reason. She counter-attacked. "Doctor, I did you a favor," she said coldly. "Your patient is not properly the responsibility of the floor supervisor in the first place. But since you entrusted her to me, I had to do what seemed necessary in your absence. Since you have questioned what I have done, let's get the wing superintendent and settle the matter."

      "Huh? No, no-forget it."

      "No, sir. I don't like to have my professional actions questioned without cause. As you know very well, a patient that old can smother in a water bed; I did what was necessary. Some nurses will take any blame from a doctor, but I am not one of them. So let's call the superintendent."

      "What? Look, Miss Boardman, I'm sorry I said anything. I was upset and I popped off without thinking. I apologize."

      "Very well, Doctor," Jill answered stiffly. "Is there anything more I can do for you?"

      "Uh? No, thank you. Thanks for standing by for me. Just ... well, be sure not to mention it, will you?"

      "I won't mention it." You can bet your sweet life I won't mention it, Jill added silently. But what do I do now? Oh, I wish Ben were in town! She got back to her duty desk, nodded to her assistant, and pretended to look over some papers. Finally she remembered to phone for the powered bed she had been after in the first place. Then she sent her assistant to look at the patient who needed the bed (now temporarily resting in the ordinary type) and tried to think.

      Where was Ben? If he were only in touch, she would take ten minutes relief, call him, and shift the worry onto his broad shoulders. But Ben, damn him, was oft' skyoodling somewhere and letting her carry the ball.

      Or was he? A fretful suspicion that had been burrowing around in her subconscious all day finally surfaced and looked her in the eye, and this time she returned the stare: Ben Caxton would not have left town without letting her know the outcome of his attempt to see the Man from Mars. As a fellow conspirator it was her right to receive a report and Ben always played fair . . . always.

      She could hear sounding in her head something he had said on the ride back from Hagerstown: "-if anything goes wrong, you are my ace in the hole . . . honey. ~f you don't hear from me, you are on your own,"

      She had not thought seriously about it at the time, as she had not really believed that anything could happen to Ben. Now she thought about it for a long time, while trying to continue her duties. There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else. Jill Boardman encountered her personal challenge-and accepted it-at 3:47 that afternoon while convincing a ward visitor that he simply could not bring a dog onto the floor even though he had managed to slip it past the receptionist and even if the sight of this dog was just what the patient needed.

      The Man from Mars sat down again when Jill left. He did not pick up the picture book they had given him but simply waited in a fashion which may be described as "patient" only because human language does not embrace Martian emotions nor attitudes. He merely held still with quiet happiness because his brother had said that he would return. He was prepared to wait, without doing anything, without moving, for several years if necessary.

      He had no clear idea how long it had been since he had first shared water with this brother; not only was this place curiously distorted in time and shape, with sequences of sights and sounds and experiences new to him and not yet grokked, but also the culture of his nest took a different grasp of time from that which is human. The difference lay not in their much longer lifetimes as counted in Earth years, but in a basically different attitude. The sentence, "It is later than you think," could not have been expressed in Martian-nor could "Haste makes waste," though for a different reason: the first notion was inconceivable while the latter was an unexpressed Martian basic, as unnecessary as telling a fish to bathe. But the quotation, "As it was in the Beginning, is now and ever shall be," was so Martian in mood that it could be translated more easily than "two plus two makes four"-which was not a truism on Mars.

      Smith waited.

      Brush came in and looked at him; Smith did not move and Brush went away.

      When Smith heard a key in the Outer door, he recalled that this sound had been one that he had heard somewhat before the last visit of his water brother, so he shifted his metabolism in preparation, in case the sequence occurred again. He was astonished when the door opened and Jill slipped in, as he had not been aware that the outer door was a door. But he grokked it at once and gave himself over to the joyful fullness which comes only in the presence of one's own nestlings, one's chosen water brothers, and (under certain circumstances) in the presence of the Old Ones.

      His joy was somewhat sullied by immediate awareness that his brother did not fully share it . . - in truth, he seemed more distressed than was possible save in one about to discorporate because of some shameful lack or failure.

      But Smith had already learned that these creatures, so much like himself in some ways, could endure emotions dreadful to contemplate and still not die. His Brother Mahmoud underwent a spiritual agony five times daily and not only did not die but had urged the agony on him as a needful thing. His Brother Captain van Tromp suffered terrifying spasms unpredictably, any one of which should have, by Smith's standards, produced immediate discorporation to end the conflict-yet that brother was still corporate so far as he knew.

      So he ignored Jill's agitation.

      Jill handed him a bundle. "Here, put these on. Hurry!"

      Smith accepted the bundle and stood waiting. Jill looked at him and said, "Oh, dear! All right, get your clothes off. I'll help you."

      She was forced to do more than help; she had to undress and dress him. He had been wearing a hospital gown, a bathrobe, and slippers, not because he wanted them but because he had been told to wear them. He could handle them himself by now, but not fast enough to Suit Jill; she skinned him quickly. She being a nurse and he never having heard of the modesty taboo-nor would he have grasped an explanation-they were not slowed up by irrelevancies; the difficulties were purely mechanical. He was delighted and surprised by the long false skins Jill drew over his legs, but she gave him no time to cherish them, but taped the women's stockings to his thighs in lieu of a garter belt. The nurse's uniform she dressed him in was not her own, but one that she had borrowed from a larger woman on the excuse that a cousin of hers needed one for a masquerade party. Jill hooked a nurse's cape around his neck and reflected that its all-enclosing straight drape covered most of the primary and secondary sex characteristics-at least she hoped that it would. The shoes were more difficult, as they did not fit well and Smith still found standing and walking in this gravity field an effort even barefooted.

      But at last she got him covered and pinned a nurse's cap on his head. "Your hair isn't very long," she said anxiously, "but it is practically as long as a lot of the girls wear it and it will have to do." Smith did not answer as he had not understood much of the remark. He tried to think his hair longer but realized that it would take time.

      "Now," said Jill. "Listen carefully. No matter what happens, don't say a word. I'll do all the talking. Do you understand me?"

      "Don't talk. I will not talk."

      "Just come with me-I'll hold your hand. And don't say a word. But if you know any prayers, pray!"

      "Pray?"

      "Never mind. You just come along and don't talk." She opened the quick glance outside, then took his hand and led him out into the corridor.

      No one seemed especially interested. Smith found the many strange configurations upsetting in the extreme; he was assaulted by images he could not bring into focus. He stumbled blindly along beside Jill, with his eyes and senses almost disconnected to protect himself against chaos.

      She led him to the end of the corridor and stepped on a slide-away leading crosswise. He almost fell down and would have done so if Jill had not caught him. A chambermaid looked curiously at them and Jill cursed under her breath-then was very careful in helping him off. They took an elevator to the roof, Jill being quite sure that she could never pilot him up a bounce tube.

      On the roof they encountered a major crisis, though Smith was not aware of it. He was undergoing the keen delight of seeing sky; he had not seen sky since the sky of Mars. This sky was bright and colorful and joyful -it being a typical overcast Washington grey day. In the meantime Jill was looking around helplessly for a taxi. The roof was almost deserted, something she had counted on, since most of the nurses who came off duty when she did were already headed home fifteen minutes ago and the afternoon visitors were gone. But the taxis were, of course, gone too. She did not dare risk an air bus, even though one which went her way would be along in a few minutes.

      She was about to call a taxi when one headed in for a landing. She called to the roof attendant. "Jack! Is that cab taken? I need one."

      "It's probably the one I called for Dr. Phipps."

      "Oh, dear! Jack, see how quick you can get me another one, will you? This is my cousin Madge-she works over in South Wing-and she has a terrible laryngitis and I want to get her out of this wind."

      The attendant looked dubiously toward the phone in his booth and scratched his head. "Well ... seeing it's you, Miss Boardman, I'll let you take this one and call another one for Dr. Phipps. How's that?"

      "Oh, Jack, you're a lamb! No, Madge, don't try to talk; I'll thank him. Her voice is gone completely; I'm going to take her home and bake it out with hot rum."

      "That ought to do it. Old-fashioned remedies are always best, my mother used to say." He reached into the cab and punched the combination for Jill's home from memory, then helped them in. Jill managed to get in the way and thereby cover up Smith's unfamiliarity with this common ceremonial. "Thanks, Jack. Thanks loads."

      The cab took off and Jill took her first deep breath. "You can talk

      "What should I say?"

      "Huh? Nothing. Anything. Whatever you like."

      Smith thought this over. The scope of the invitation obviously called for a worthy answer, suitable to brothers. He thought of several, discarded them because he did not know how to translate them, then settled on one which he thought he could translate fairly well but which nevertheless conveyed even in this strange, flat speech some of the warm growing-closer brothers should enjoy. "Let our eggs share the same nest."

      Jill looked startled. "Huh? What did you say?"

      Smith felt distressed at the failure to respond in kind and interpreted it as failure on his own part. He realized miserably that, time after time, he had managed to bring agitation to these other creatures when his purpose had been to create oneness. He tried again, rearranging his sparse vocabulary to enfold the thought somewhat differently. "My nest is yours and your nest is mine."

      This time Jill managed to smile. "Why, how sweet! My dear, I am not sure that I understand you, but if I do, that is the nicest offer I have had in a long time." She added, "But right now we are up to our ears in trouble- so let's wait a while, shall we?"

      Smith had understood Jill hardly more than Jill had understood him, but he caught his water brother's pleased mood and understood the suggestion to wait. Waiting was something he did without effort, so he sat back, satisfied that all was well between himself and his brother, and enjoyed the scenery. It was the first time he had seen this place from the air and on every side there was a richness of new things to try to grok. It occurred to him that the apportation used at home did not permit this delightful viewing of what lay between. This thought almost led him to a comparison of Martian and human methods not favorable to the Old Ones, but his mind automatically shied away from heresy.

      Jill kept quiet, too, and tried to get her thoughts straight. Suddenly she realized that the cab was heading down the final traffic leg toward the apartment house where she lived-and she realized just as quickly that home was the last place for her to go, it being the first place they would look once they figured out how Smith had escaped and who had helped him. She did not kid herself that she had covered her tracks. While she knew nothing of police methods, she supposed that she must have left fingerprints in Smith's room, not to mention the people who had seen them walk out. It was even possible (so she had heard) for a technician to read the tape in this cab's pilot and tell exactly what trips it had made that day and where and when.

      She reached forward, slapped the order keys, and cleared the instruction to go to her apartment house. She did not know whether that would wipe the tape or not-but she was not going to head for a place where the police might already be waiting.

      The cab checked its forward motion, rose out of the traffic lane and hovered. Where could she go? Where in all this swarming city could she hide a grown man who was half idiot and could not even dress himself?-a man who was the most sought-after person on the globe? Oh, if Ben were only here! Ben - - - where are you?

      She reached forward again, picked up the phone and rather hopelessly punched Ben's number, expecting to hear the detached voice of an automation inviting her to record a message. Her spirits jumped when a man's voice answered . - . then slumped again when she realized that it was not Ben but his majordomo, Osbert Kilgallen. "Oh. Sorry, Mr. Kilgallen. This is Jill Boardman. I thought I had called Mr. Caxton's home."

      "You did. But I always have his home calls relayed to the office when he is away more than twenty-four hours."

      "Then he is still away?"

      "I'm afraid so. Is there anything I can do for you?"

      "Uh, no. Look, Mr. Kilgallen, isn't it strange that Ben should just drop out of sight? Aren't you worried about him?"

      "Eh? Why should I be? His message said that he did not know how long he would be away."

      "Isn't that rather odd in itself?"

      "Not in Mr. Caxton's work, Miss Boardman."

      "Well ... I think there is something very odd about his being away this time! I think you ought to report it. You ought to spread it over every news service in the country-in the world!"

      Even though the cab's phone had no vision circuit Jill felt Osbert Kilgallen draw himself up. "I'm afraid, Miss Boardman, that I will have to interpret my employer's instructions myself. Uh - - . if you don't mind my saying so, there is always some . . 'good friend' phoning Mr. Caxton frantically every time he leaves town."

      Some babe trying to get a hammer lock on him, Jill interpreted angrily-and this Osbert character thinks I'm the current one. It put out of her mind the half-formed thought of asking Kilgallen for help; she switched off as quickly as possible.

      But where could she go? The obvious solution popped into her mind. If Ben was missing-and the authorities had a hand in it-the last place they would be likely to look for Valentine Smith would be Ben's apartment. Unless, she corrected, they connected her with Ben, which she did not think that they did.

      They could dig a bite to eat out of Ben's buttery-she wouldn't risk ordering anything from the basement; they might know he was away. And she could borrow some of Ben's clothes for her idiot child. The last point settled it; she set the combination for Ben's apartment house. The cab picked out the new lane and dropped into it.

      Once outside the door to Ben's fiat Jill put her face to the hush box by the door and said emphatically, "Karthago delenda est!"

      Nothing happened. Oh damn him! she said frantically to herself; he's changed the combo. She stood there for a moment, knees weak, and kept her face away from Smith. Then she again spoke into the hush box. It was a Raytheon lock, the same voice circuit actuated the door or announced callers. She announced herself on the forlorn chance that Ben might have returned. "Ben, this is Jill."

      The door slid open.

      They went inside and the door closed. Jill thought for an instant that Ben had let them in, then she realized that she had accidentally hit on his new door combination . . . intended, she guessed, as a gracious compliment combined with a wolf tactic. She felt that she could have dispensed with the compliment to have avoided the awful panic she had felt when the door had refused to open.

      Smith stood quietly at the edge of the thick green lawn and looked at the room. It again was a place so new to him as not to be grokked at once, but he felt immediately pleased with it. It was less exciting than the moving place they had just been in, but in many ways more suited for enfolding together the self. He looked with interest at the view window at one end but did not recognize it as a window, mistaking it for a living picture like those he had been used to at home-the suite he had been in at Bethesda contained no windows, it being in one of the newer wings, and thus far he had never acquired the idea of "window."

      He noticed with approval that the simulation of depth and movement in the "picture" was perfect-some very great artist among these people must have created it. Up until this time he had seen nothing to cause him to think that these people possessed art; his grokldng of them was increased by this new experience and he felt warmed.

      A movement caught his eye; he turned to find his brother removing the false skins as well as the slippers from its legs.

      Jill sighed and wiggled her toes in the grass. "Gosh, how my feet do hurt!" She glanced up and saw Smith watching her with that curiously disturbing baby-faced stare. "Do it yourself if you want to. You'll love it."

      He blinked. "How do?"

      "I keep forgetting. Come here, I'll help you." She got his shoes off, untaped the stockings and peeled them off. "There, doesn't that feel good?"

      Smith wiggled his toes in the cool grass, then said timidly, "But these live?"

      "Sure, they're alive. It's real live grass. Ben paid a lot to have it that way. Why, the special lighting circuits alone cost more than I make in a month. So walk around and let your feet enjoy it."

      Smith missed much of the speech but he did understand that the grass was made up of living beings and that he was being invited to walk on them. "Walk on living things?" he asked with incredulous horror.

      "Huh? Why not? It doesn't hurt this grass; it was specially developed for house rugs."

      Smith was forced to remind himself that a water brother could not lead him into wrongful action. Apprehensively he let himself be encouraged to walk around-and found that he did enjoy it and that the living creatures did not protest. He set his sensitivity for such things as high as possible; his brother was right, this was their proper being-to be walked on. He resolved to enfold it and praise it; the effort was much like that of a human trying to appreciate the merits of cannibalism-a custom which Smith found perfectly proper.

      Jill let out a sigh. "Well, I had better stop playing. I don't know how long we will be safe here."

      "Safe?"

      "We can't stay here, not very long. They may be checking on every conveyance that left the Center this very minute." She frowned and thought. Her place would not do, this place would not do-and Ben had intended to take him to Jubal Harshaw. But she did not know Harshaw; she was not even sure where he lived-somewhere in the Poconos, Ben had said. Well, she would just have to try to find out where he lived and call him. It was Hobson's choice; she had nowhere else to turn.

      "Why are you not happy, my brother?"

      Jill snapped out of her mood and looked at Smith. Why, the poor infant didn't even know anything was wrong! She made a real effort to look at it from his point of view. She failed, but she did grasp that he had no notion that they were running away from . . - from what? The cops? The hospital authorities? She was not sure quite what she had done, or what laws she had broken; she simply knew that she had pitted her own puny self against the combined will of the Big People, the Bosses, the ones who made decisions.

      But how could she tell the Man from Mars what they were up against when she did not understand it herself? Did they have policemen on Mars? Half the time she found talking to him like shouting down a rain barrel.

      Heavens, did they even have rain barrels on Mars? Or rain?

      "Never you mind," she said soberly. "You just do what I tell you to do."

      "Yes."

      It was an unmodified, unlimited acceptance, an eternal yea. Jill suddenly had the feeling that Smith would unhesitatingly jump out the window if she told him to-in which belief she was correct; he would have jumped, enjoyed every scant second of the twenty-storey drop, and accepted without surprise or resentment the discorporation on impact. Nor would he have been unaware that such a fall would kill him; fear of death was an idea utterly beyond him. If a water brother selected for him such a strange discorporation, he would cherish it and try to grok.

      "Well, we can't stand here pampering our feet. I've got to feed us, I've got to get you into different clothes, and we've got to leave. Take those off." She left to check Ben's wardrobe.

      She selected for him an inconspicuous travel suit, a beret, shirt, underclothes, and shoes, then returned. Smith was as snarled as a kitten in knitting; he had tried to obey but now had one arm prisoned by the nurse's uniform and his face wrapped in the skirt. He had not even removed the cape before trying to take off the dress.

      Jill said, "Oh, dear!" and ran to help him.

      She got him loose from the clothes, looked at them, then decided to stuff them down the oubliette . . . she could pay Etta Schere for the loss of them later and she did not want cops finding them here-just in case. "But you are going to have to have a bath, my good man, before I dress you in Ben's clean clothes. They've been neglecting you. Come along." Being a nurse, she was inured to bad odors, but (being a nurse) she was fanatic about soap and water . . and it seemed to her that no one had bothered to bathe this patient recently. While Smith did not exactly stink, he did remind her of a horse on a hot day. Soap suds were indicated.

      He watched her fill the tub with delight. There had been a tub in the bathroom of the suite he had been in but Smith had not known it was used to hold water; bed baths were all that he had had and not many of those; his trancelike withdrawals had interfered.

      Jill tested the water's temperature. "All right, climb in."

      Smith did not move. Instead he looked puzzled.

      "Hurry!" Jill said sharply. "Get in the water."

      The words she used were firmly parts of his human vocabulary and Smith did as she ordered, emotion shaking him. This brother wanted him to place his whole body in the water of life. No such honor had ever come to him; to the best of his knowledge and belief no one had ever before been offered such a holy privilege. Yet he had begun to understand that these others did have greater acquaintance with the stuff of life . . . a fact not yet grokked but which he had to accept.

      He placed one trembling foot in the water, then the other . . . and slipped slowly down into the tub until the water covered him completely.

      "Hey!" yelled Jill, and reached in and dragged his head and shoulders above water-then was shocked to find that she seemed to be handling a corpse. Good Lord! he couldn't drown, not in that time. But it frightened her and she shook him. "Smith! Wake up! Snap out of it."

      Smith heard his brother call from far away and returned. His eyes ceased to be glazed, his heart speeded up and he resumed breathing. "Are you all right?" Jill demanded.

      "I am all right. I am very happy ... my brother."

      "You sure scared me. Look, don't get under the water again. Just sit up, the way you are now."

      "Yes, my brother." Smith added several words in a curious croaking meaningless to Jill, cupped a handful of water as if it were precious jewels and raised it to his lips. His mouth touched it, then he offered the handful to Jill.

      "Hey, don't drink your bath water! No, I don't want it, either."

      "Not drink?"

      His look of defenseless hurt was such that Jill again did not know what to do. She hesitated, then bent her head and barely touched her lips to the offering. "Thank you."

      "May you never thirst!"

      "I hope you are never thirsty, too. But that's enough. If you want a drink of water, I'll get you one. But don't drink any more of this water."

      Smith seemed satisfied and sat quietly. By now Jill was convinced that he had never taken a tub bath before and did not know what was expected of him. She considered the problem. No doubt she could coach him but they were already losing precious time. Maybe she should have let him go dirty.

      Oh, well! It was not as bad as tending a disturbed patient in an N.P. ward. She had already got her blouse wet almost to the shoulders in dragging Smith off the bottom; she took it off and hung it up. She had been dressed for the street when she had crushed Smith out of the Center and was wearing a little, pleated pediskirt that floated around her knees. Her jacket she had dropped in the living room. She glanced down at the skirt. Although the pleats were guaranteed permanized, it was silly to get it wet. She shrugged and zipped it off; it left her in brassiere and panties.

      Jill looked at Smith. He was staring at her with the innocent, interested eyes of a baby. She found herself blushing, which surprised her, as she had not known that she could. She believed herself to be free of morbid modesty and had no objection to nudity at proper times and places-she recalled suddenly that she had gone on her first bareskin swimming party at fifteen. But this childlike stare from a grown man bothered her; she decided to put up with clammily wet underwear rather than do the obvious, logical thing.

      She covered her discomposure with heartiness. "Let's get busy now and scrub the hide." She dropped to her knees beside the tub, sprayed soap on him, and started working it into a lather.

      Presently Smith reached out and touched her right mammary gland. Jill drew back hastily, almost dropping the sprayer. "Hey! None of that stuff!"

      He looked as if she had slapped him. "Not?" he said tragically.

      "'Not,'" she agreed firmly. She looked at his face and added softly. "It's all right. Just don't distract me with things like that when I'm busy."

      He took no more inadvertent liberties and Jill cut the bath short, letting the water drain and having him stand up while she showered the soap off him. Then she dressed with a feeling of relief while the blast dried him. The warm air startled him at first and he began to tremble, but she told him not to be afraid and had him hold onto the grab rail back of the tub while he dried and she dressed.

      She helped him out of the tub. "There, you smell a lot better and I'll bet you feel better."

      "Feel fine."

      "Good. Let's get some clothes on you." She led him into Ben's bedroom where she had left the clothes she had selected. But before she could even explain, demonstrate, or assist in getting shorts on him, she was shocked almost out of the shoes she had not yet put back on.

      "OPEN UP IN THERE!"

      Jill dropped the shorts. She was frightened nearly Out of her senses, feeling the same panic she felt when a patient's respiration stopped and blood pressure dropped in the middle of surgery. But the discipline she had learned in operating theater came to her aid. Did they actually know anyone was inside? Yes, they must know-else they would never have come here. That damned robo-cab must have given her away.

      Well, should she answer? Or play 'possum?

      The shout over the announcing circuit was repeated. She whispered to Smith, "Stay here!" then went into the living room. "Who is it?" she called out, striving to keep her voice normal.

      "Open in the name of the law!"

      "Open in the name of what law? Don't be silly. Tell me who you are and what you want before I call the police."

      "We are the police. Are you Gillian Boardman?"

      "Me? Of course not. I'm Phyllis O'Toole and I'm waiting for Mr. Caxton to come home. Now you had better go away, because I'm going to call the police and report an invasion of privacy."

      "Miss Boardman, we have a warrant for your arrest. Open up at once or it will go hard with you."

      "I'm not your 'Miss Boardman' and I'm calling the policel"

      The voice did not answer. Jill waited, swallowing. Shortly she felt radiant heat against her face. A small area around the door's lock began to glow red, then white; something crunched and the door slid open. Two men were there; one of them stepped in, grinned at Jill and said, "That's the babe, all right. Johnson, look around and find him."

      "Okay, Mr. Berquist."

      Jill tried to make a road block of herself. The man called Johnson, twice her mass, put a hand on her shoulder, brushed her aside and went on back toward the bedroom. Jill said shrilly, "Where's your warrant? Let's see your credentials-this is an outrage!"

      Berquist said soothingly, "Don't be difficult, sweetheart. We don't really want you; we just want him. Behave yourself and they might go easy on you."

      She kicked at his shin. He stepped back nimbly, which was just as well, as Jill was still barefooted. "Naughty, naughty," he chided. "Johnson! You find him?"

      "He's here, Mr. Berquist. And naked as an oyster. Three guesses what they were up to."

      "Never mind that. Bring him here."

      Johnson reappeared, shoving Smith ahead of him, controlling him by twisting one arm behind his back. "He didn't want to come."

      "He'll come, he'll come!"

      Jill ducked past Berquist, threw herself at Johnson. With his free hand he slapped her aside. "None of that, you little slut!"

      Johnson should not have slapped her. He had not hit her hard, not even as hard as he used to hit his wife before she went home to her parents, and not nearly as hard as he had often hit prisoners who were reluctant to talk. Up to this time Smith had shown no expression at all and had said nothing; he had simply let himself be forced into the room with the passive, futile resistance of a puppy who does not want to be walked on a leash. But he had understood nothing of what was happening and had tried to do nothing at all.

      When he saw his water brother struck by this other, he twisted and ducked, got free-and reached in an odd fashion for Johnson.

      Johnson was not there any longer.

      He was not anywhere. The room did not contain him. Only blades of grass, straightening up where his big feet had been, showed that he had ever been there. Jill stared through the space he had occupied and felt that she might faint.

      Berquist closed his mouth, opened it again, said hoarsely, "What did you do with him?" He looked at Jill rather than Smith.

      "Me? I didn't do anything."

      "Don't give me that. What's the trick? You got a trap door or something?"

      "Where did he go?"

      Berquist licked his lips. "I don't know." He took a gun from under his coat. 'But don't try any of your tricks with me. You stay here-I'm taking him along."

      Smith had relapsed into his attitude of passive waiting. Not understanding what it was all about, he had done only the minimum he had to do. But guns he had seen before, in the hands of men on Mars, and the expression on Jill's face at having one aimed at her he did not like. He grokked that this was one of the critical cusps in the growth of a being wherein contemplation must bring forth right action in order to permit further growth. He acted.

      The Old Ones taught him well. He stepped toward Berquist; the gun swung to cover him. Nevertheless he reached out-and Berquist was no longer there. Smith turned to look at his brother.

      Jill put a hand to her mouth and screamed.

      Smith's face had been completely blank. Now it became tragically forlorn as he realized that he must have chosen wrong action at the cusp. He looked imploringly at Jill and began to tremble. His eyes rolled up; he slipped slowly down to the grass, pulled himself tightly into a foetal ball and was motionless.

      Jill's own hysteria cut off as if she had thrown a switch. The change was an indoctrinated reflex: here was a patient who needed her; she had no time for her own emotions, no time even to worry or wonder about the two men who had disappeared. She dropped to her knees and examined Smith.

      She could not detect respiration, nor could she find a pulse; she pressed an ear against his ribs. She thought at first that heart action had stopped completely, but, after a long time, she heard a lazy tub-dub, followed in four or five seconds by another.

      The condition reminded her of schizoid withdrawal, but she had never seen a trance so deep, not even in class demonstrations of hypnoanesthesia. She had heard of such deathlike states among East Indian fakirs but she had never really believed the reports.

      Ordinarily she would not have tried to rouse a patient in such a state but would have sent for a doctor at once. But these were not ordinary circumstances. Far from shaking her resolve, the events of the past few minutes had made her more determined than ever not to let Smith fall back into the hands of the authorities. But ten minutes of trying everything she knew convinced her that she could not rouse this patient with means at hand without injuring him-and perhaps not even then. Even the sensitive, exposed nerve in the elbow gave no response.

      In Ben's bedroom she found a battered flight case, almost too big to be considered hand luggage, too small to be a trunk. She opened it, found it packed with voicewriter, toilet kit, a complete outfit of male clothing, and everything else that a busy reporter might need if called out of town suddenly-even to a licensed audio link to permit him to patch into phone service wherever he might be. Jill reflected that the presence of this packed bag alone tended strongly to prove that Ben's absence was not what Kilgallen thought it was, but she wasted no time thinking about it; she simply emptied the bag and dragged it into the living room.

      Smith outweighed her, but muscles acquired handling patients twice her size enabled her to dump him into the big bag. Then she had to refold him somewhat to allow her to close it. His muscles resisted force, but under gentle pressure steadily applied he could be repositioned like putty. She padded the corners with some of Ben's clothes before she closed him up. She tried to punch some air holes but the bag was a glass laminate, tough as an absentee landlord's heart. She decided that he could not suffocate quickly with his respiration so minimal and his metabolic rate down as low as it must be.

      She could barely lift the packed bag, straining as hard as she could with both hands, and she could not possibly carry it any distance. But the bag was equipped with "Red Cap" casters. They cut two ugly scars in Ben's grass rug before she got it to the smooth parquet of the little entrance way.

      She did not go to the lobby on the roof, since another air cab was the last thing she wanted to risk, but went out instead by the service door in the basement. There was no one there but a young man who was checking an incoming kitchen delivery. He moved slowly aside and let her roll the bag out onto the pavement. "Hi, sister. What you got in the kiester?"

      "A body," she snapped.

      He shrugged. "Ask a jerky question, get a jerky answer. I should learn."

PART TWO : HIS PREPOSTEROUS HERITAGE IX

      THE THIRD PLANET OUT from Sol was in its normal condition. It had on it 230,000 more human souls today than yesterday, but, among the five billion terrestrials such a minute increase was not noticeable. The Kingdom of South Africa, Federation associate member, had again been cited before the High Court for persecution of its white minority. The lords of women's fashions, gathered in solemn conclave in Rio, had decreed that hem lines would go down and that navels would again be covered. The three Federation defense stations swung silently in the sky, promising instant death to any who disturbed the planet's peace. Commercial space stations swung not so silently, disturbing the planet's peace with endless clamor of the virtues of endless trademarked trade goods. Half a million more mobile homes had set down on the shores of Hudson Bay than had migrated by the same date last year, the Chinese rice belt had been declared an emergency malnutrition area by the Federation Assembly, and Cynthia Duchess, known as the Richest Girl in the World, had dismissed and paid off her sixth husband. All was normal.

      The Reverend Doctor Daniel Digby, Supreme Bishop of the Church of the New Revelation (Fosterite) had announced that he had nominated the Angel Azreel to guide Federation Senator Thomas Boone and that he expected Heavenly confirmation of his choice some time today; all the news services carried the announcement as straight news, the Fosterites having wrecked too many newspaper offices in the past. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Campbell VI had a son and heir by host-mother at Cincinnati Children's Hospital while the happy parents were vacationing in Peru. Dr. Horace Quackenbush, Professor of Leisure Arts at Yale Divinity School, issued a stirring call for a return to faith and a cultivation of spiritual values; there was a betting scandal involving half the permanent professionals of the West Point football squad and its line coach; three bacterial warfare chemists were suspended at Toronto for presumption of emotional instability-all three announced that they would carry their cases, if necessary, to the Federation High Court. The High Court upset a ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in re eligibility to vote in primaries involving Federation Assemblymen in the case of Reinsberg vs. the State of Missouri.

      His Excellency, the Most Honorable Joseph E. Douglas, Secretary General of the World Federation of Free States, picked at his breakfast omelet and wondered peevishly why a man could not get a decent cup of coffee these days. In front of him his morning newspaper, prepared by the night shift of his information staff, moved past his eyes at his optimum reading speed in a feedback executive scanner, custom-built by Sperry. The words would flow on as long as he looked in that direction; if he turned his head, the machine would note it and stop instantly.

      He was looking that way now and the projected print moved along the screen, but he was not really reading but simply avoiding the eyes of his boss across the table. Mrs. Douglas did not read newspapers; she had other ways of finding Out what she needed to know.

      "Joseph-"

      He looked up and the machine stopped. "Yes, my dear?"

      "You have something on your mind"

      "Eh? What makes you say that, my dear?"

      "Joseph, I haven't watched you and coddled you and darned your socks and kept you Out of trouble for thirty-five years for nothing. I know when there is something on your mind."

      The hell of it is, he admitted to himself, she does know. He looked at her and wondered why he had ever let her bully him into no-termination contract. Originally she had been only his secretary, back in the days (he thought of them as "The Good Old Days") when he had been a state legislator, beating the bushes for individual votes. Their first contract had been a simple ninety-day cohabitation agreement, supposedly to economize scarce campaign funds by saving on hotel bills; both of them had agreed that it was merely a convenience, with "cohabitation" to be construed simply as living under one roof . . . and she hadn't darned his socks even then!

      He tried to remember how and when the situation had changed. Mrs. Douglas's official biography, Shadow of Greatness: One Woman's Story, stated that he had proposed to her during the counting of ballots in his first election to office-and that such was his romantic need that nothing would do but old-fashioned, death-do-us-part marriage.

      Well, he didn't remember it that way-but there was no use arguing with the official version.

      "Joseph! Answer me!"

      "Eh? Nothing at all, my dear. I spent a restless night."

      "I know you did. When they wake you up in the middle of the night, don't you think I know it?"

      He reflected that her suite was a good fifty yards across the palace from his. "How do you know it, my dear?"

      "Hunh? Woman's intuition, of course. What was the message Bradley brought you?"

      "Please, my dear-I've got to finish the morning news before the Council meeting."

      "Joseph Edgerton Douglas, don't try to evade me."

      He sighed. "The fact is, we've lost sight of that beggar Smith."

      "Smith? Do you mean the Man from Mars? What do you mean: '-lost sight of-?' That's ridiculous."

      "Be that as it may, my dear, he's gone. He disappeared from his hospital room sometime late yesterday."

      "Preposterous! How could he do that?"

      "Disguised as a nurse, apparently. We aren't sure."

      "But- Never mind. He's gone, that's the main thing. What muddleheaded scheme are you using to get him back?"

      "Well, we have some of our own people searching for him. Trusted ones, of course. Berquist-"

      "Berquist! That garbage head! When you should have every police officer from the FDS down to precinct truant officers searching for him you send Berquist!"

      "But, my dear, you don't see the situation. We can 't. Officially he isn't lost at all. You see there's--well, the other chap. The, uh, 'official' Man from Mars,"

      "Oh ..." She drummed the table. "I told you that substitution scheme would get us in trouble."

      "But, my dear, you suggested it yourself."

      "I did not. And don't contradict me, Mmm ... send for Berquist. I must talk to him at once."

      "Uh, Berquist is out on his trail. He hasn't reported back yet."

      "Uh? Berquist is probably half way to Zanzibar by now. He's sold us out, I never did trust that man. I told you when you hired him that-"

      "When I hired him?"

      "Don't interrupt. -that any man who would take money two ways would take it three ways just as quickly." She frowned. "Joseph, the Eastern Coalition Is behind this. It's a logical certainty. You can expect a vote-of-confidence move in the Assembly before the day is out."

      "Eli? I don't see why. Nobody knows about it."

      "Oh, for Heaven's sake! Everyone will know about it; the Eastern Coalition will see to that. Now keep quiet and let me think." Douglas shut up and went back to his newspaper. He read that the Los Angeles City-County Council had voted to petition the Federation for aid in their smog problems on the grounds the Ministry of Health had failed to provide something or other, it did not matter what_-but a sop must be thrown to them as Charlie was going to have a difficult time being re-elected with the Fosterites running their own candidate-he needed Charlie. Lunar Enterprises was off two points at closing, probably, he decided, because of- "Joseph."

      "Yes, my dear?"

      "Our own 'Man from Mars' is the one and only; the one the Eastern Coalition will pop up with is a fake. That is how it must be."

      "But, my dear, we can't make it stick."

      "What do you mean, we can't? We're stuck with it, so we've got to make it stick."

      "But we can 't. Scientists would spot the substitution at once. I've had the devil's own time keeping them away from him this long."

      "Scientists!"

      "But they can, you know."

      "I don't know anything of the sort. Scientists indeed! Half guess work and half sheet superStit~0fl. They ought to be locked up; they ought to be prohibited by law. Joseph, I've told you repeatedly the only true science is astrology."

      "Well, I don't know, my dear. Mind you, I'm not running down astrology-"

      "You'd better not! After all it's done for you."

      "-but I am saying that some of these science professors are pretty sharp. One of them was telling me the other day that there is a star that weighs six thousand times as much as lead. Or was it sixty thousand? Let me see-"

      "Bosh! How could they possibly know a thing like that? Keep quiet, Joseph, while I finish this. We admit nothing. Their man is a fake. But in the meantime we make full use of our Special Service squads and grab him back, if possible~ before the Eastern Coalition makes its disclosure. If it is necessary to use strong measures and this Smith person gets shot resisting arrest, or something like that, well, it's too bad, but I for one won't mourn very long. He's been a nuisance all along."

      "Agnes! Do you know what you are suggesting?"

      "I'm not suggesting anything. People get hurt every day. This matter must be cleared up, Joseph, for everybody. The greatest good of the greatest number, as you are so fond of quoting."

      "But I don't want to see the lad hurt."

      "Who said anything about hurting him? But you must take firm steps, Joseph; it's your duty. History will justify you. Which is more important? -to keep things running on an even keel for five billion people, or to go soft and sentimental about one man who isn't even properly a citizen?"

      Douglas didn't answer. Mrs. Douglas stood up. "Well, I can't waste the rest of the morning arguing intangibles with you, Joseph; I've got to get hold of Madame Vesant at once and have a new horoscope cast for this emergency. But I can tell you this: I didn't give the best years of my life putting you where you are today just to have you throw it away through lack of backbone. Wipe the egg off your chin." She turned and left.

      The chief executive of the planet remained at the table through two more cups of coffee before he felt up to going to the Council Chamber. Poor old Agnes! So ambitious. He guessed he had been quite a disappointment to her . . . and no doubt the change of life wasn't making things any easier for her. Well, at least she was loyal, right to her toes . . . and we all have our 5hortcomingS; she was probably as sick of him as he-no point in that!

      He straightened up. One damn sure thing! He wasn't going to let them he rough with that Smith lad. He was a nuisance, granted~ but he was a nice lad and rather appealing in a helpless, half-witted way. Agnes should have seen how easily he was frightened, then she wouldn't talk that way. Smith would appeal to the maternal in her.

      But as a matter of strict fact, did Agnes have any "maternal" in her? When she set her mouth that way, it was hard to see it. Oh shucks, all women had maternal instincts; science had proved that. Well, hadn't they?

      Anyhow, damn her guts, he wasn't going to let her push him around. She kept reminding him that she had put him into the top spot, but he knew better, and the responsibility was his and his alone. He got up, squared his shoulders, pulled in part of his middle, and went to the Council Chamber.

      All during the long session he kept expecting someone to drop the other shoe. But no one did and no aide came in with any message for him. He was forced to conclude that the fact that Smith was missing actually was close held in his own personal staff unlikely as that seemed.

      The Secretary General wanted very badly to close his eyes and hope that the whole horrid mess would go away, but events would not let him. Nor would his wife let him.

      Agnes Douglas' personal saint, by choice, was Evita Peron, whom she fancied she resembled. Her own persona, the mask that she held out to the world, was that of helper and satellite to the great man she was privileged to call husband. She even held this mask up to herself, for she had the Red Queen's convenient ability to believe anything she wished to believe. Nevertheless, her own political philosophy could have been stated baldly (which it never was) as a belief that men should rule the world and women should rule men.

      That all of her beliefs and actions derived from a blind anger at a fate that had made her female never crossed her mind . . . still less could she have believed that there was any connection between her behavior and her father's wish for a son . . or her own jealousy of her mother. Such evil thoughts never entered her head. She loved her parents and had fresh flowers put on their graves on all appropriate occasions; she loved her husband and often said so publicly; she was proud of her womanhood and said so publicly almost as often-P--she frequently joined the two assertions.

      Agnes Douglas did not wait for her husband to act in the case of the missing Man from Mars. All of her husband's personal staff took orders as readily from her as from him . . . in some cases, even more readily. She sent for the chief executive assistant for civil information, as Mr. Douglas's press agent was called, then turned her attention to the most urgent emergency measure, that of getting a fresh horoscope cast. There was a private, scrambled link from her suite in the Palace to Madame Vesant's studio; the astrologer's plump, bland features and shrewd eyes came on the screen almost at once. "Agnes? What is it, dear? I have a client with me."

      "Your circuit is hushed?"

      "Of course."

      "Get rid of the client at once. This is an emergency."

      Madame Alexandra Vesant bit her lip, but her expression did not change otherwise and her voice showed no annoyance. "Certainly. Just a moment." Her features, faded out of the screen, were replaced by the "Hold" signal. A man entered the room, stood waiting by the side of Mrs. Douglas' desk; she turned and saw that it was James Sanforth, the press agent she had sent for.

      "Have you heard from Berquist?" she demanded without preamble. 

      "Eh? I wasn't handling that; that's McCrary's pidgin."

      She brushed the irrelevancy aside. "You've got to discredit him before he talks."

      "Huh? You think Berquist has sold us out?"

      "Don't be naive. You should have checked with me before you used him."

      "But I didn't. It was McCrary's job."

      "You are supposed to know what is going on. I-" Madame Vesant's face came back on the screen. "Sit down over there," Mrs. Douglas said to Sanforth. "Wait." She turned back to the screen. "Allie dear, I want fresh horoscopes for Joseph and myself, just as quickly as you possibly can cast them."

      "Very well." The astrologer hesitated. "I can be of much greater assistance to you, dear, if you will tell me something of the nature of the emergency."

      Mrs. Douglas drummed on the desk. "You don't actually have to know, do you?"

      "Of course not. Anyone possessing the necessary rigorous training, mathematical skill, and knowledge of the stars could calculate a horoscope, knowing nothing more than the exact hour and place of birth of the subject. You know that, dear. You could learn to do it yourself. . . if you weren't so terribly busy. But remember: the stars incline but they do not compel. You enjoy free will. If I am to make the extremely detailed and difficult analysis necessary to advise you in a crisis, I must know in what sector to look. Are we most concerned with the influence of Venus? Or possibly with Mars? Or will the-"

      Mrs. Douglas decided. "With Mars," she interrupted. "Allie, I want you to cast a third horoscope."

      "Very well. Whose?"

      "Uh ... Allie, can I trust you?"

      Madame Vesant looked hurt. "Agnes, if you do not trust me, it would be far better for you not to consult me. There are others who can give you scientific readings. I am not the only student of the ancient knowledge. I understand that Professor von Krausemeyer is well thought of, even though he is sometimes inclined to..." She let her voice trail oft

      "Please, please! Of course I trust you! I wouldn't think of letting anyone else perform a calculation for me. Now listen carefully. No one can hear from your side?"

      "Of course not, dear."

      "I want you to cast a horoscope for Valentine Michael Smith."

      "'Valentine Mich-' The Man from Mars?"

      "Yes, yes. Allie, he's been kidnapped. We've got to find him."

      Some two hours later Madame Alexandra Vesant pushed herself back from her work table and sighed. She had had her secretary cancel all appointments and she really had tried; several sheets of paper, covered with diagrams and figures, and a dog-eared nautical almanac were in front of her and testified to her efforts. Alexandra Vesant differed from some other practicing astrologers in that she really did attempt to calculate the "influences" of the heavenly bodies, using a paper-backed book titled The Arcane Science of Judicial Astrology and Key to Solomon's Stone which had been given to her by her late husband, Professor Simon Magus, the well known mentalist, stage hypnotist and illusionist, and student of the secret arts.

      She trusted the book as she had trusted him; there was no one who could cast a horoscope like Simon, when he was sober-half the time he had not even needed to refer to the book, he knew it so well. She knew that she would never have that degree of skill, so she always referred to the almanac and to the manual. Her calculations were sometimes a little fuzzy, for the same reason that her checkbook sometimes did not balance; Becky Vesey (as she had been known as a child) had never really mastered the multiplication tables and she was inclined to confuse sevens with nines.

      Nevertheless her horoscopes were eminently satisfactory; Mrs. Douglas was not her only distinguished client.

      But this time she had been a touch panicky when the wife of the Secretary General demanded that she cast a horoscope for the Man from Mars. She had felt the way she used to feel when some officious idiot from the audience committee had insisted on retying her blindfold just before the Professor was to ask her questions. But she had discovered 'way back then, as a mere child, that she had natural stage presence and inner talent for the right answer; she had suppressed her panic and gone on with the show.

      Now she had demanded of Agnes the exact hour, date, and place of birth of the Man from Mars, being fairly sure that the data could not be supplied.

      But the information had been supplied, and most precisely, after a short delay, from the log of the Envoy. By then she was no longer panicky, had simply accepted the information and promised to call back as soon as the horoscopes were ready.

      But now, after two hours of painful arithmetic, although she had completed new findings for Mr. and Mrs. Douglas, she was no farther ahead with Smith than when she had started. The trouble was very simple-and insuperable. Smith had not been born on Earth.

      Her astrological bible did not include the idea of human beings born anywhere else; its anonymous author had lived and died before even the first rocket to the Moon. She had tried very hard to find a logical way out of the dilemma, on the assumption that all the principles were included in her manual and that what she must do was to find a way to correct for the lateral displacement. But she found herself lost in a mass of unfamiliar relationships; when it came right down to it she was not even sure whether or not the signs of the Zodiac were the same when seen from Mars and what could one possibly do without the signs of the Zodiac?

      She could just as easily have tried to extract a cube root, that being the hurdle that had caused her to quit school.

      She got out from a bottom desk drawer a tonic she kept at hand for such difficult occasions. She took one dose quickly, measured out a second, and thought about what Simon would have done. After a while she could hear his even, steady tones: "Confidence, kiddo, confidence! Have confidence in yourself and the yokels will have confidence in you. You owe it to them."

      She felt much better now and started writing out the results of the two horoscopes for the Douglases. That done, it turned out to be easy to write one for Smith, and she found, as she always did, that the words on paper proved themselves-they were all so beautifully true! She was just finishing as Agnes Douglas called again. "Allie? Haven't you finished yet?"

      "Just completed," Madame Vesant answered with brisk self-confidence. "You realize, of course, that young Smith's horoscope presented an unusual and very difficult problem in the Science. Born, as he was, on another planet, every aspect and attitude had to be recalculated. The influence of the Sun is lessened; the influence of Diana is missing almost completely. Jupiter is thrown into a novel, perhaps I should say 'unique,' aspect, as I am sure you will see. This required computation of-"

      "Allie! Never mind that. Do you know the answers?"

      "Naturally."

      "Oh, thank goodness! I thought perhaps you were trying to tell me that it was too much for you."

      Madame Vesant showed and sincerely felt injured dignity. "My dear, the Science never alters; only the configurations alter. The means that predicted the exact instant and place of the birth of Christ, that told Julius Caesar the moment and method of his death . . . how could it fail now? Truth is Truth, unchanging."

      "Yes, of course."

      "Are you ready for the readings?"

      "Let me switch on 'recording'-go ahead."

      "Very well. Agnes, this is a most critical period in your life; only twice before have the heavens gathered in such strong configuration. Above all, you must be calm, not hasty, and think things through. On the whole the portents are in your favor . . . provided you do not fight them and avoid ill-considered action. Do not let your mind be distressed by surface appearances-" She went on at length, giving good advice. Becky Vesey always gave good advice and she gave it with great conviction because she always believed it. She had learned from Simon that, even when the stars seemed darkest, there was always some way to soften the blow, some aspect which the client could use toward greater happiness . . . if she would only find it and point it Out.

      The tense face opposite her in the screen calmed and began nodding agreement as she made her points. "So you see," she concluded, "the mere temporary absence of young Smith at this time is not a bad thing, but a necessity, resulting from the joint influences of your three horoscopes. Do not worry and do not be afraid; he will be back-or you will hear from him-very shortly. The important thing is to take no drastic or irrevocable action until that time. Be calm."

      "Yes, I see that."

      "Just one more point. The aspect of Venus is most favorable and potentially dominant over that of Mars. In this case, Venus symbolizes yourself, of course, but Mars is both your husband and young Smith-as a result of the unique circumstance of his birth. This throws a double burden on you and you must rise to the challenge; you must demonstrate those qualities of calm wisdom and restraint which are peculiarly those of woman. You must sustain your husband, guide him through this crisis, and soothe him. You must supply the earth-mother's calm wells of wisdom. That is your special genius . . . and now is the time you must use it."

      Mrs. Douglas sighed. "Allie, you are simply wonderful! I don't know how to thank you."

      "Don't thank me. Thank the Ancient Masters whose humble student I am."

      "I can't thank them so I'll thank you. This isn't covered by your retainer, Allie. There will be a present."

      "Not necessary at all, Agnes. It is my privilege to serve."

      "And it is my privilege to appreciate service. No, Allie, not another word!" Madame Vesant let herself be coaxed, then switched off, feeling warmly content from having given a reading that she just knew was right. Poor Agnes! Such a good woman inside . . . and so twisted up with conflicting desires. It was a privilege to smooth her path a little, make her heavy burdens a little easier to carry. It made her feel good to help Agnes.

      It made Madame Vesant feel good to be treated as an almost-equal by the wife of the Secretary General, too, although she did not think of it that way, not being snobbish at heart. But young Becky Vesey had been so insignificant that the precinct committeeman could never remember her name even though he noticed her bust measurement. Becky Vesey had not resented it; Becky liked people. She liked Agnes Douglas now.

      Becky Vesey liked everybody.

      She sat a while longer, enjoying the warm glow and the respite from pressure and just a nip more of the tonic, while her shrewd and able brain shuffled the bits and pieces she had picked up. Presently, without consciously making a decision, she called her stockbroker and instructed him to sell Lunar Enterprises short.

      He snorted. "Allie, you're crazy. That reducing diet is weakening your mind."

      "You listen to me, Ed. When it is down ten points, cover me, even if it is still slipping. Wait for it to turn. When it rallies three points, buy into it again . . . then sell when it gets back to today's closing."

      There was a long silence while he looked at her. "Allie, you know something. Tell Uncle Ed."

      "The stars tell me, Ed."

      Ed made a suggestion astronomically impossible and added, "All right, if you won't, you won't. Mmm . . . I never did have sense enough to stay out of a crooked game, Mind if I ride along with you on it, Allie?"

      "Not at all, Ed, as long as you don't go heavy enough to let it show. This is a delicate special situation, with Saturn just balanced between Virgo and Leo."

      "As you say, Allie."

      Mrs. Douglas got busy at once, happy that Allie had confirmed all her judgments. She gave orders about the campaign to destroy the reputation of the missing Berquist, after sending for his dossier and looking it over; she closeted herself with Commandant Twitchell of the Special Service squads for twenty minutes-he left her looking thoughtfully unhappy and immediately made life unbearable for his executive officer. She instructed Sanforth to release another of the "Man from Mars" stereocasts and to include with it a rumor "from a source close to the administration" that Smith was about to be transferred, or possibly had already been transferred, to a sanitarium high in the Andes, in order to provide him with a climate for convalescence as much like that of Mars as possible. Then she sat back and thought about how to nail down the Pakistan votes for Joseph.

      Presently she got hold of him and urged him to support Pakistan's claim to the lion's share of the Kashmir thorium. Since he had been wanting to do so all along but had not, up to now, convinced her of the necessity, he was not hard to persuade, although a little nettled by her assumption that he had been opposing it. With that settled, she left to address the Daughters of the Second Revolution on Motherhood in the New World.

X

      WHILE MRS. DOUGLAS WAS SPEAKING too freely on a subject she knew too little about, Jubal E. Harshaw, LL.B., M.D., Sc.D., bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, popular author extraordinary, and neopessimist philosopher, was sitting by his swimming pool at his home in the Poconos, scratching the thick grey thatch on his chest, and watching his three secretaries splash in the pool. They were all three amazingly beautiful; they were also amazingly good secretaries. In Harshaw's opinion the principle of least action required that utility and beauty be combined.

      Anne was blonde, Miriam was red-headed, and Dorcas was dark; in each case the coloration was authentic. They ranged, respectively, from pleasantly plump to deliciously slender. Their ages spread over fifteen years but it was hard to tell off hand which was the eldest. They undoubtedly had last names but Harshaw's household did not bother much with last names, One of them was rumored to be Harshaw's own granddaughter but opinions varied as to which one it was.

      Harshaw was working as hard as he ever worked. Most of his mind was occupied with watching pretty girls do pretty things with sun and water~ one small, shuttered, sound-proofed compartment was composing. He claimed that his method of literary composition was to hook his gonads in parallel with his thalamus and disconnect his cerebrum entirely; his habits lent some credibility to the theory.

      A microphone on a table at his right hand was hooked to a voicewriter in his study but he used the voicewriter only for notes. When he was ready to wnte he used a human stenographer and watched her reactions. He was ready now. "Front!" he shouted.

      "Anne is 'front,' "answered Dorcas. "But I'll take it. That splash was Anne."

      "Dive in and get her. I can wait." The little brunette cut the water; a few moments later Anne climbed out, put on a towel robe, dried her hands on it, and sat down on the other side of the table. She said nothing, nor did she make any preparations; Anne had total recall, never bothered with recording devices.

      Harshaw picked up a bucket of ice cubes over which brandy had been poured, took a deep swig. "Anne, I've got a really sick-making one. It's about a little kitten that wanders into a church on Christmas Eve to get warm. Besides being starved and frozen and lost, the kitten has-God knows why-an injured paw. All right; start: 'Snow had been falling since-'

      "What pen name?"

      "Mmm ... better use 'Molly Wadsworth' again. This one is pretty icky. And title it The Other Manger. Start again." He went on talking while watching her closely. When tears started to leak out of her closed eyes he smiled slightly and closed his own eyes. By the time he finished, tears were running down his cheeks as well as hers, both bathed in a catharsis of schmaltz.

      "Thirty," he announced. "You can blow your nose. Send it off and for God's sake don't let me see it or I'll tear it up."

      "Jubal, aren't you ever ashamed?"

      "No."

      "Someday I'm going to kick you right in your fat stomach for one of these."

      "I know. But I can't pimp for my sisters; they'd be too old and I never had any. Get your fanny indoors and take care of it before I change my mind."

      "Yes, boss."

      She kissed his bald spot as she passed behind his chair. Harshaw yelled, "Front!" again and Miriam started toward him. But a loudspeaker mounted on the house behind him came to life:

      "Boss!"

      Harshaw uttered one word and Miriam clucked at him reprovingly. He added, "Yes, Larry?"

      The speaker answered, "There's a dame down here at the gate who wants to see you-and she's got a corpse with her."

      Harshaw considered this for a moment. "Is she pretty?" he said to the microphone.

      "Uh ... yes."

      "Then why are you sucking your thumb? Let her in." Harshaw sat back. "Start," he said. "City montage dissolving into a medium two-shot, interior. A cop is seated in a straight chair, no cap, collar open, face covered with sweat. We see only the back of the other figure, which is depthed between us and the cop. The figure raises a hand, bringing it back and almost out of the tank. He slaps the cop with a heavy, meaty sound, dubbed." Harshaw glanced up and said, "We'll pick up from there." A ground car was rolling up the hill toward the house.

      Jill was driving the car; a young man was seated beside her. As the car stopped near Harshaw the man jumped out at once, as if happy to divorce himself from car and contents. "There she is, Jubal."

      "So I see. Good morning, little girl. Larry, where is this corpse?"

      "In the back seat, Boss. Under a blanket."

      "But it's not a corpse," Jill protested. "It's ... Ben said that you... I mean-" She put her head down on the controls and started to cry.

      "There, my dear," Harshaw said gently. "Very few corpses are worth it. Dorcas-Miriam-take care of her. Give her a drink . . . and wash her face."

      He turned his attention to the back seat, started to lift the blanket. Jill shrugged off Miriam's proffered arm and said shrilly, "You've got to listen! He's not dead. At least I hope not. He's . . . oh dear!" She started to cry again. "I'm so dirty ... and so scared!"

      "Seems to be a corpse," Harshaw said meditatively. "Body temperature is down to air temperature, I should judge. The rigor is not typical. How long has he been dead?"

      "But he's not dead! Can't we get him out of there? I had an awful time getting him in."

      "Surely. Larry, give me a hand. And quit looking so green, Larry. If you puke, you'll clean it up." Between them they got Valentine Michael Smith out of the back seat and laid him on the grass by the pool; his body remained stiff, still huddled together. Without being told Dorcas had gone in and fetched Dr. Harshaw's stethoscope; she set it on the ground by Smith, switched it on and stepped up the gain.

      Harshaw stuck the headpiece in his ears, started sounding for heart beat. "I'm afraid you're mistaken," he said gently to Jill. "This one is beyond my help. Who was he?"

      Jill sighed. Her face was drained of expression and she answered in a fiat voice, "He was the Man from Mars. I tried so hard."

      "I'm sure you did-the Man from Mars?"

      "Yes. Ben ... Ben Caxton said you were the one to come to."

      "Ben Caxton, eh? I appreciate the confid-hush/" Harshaw emphasized the demand for silence with a hand upheld while he continued to frown and listen. He looked puzzled, then surprise burst over his face. "Heart action! I'll be a babbling baboon. Dorcas-upstairs, the clinic- third drawer down in the locked part of the cooler; the code is 'sweet dreams.' Bring the whole drawer and pick up a 1 cc. hypo from the sterilizer."

      "Right away!"

      "Doctor, no stimulants!"

      Harshaw turned to Jill. "Eh?"

      "I'm sorry, sir. I'm just a nurse ... but this case is different. I know."

      "Mmm ... he's my patient now, nurse. But about forty years ago I found Out I wasn't God, and about ten years thereafter I discovered I wasn't even Aesculapius. What do you want to try?"

      "I just want to try to wake him up. If you do anything to him, he just goes deeper into it."

      "Hmm ... go ahead. Just as long as you don't use an ax. Then we'll try my methods."

      "Yes, sir." Jill knelt beside him, Started gently trying to straighten out his limbs. Harshaw's eyebrows went up when he saw that she had succeeded. Jill took Smith's head in her lap and cradled it gently in her hands. "Please wake up," she said softly. "This is Jill ... your water brother."

      The body stirred. Very slowly the chest lifted. Then Smith let out a long bubbling sigh and his eyes opened. He looked up at Jill and smiled his baby smile. Jill smiled back. Then he looked around and the smile left him.

      "It's all right," Jill said quickly. "These are all friends."

      "All friends?"

      "That's right. All of them are your friends. Don't worry-and don't go away again. Everything is all right."

      He did not answer but lay still with his eyes open, staring at everything and everyone around him. He seemed as content as a cat in a lap.

      Twenty-five minutes later Harshaw had both of his patients in bed. Jill had managed to tell him, before the pill he gave her took hold, enough of the situation to let him know that he had a bear by the tail. Ben Caxton was missing-he'd have to try to figure out something to do about that- and young Smith was as hot as a dry bearing . . . although he had been able to guess that when he heard who he was. Oh, well, life might be amusing for a while; it would keep back that grey boredom that lay always just around the corner.

      He looked at the little utility car that Jill had arrived in. Lettered across its sides was: READING RENTALS-Permapowered Ground Equipment of All Sorts-"Deal with the Dutchman!"

      "Larry, is the fence hot?"

      "Switch it on. Then before it gets dark I want you to polish every possible fingerprint off that heap. As soon as it is dark, drive it over the other side of Reading-better go almost to Lancaster-and leave it in a ditch. Then go to Philadelphia, catch the shuttle for Scranton, come home from Scranton."

      "Sure thing, Jubal. Say-is he really the Man from Mars?"

      "You had better hope that he isn't, because if he is and they catch you before you dump that wagon and they associate you with him, they'll probably interrogate you with a blow torch. But I think he is."

      "I scan it. Should I rob a few banks on the way back?"

      "Probably the safest thing you can do."

      "Okay, Boss." Larry hesitated. "Do you mind if I stay over night in Philly?"

      "What in God's name can a man find to do at night in Philadelphia?"

      "Plenty, if you know where to look."

      "Suit yourself." Harshaw turned away. "Front!"

      Jill slept until shortly before dinner, which in that household was a comfortable eight o'clock. She awoke refreshed and feeling alert, so much so that she sniffed the air incoming from the grille over her head and surmised correctly that the doctor had offset the hypnotic she had been given with a stimulant. While she was asleep someone had removed the dirty and torn street clothes she had been wearing and had left a simple, off-white dinner dress and sandals. The clothes fit her fairly well; Jill concluded that they must belong to the one the doctor had called Miriam. She bathed and painted her face and combed her hair and went down to the big living room feeling like a new woman.

      Dorcas was curled in a big chair, doing needle point; she looked up, nodded in a friendly manner as if Jill were always part of the household, turned her attention back to her fancy work. Harshaw was standing and stirring gently a mixture in a tall and frosty pitcher. "Drink?" he said.

      'Uh, yes, thank you."

      He poured two large cocktail glasses to their brims, handed her one. "What is it?" she asked.

      "My own recipe, a comet cocktail. One third vodka, one third muriatic acid, one third battery water-two pinches of salt and add a pickled beetle."

      "Better have a highball," Dorcas advised. Jill noticed that the other girl had a tall glass at her elbow.

      "Mind your own business," Harshaw advised without rancor. "The hydrochloric acid is good for the digestion; the beetle adds vitamins and protein." He raised his glass to Jill and said solemnly, "Here's to our noble selves! There are damned few of us left." He almost emptied his glass, replenished it before he set it down.

      Jill took a cautious sip, then a much bigger one. Whatever the true ingredients, the drink seemed to be exactly what she needed; a warm feeling of well-being spread gently from her center of gravity toward her extremities. She drank about half of it, let Harshaw add a dividend. "Look in on our patient?" he asked.

      "No, sir. I didn't know where he was."

      "I checked him a few minutes ago. Sleeping like a baby-I think I'll rename him Lazarus. Do you think he would like to come down to dinner?"

      Jill looked thoughtful. "Doctor, I really don't know."

      "Well, if he wakes I'll know it. Then he can join us, or have a tray, as he wishes. This is Freedom Hall, my dear. Everyone does absolutely as he pleases . . . then if he does something I don't like, I just kick him the hell out. Which reminds me: I don't like to be called 'Doctor.'"

      "Sir?"

      "Oh, I'm not offended. But when they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk dancing and advanced fly-fishing, I became too stink in' proud to use the title. I won't touch watered whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down degrees. Call me Jubal."

      "Oh. But the degree in medicine hasn't been watered down, as you call it."

      "No. But it is time they called it something else, so as not to have it mixed up with playground supervisors. Never mind. Little girl, just what is your interest in this patient?"

      "Eh? I told you. Doct-Jubal."

      "You told me what happened; you didn't tell me why. Jill, I saw the way you looked at him and spoke to him. Do you think you are in love with him?"

      Jill was startled. She glanced at Dorcas; the other girl appeared not to be hearing the conversation. "Why, that's preposterous!"

      "I don't see anything preposterous about it. You're a girl; he's a boy- that's usually a nice setup."

      "But- No, Jubal, it's not that at all. I .. well, I thought he was being held a prisoner and I thought-or Ben thought-that he might be in danger. I wanted to see him get his rights."

      "Mmmm ... my dear, I'm always suspicious of a disinterested interest. You look as if you had a normal glandular balance, so it is my guess that it is either Ben, or this poor boy from Mars, or both. You had better take your motives out in private and have a look at them. Then you will be better able to judge which way you are going. In the meantime, what do you want me to do?"

      The unqualified scope of the question made it difficult for Jill to answer. What did she want? What did she expect? From the time she had crossed her Rubicon she had thought of nothing but escape-and getting to Harshaw's home. She had no plans. "I don't know."

      "I thought not. You had told me enough to let me know that you were A.W.O.L. from your hospital, so, on the assumption that you might wish to protect your license, I took the liberty, while you were asleep, of having a message Sent from Montreal to your Chief of Nursing. You asked for two weeks emergency leave because of sudden illness in your family. Okay? You can back it up with details later."

      Jill felt sudden and shaking relief. By temperament she had buried all worry about her own welfare once she had made her decision; nevertheless down inside her was a heavy lump caused by what she had done to an on the whole excellent professional standing. "Oh, Jubal, thank you!" She added, "I'm not really delinquent in watch standing yet; today was my day off."

      "Good. Then you are covered like a tent. What do you want to do?"

      "I haven't had time to think. Uh, I suppose I should get in touch with my bank and get some money-" She paused, trying to recall what her bank balance was. It was never large and sometimes she forgot to- Jubal cut in on her thoughts. "If you get in touch with your bank, you will have cops pouring out of your ears. Hadn't you better stay here until things level off?"

      "Uh, Jubal, I wouldn't want to impose on you."

      "You already have imposed on me. Don't worry about it, child. There are always free-loaders around here, coming and going . . . one family stayed seventeen months. But nobody imposes on me against my will, so relax about it. If you turn out to be useful as well as ornamental, you can stay forever. Now about our patient: you said you wanted him to get his 'rights.' I suppose you expected my help in that?"

      "Well, I ... Ben said-Ben seemed to think that you would help."

      "I like Ben but he does not speak for me. I am not in the slightest interested in whether or not this lad gets his so-called rights. I don't go for the 'True Prince' nonsense. His claim to Mars is lawyers' hogwash; as a lawyer myself I need not respect it. As for the wealth that is supposed to be coming to him, the situation results from other people's inflamed passions and our odd tribal customs; he has earned none of it. In my opinion he would be lucky if they bilked him out of it-but I would not bother to scan a newspaper to find out which outcome eventuated. If Ben expected me to fight for Smith's 'rights,' you have come to the wrong house."

      "Oh." Jill felt suddenly forlorn. "I guess I had better make arrangements to move him."

      "Oh, no! Not unless you wish, that is."

      "But I thought you said-"

      "I said I was not interested in a web of legal fictions. But a patient and guest under my roof is another matter. He can stay, if he likes. I just wanted to make it clear that I had no intention of meddling with politics to suit any romantic notions you or Ben Caxton may have. My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases Jubal Harshaw." He turned to Dorcas as if the subject were closed. "Time for dinner, isn't it, Dorcas? Is anyone doing anything about it?"

      "Miriam." She put down her needlepoint and stood up.

      "I've never been able to figure out just how these girls divide up the work."

      "Boss, how would you know?-since you never do any." Dorcas patted him on the stomach. "But you never miss any meals."

      A gong sounded and they went in to eat. If the redheaded Miriam had cooked dinner, she had apparently done so with all modern shortcuts; she was already seated at the foot of the table and looked cool and beautiful. In addition to the three secretaries, there was a young man slightly older than Larry who was addressed as "Duke" and who included Jill in the conversation as if she had always lived there. There was also a middle-aged couple who were not introduced at all, who ate as if they were in a restaurant and left the table as soon as they were finished without ever having spoken to the others.

      But the table talk among the others was lively and irreverent. Service was by non~android serving machines, directed by controls at Miriam's end of the table. The food was excellent and, so far as Jill could tell, none of it was syntho.

      But it did not seem to suit Harshaw. He complained that his knife was dull, or the meat was tough, or both; he accused Miriam of serving leftovers. No one seemed to hear him but Jill was becoming embarrassed on Miriam's account when Anne put down her knife and fork. "He mentioned his mother's cooking," she stated bleakly.

      "He is beginning to think he is boss again," agreed Dorcas.

      "How long has it been?"

      "About ten days."

      "Too long." Anne gathered up Dorcas and Miriam with her eyes; they all stood up. Duke went on eating.

      Harshaw said hastily, "Now see here, girls, not at meals. Wait until-" They paid no attention to his protest but moved toward him; a serving machine scurried out of the way. Anne took his feet, each of the other two an arm; French doors slid out of the way and they carried him out, squawking.

      A few seconds later the squawks were cut short by a splash.

      The three women returned at once, not noticeably mussed. Miriam sat down and turned to Jill. "More salad, Jill?"

      Harshaw returned a few minutes later, dressed in pajamas and robe instead of the evening jacket he had been wearing. One of the machines had covered his plate as soon as he was dragged away from the table; it now uncovered it for him and he went on eating. "As I was saying," he remarked, "a woman who can't cook is a waste of skin. If I don't start having some service around here I'm going to swap all of you for a dog and shoot the dog. What's the dessert, Miriam?"

      "Strawberry shortcake."

      "That's more like it. You are all reprieved till Wednesday."

      Gillian found that it was not necessary to understand how Jubal Harshaw's household worked; she could do as she pleased and nobody cared. After dinner she went into the living room with the intention of viewing a stereocast of the evening news, being anxious to find out if she herself played a part in it. But she could find no stereo receiver, nor was there anything which could have concealed a tank. Thinking about it, she could not recall having seen one anywhere in the house. Nor were there any newspapers, although there were plenty of books and magazines.

      No one joined her. After a while she began to wonder what time it was. She had left her watch upstairs with her purse, so she looked around for a clock. She failed to find one, then searched her excellent memory and could not remember having seen either clock or calendar in any of the rooms she had been in.

      But she decided that she might as well go to bed no matter what time it was. One whole wall was filled with books, both shelves and spindle racks. She found a spool of Kipling's Just So Stories and took it happily upstairs with her.

      Here she found another small surprise. The bed in the room she had been given was as modern as next week, complete with automassage, coffee dispenser, weather control, reading machine, etc.-but the alarm circuit was missing, there being only a plain cover plate to show where it had been. Jill shrugged and decided that she would probably not oversleep anyway, crawled into bed, slid the spool into the reading machine, lay back and scanned the words streaming across the ceiling. Presently the speed control slipped out of her relaxed fingers, the lights went out, and she slept.

      Jubal Harshaw did not get to sleep as easily; he was vexed with himself. His initial interest in the situation had cooled off and reaction had set in. Well over a half century earlier he had sworn a mighty oath, full of fireworks, never again to pick up a stray cat-and now, so help him, by the multiple paps of Venus Genetrix, he had managed to pick up two at once no, three, if he counted Ben Caxton.

      The fact that he had broken his oath more times than there were years intervening did not trouble him; his was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency. Nor did the mere presence of two more pensioners sleeping under his roof and eating at his table bother him. Pinching pennies was not in him. In the course of nearly a century of gusty living he had been broke many times, had several times been wealthier than he now was; he regarded both conditions as he did shifts in the weather, and never Counted his change.

      But the silly foofooraw that he knew was bound to ensue when the busies caught up with these children disgruntled him in prospect. He considered it certain that catch up they would; a naive child like that Gillian infant would leave a trail behind her like a club-footed cow! Nothing else could be expected.

      Whereupon people would come barging into his sanctuary, asking stupid questions and making stupid demands . . - and he, Jubal Harshaw, would have to make decisions and take action. Since he was philosophically convinced that all action was futile, the prospect irritated him.

      He did not expect reasonable conduct from human beings; he considered most people fit candidates for protective restraint and wet packs. He simply wished heartily that they would leave him alone!-aU but the few he chose for playmates. He was firmly convinced that, left to himself, he would have long since achieved nirvana . . . dived into his own belly button and disappeared from view, like those Hindu jokers. Why couldn't they leave a man alone?

      Around midnight he wearily put out his twenty-seventh cigarette and sat up; the lights came on. "Front!" he shouted at the microphone beside his bed.

      Shortly Dorcas came in, dressed in robe and slippers. She yawned widely and said, "Yes, Boss?"

      "Dorcas, for the last twenty or thirty years I've been a worthless, useless, no-good parasite."

      She nodded and yawned again. "Everybody knows that."

      "Never mind the flattery. There comes a time in every man's life when he has to stop being sensible-a time to stand up and be counted- strike a blow for liberty-smite the wicked."

      "Ummm..."

      "SO quit yawning, the time has come."

      She glanced down at herself. "Maybe I had better get dressed."

      "Yes. Get the other girls up, too; we're going to be busy. Throw a bucket of cold water over the Duke and tell him I said to dust off the babble machine and hook it up in my study. I want the news, all of it."

      Dorcas looked startled and all over being sleepy. "You want Duke to hook up stereovision?"

      "You heard me. Tell him I said that if it's out of order, he should pick a direction and start walking. Now get along with you; we've got a busy night ahead."

      "All right," Dorcas agreed doubtfully, "but I think I ought to take your temperature first."

      "Peace, woman!"

      Duke had Jubal Harshaw's stereo receiver hooked up in time to let Jubal see a late rebroadcast of the second phony interview with the "Man from Mars." The commentary included the rumor about moving Smith to the Andes. Jubal put two and two together and got twenty-two, after which he was busy calling people until morning. At dawn Dorcas brought him his breakfast, six raw eggs beaten into brandy. He slurped them down while reflecting that one of the advantages of a long and busy life was that eventually a man got to know pretty near everybody of real importance- and could call on them in a pinch.

      Harshaw had prepared a time bomb but did not propose to trigger it until the powers-that-be forced him to do so. He had realized at once that the government could haul Smith back into captivity on the grounds that he was incompetent to look out for himself . . . an opinion with which Harshaw agreed. His snap opinion was that Smith was both legally insane and medically psychopathic by all normal standards, the victim of a double-barreled situational psychosis of unique and monumental extent, first from being raised by non-humans and second from having been translated suddenly into a society which was completely alien to him.

      Nevertheless he regarded both the legal notion of sanity and the medical notion of psychosis as being irrelevant to this case. Here was a human animal who had made a profound and apparently successful adjustment to an alien society . . . but as a malleable infant. Could the same subject, as an adult with formed habits and canalized thinking, make another adjustment just as radical, and much more difficult for an adult to make than for an infant? Dr. Harshaw intended to find out; it was the first time in decades he had taken real interest in the practice of medicine.

      Besides that, he was tickled at the notion of balking the powers-that-be. He had more than his share of that streak of anarchy which was the political birthright of every American; pitting himself against the planetary government fined him with sharper zest for living than he had felt in a generation.

XI

      AROUND A MINOR G-TYPE STAR fairly far out toward one edge of a medium-sized galaxy the planets of that star swung as usual, just as they had for billions of years, under the influence of a slightly modified inverse square law that shaped the space around them. Three of them were big enough, as planets go, to be noticeable; the rest were mere pebbles, concealed in the fiery skirts of the primary or lost in the black outer reaches of space. All of them, as is always the case, were infected with that oddity of distorted entropy called life~, in the cases of the third and fourth planets their surface temperatures cycled around the freezing point of hydrogen monoxide-in consequence they had developed life forms similar enough to permit a degree of social contact.

      On the fourth pebble out the ancient Martians were not in any important sense disturbed by the contact with Earth. The nymphs of the race still bounced joyously around the surface of Mars, learning to live, and eight out of nine of them dying in the process. The adult Martians, enormously different in body and mind from the nymphs, still huddled in or under the faerie, graceful cities, and were as quiet in their behavior as the nymphs were boisterous-yet were even busier than the nymphs, busy with a complex and rich life of the mind.

      The lives of the adults were not entirely free of work in the human sense; they had still a planet to take care of and supervise, plants must be told when and where to grow, nymphs who had passed their 'prenticeships by surviving must be gathered in, cherished, fertilized, the resultant eggs must be cherished and contemplated to encourage them to ripen properly, the full3.lled nymphs must be persuaded to give up childish things and then metamorphosed into adults. All these things must be done-but they were no more the "life" of Mars than is walking the dog twice a day the "life" of a man who controls a planet-wide corporation in the hours between those pleasant walks . . . even though to a being from Arcturus III those daily walks might seem to be the tycoon's most significant activity-no doubt as a slave to the dog.

      Martians and humans were both self-aware life forms but they had gone in vastly different directions. All human behavior, all human motivations, all man's hopes and fears, were heavily colored and largely controlled by mankind's tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction. The same was true of Mars, but in mirror corollary. Mars had the efficient bipolar pattern so common in that galaxy, but the Martians had it in a form so different from the Terran form that it would have been termed "sex" only by a biologist, and it emphatically would not have been "sex" to a human psychiatrist. Martian nymphs were female, all the adults were male.

      But in each case in function only, not in psychology. The man-woman polarity which controlled all human lives could not exist on Mars. There was no possibility of "marriage." The adults were huge, reminding the first humans to see them of ice boats under sail; they were physically passive, mentally active. The nymphs were fat, furry spheres, full of bounce and mindless energy. There was no possible parallel between human and Martian psychological foundations. Human bipolarity was both the binding force and the driving energy for all human behavior, from sonnets to nuclear equations. If any being thinks that human psychologists exaggerate on this point, let it search Terran patent offices, libraries, and art galleries for creations of eunuchs.

      Mars, being geared unlike Earth, paid little attention to the Envoy and the Champion. The two events had happened too recently to be of significance-if Martians had used newspapers, one edition a Terran century would have been ample. Contact with other races was nothing new to Martians; it had happened before, would happen again. When the new other race had been thoroughly grokked, then (in a Terran millennium or so) would be time for action, if needed.

      On Mars the currently important event was of a different sort. The discorpOrate Old Ones had decided almost absent-mindedly to send the nestling human to grok what he could of the third planet, then turned attention back to serious matters. Shortly before, around the time of the Terran Caesar Augustus, a Martian artist had been engaged in composing a work of art. It could have been called with equal truth a poem, a musical opus, or a philosophical treatise; it was a series of emotions arranged in tragic, logical necessity. Since it could have been experienced by a human only in the sense in which a man blind from birth could have a sunset explained to him, it does not matter much to which category of human creativity it might be assigned. The important point was that the artist had accidentally discorporated before he finished his masterpiece.

      Unexpected discorporation was always rare on Mars; Martian taste in such matters called for life to be a rounded whole, with physical death taking place at the appropriate and selected instant. This artist, however, had become so preoccupied with his work that he had forgotten to come in out of the cold; by the time his absence was noticed his body was hardly fit to eat. He himself had not noticed his own discorporation and had gone nght on composing his sequence.

      Martian art was divided sharply into two categories, that sort created by living adults, which was vigorous, often quite radical, and primitive, and that of the Old Ones, which was usually conservative, extremely complex, and was expected to show much higher standards of technique; the two sorts were judged separately.

      By what standards should this opus be judged? It bridged from the corporate to the discorporate; its final form had been set throughout by an Old One-yet on the other hand the artist, with the detachment of all artists everywhere, had not even noticed the change in his status and had Continued to work as if he were corporate. Was it possibly a new sort of art? Could more such pieces be produced by surprise discorporation of artists while they were working? The Old Ones had been discussing the exciting possibilities in ruminative rapport for centuries and all corporate Martians were eagerly awaiting their verdict.

      The question was of greater interest because it had not been abstract art, but religious (in the Terran sense) and strongly emotional~ it described the contact between the Martian Race and the people of the fifth planet, an event that had happened long ago but which was alive and important to Martians in the sense in which one death by crucifixion remained alive and important to humans after two Terran millennia. The Martian Race had encountered the people of the fifth planet, grokked them completelY, and in due course had taken action; the asteroid ruins were all that remained, save that the Martians continued to cherish and praise the people they had destroyed. This new work of art was one of many attempts to grok all parts of the whole beautiful experience in all its complexity in one opus. But before it could be judged it was necessary to grok how to judge it.

      It was a very pretty problem.

      On the third planet Valentine Michael Smith was not concerned with the burning issue on Mars; he had never heard of it. Ills Martian keeper and his keeper's water brothers had not mocked him with things he could not grasp. Smith knew of the destruction of the fifth planet and its etnotional importance~ just as any human school boy learns of Troy and Plymouth Rock, but he had not been exposed to art that he could not grok. His education had been unique, enormOuSlY greater than that of his nestlings, enormOuslY less than that of an adult; his keeper and his keeper's advisers among the Old Ones had taken a large passing interest in seeing just how much and of what sort this nestling alien could learn. The results had taught them more about the potentialities of the human race than that race had yet learned about itself, for Smith had grokked very readily things that no other human being had ever learned.

      But just at present Smith W95 simply enjoying himself with a lightheartedness he had not experienced in many years. He had won a new water brother in JubaL he had acquired many new friends, he was enjoying delightful new experiences in such kaleidoscopic quantity that he had no time to grok them; he could only file them away to be relived at leisure.

      His brother Jubal had assured him that be would grok this strange and beautiful place more quickly if he would learn to read, so he had taken a full day off to learn to read really well and quickly, with Jill pointing to words and pronouncing them for him. It had meant staying out of the swimming pool all that day, which had been a great sacrifice, as swimming (once he got it through his head that it was actually permitted) was not merely an exuberant, sensuous delight but almost unbearable religious ecstasy. If Jill and Jubal had not told him to do otherwise, he would never have come out of the pool at all.

      Since he was not permitted to swim at night he read all night long. He was zipping through the Encyclopedia Britannica and was sampling Jubal's medicine and law libraries as dessert. His brother Jubal had seen him leafing rapidly through one of the books, had stopped him and questioned him about what he had read. Smith had answered carefully, as it reminded him of the tests the Old Ones had occasionally given him. His brother had seemed a bit upset at his answers and Smith had found it necessary to go into an hour's contemplation on that account, for he bad been quite sure that he had answered with the words written in the book even though he did not grok them all.

      But he preferred the pool to the books, especially when Jill and Miriam and Larry and Anne and the rest were all splashing each other. He had not learned at once to swim as they did, but had discovered the first time that he could do 5~mething they could not. He had simply gone down to the bottom and lain there, immersed in quiet bliss~_~wbereUP0~~ they had hauled him out with such excitement that he had almost been forced to withdraw himself, had it not been evident that they were concerned for his welfare.

      Later that day he had demonstrated the matter to Jubal, remaining on the bottom for a delicious time, and he had tried to teach it to his brother Jill . . . but she had become disturbed and he had desisted. It was his first clear realization that there were things that he could do that these new friends could not. He thought about it a long time, trying to grok its fullness.

      Smith was happy; Harshaw was not. He continued his usual routine of aimless loafing, varied only by casual and unplanned observation of his laboratory animal, the Man from Mars. He arranged no schedule for Smith, no programme of study, no regular physical examinations, but simply allowed Smith to do as he pleased, run wild, like a puppy growing up on a ranch. What supervision Smith received came from Jill: more than enough, in Jubal's grumpy opinions as he took a dim view of males being reared by females.

      However, Gillian Boardman did little more than coach Valentine Smith in the rudiments of human social behavior-and he needed very little coaching. He ate at the table with the others now, dressed himself (at least Jubal thought he did; he made a mental note to ask Jill if she still had to assist him); he conformed acceptably to the household's very informal customs and appeared able to cope with most new experiences on a "monkey~see~monkeYd0" basis. Smith started his first meal at the table using only a spoon and Jill had cut up his meat for hint By the end of the meal he was attempting to eat as the others ate. At the next meal his table manners were a precise imitation of Jill's, including superfluous mannerisms.

      Even the twin discovery that Smith had taught himself to read with the speed of electronic scanning and appeared to have total recall of all that he read did not tempt Jubat HarshaW to make a "project" of Smith, one with controls, measurements, and curves of progress. Harshaw had the arrogant humility of the man who has learned so much that he is aware of his own ignorance and he saw no point in "measurements" when he did not know what he was measuring. Instead he limited himself to notes made privately, without even any intention of publishing his observations.

      But, while Harshaw enjoyed watching this unique animal develop into a mimicry copy of a human being, his pleasure afforded him no happiness.

      Like Secretary General Douglas, Harshaw was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

      Waiting with increasing tenseness- Having found himself coerced into action by the expectation of action against him on the part of the government, it annoyed and exasperated him that nothing as yet had happened. Damn it, were the Federation cops so stupid that they couldn't track an unsophisticated girl dragging an unconscious man all across the countryside? Or (as seemed more likely) had they been on her heels the whole way?-and even now were keeping a stake-out on his place? The latter thought was infuriating; to Harshaw the notion that the government might be spying on his home, his castle, with anything from binoculars to radar, was as repulsive as the idea of having his mail opened.

      And they might be doing that, toOt he reminded himself morosely. Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth Stupid fumbling -oh, he conceded that man, a social animal, could not avoid having government, any more than an individual man could escape his lifelong bondage to his bowels. But Harshaw did not have to like it. Simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it a "good." He wished that government would wander off and get lost?

      But it was certainly possible, or even probable, that the administration knew exactly where the Man from Mars was hiding . . . and for reasons of their own preferred to leave it that way, while they prepared- what?

      If so, how long would it go on? And how long could he keep his defensive "time bomb" armed and ready?

      And where the devil was that reckless young idiot Ben Caxton?

      Jill Boardman forced him out of his spiritual thumb-twiddling. "Jubal?"

      "Eh? Oh, it's you, bright eyes. Sorry, I was preoccupied. Sit down. Have a drink?"

      "Uh, no, thank you. Jubal, I'm worried."

      "Normal. Who isn't? That was a mighty pretty swan dive you did. Let's see another one just like it."

      Jill bit her lip and looked about twelve years old. "Jubal? Please listen! I'm terribly worried."

      He sighed. "In that case, dry yourself off. The breeze is getting chilly."

      "I'm warm enough. Uh, Jubal? Would it be all right if I left Mike here? Would you take care of him?"

      Harshaw blinked. "Of course he can stay here. You know that. The girls will look out for him-and I'll keep an eye on him from time to time. He's no trouble. I take it you're leaving?"

      She didn't meet his eye. "Yes."

      "Mmmm ... you're welcome here. But you're welcome to leave, too, if that's what you want."

      "Huh? But, Jubal-I don't want to leave!"

      "Then don't."

      "But I must!"

      "Better play that back. I didn't scan it."

      "Don't you see, Jubal? I like it here-you've been wonderful to us! But I can't stay any longer. Not with Ben missing. I've got to go look for him."

      Harshaw said one word, emotive, earthy, and vulgar, then added, "How do you propose to look for him?"

      She frowned. "I don't know. But I can't just lie around here any longer, loafing and swimming-with Ben missing."

      "Gillian, as I pointed out to you before, Ben is a big boy now. You're not his mother-and you're not his wife. And I'm not his keeper. Neither of us is responsible for him . . . and you haven't any call to go looking for him. Have you?"

      Jill looked down and twisted one toe in the grass. "No," she admitted. "I haven't any claim on Ben. I just know ... that if I turned up missing Ben would look for me-until he found me. So I've got to look for him!"

      Jubal breathed a silent malediction against all elder gods in any way involved in contriving the follies of the human race, then said aloud, "All right, all right, if you must, then let's try to get some logic into it. Do you plan to hire professionals? Say a private detective firm that specializes in missing persons?"

      She looked unhappy. "I suppose that's the way to go about it. Uh, I've never hired a detective. Are they expensive?"

      "Quite."

      Jill gulped. "Do you suppose they would let me arrange to pay, uh, in monthly installments? Or something?"

      "Cash at the stairs is their usual way. Quit looking so grim, child; I brought that up to dispose of it. I've already hired the best in the business to try to find Ben-so there is no need for you to hock your future to hire the second best."

      "You didn't tell me!"

      "No need to tell you."

      "But- Jubal, what did they find out?"

      "Nothing," he said shortly. "Nothing worth reporting, so there was no need to put you any further down in the dumps by telling you." Jubal scowled. "When you showed up here, I thought you were unnecessarily nervy about Ben-I figured the same as his assistant, that fellow Kilgallen, that Ben had gone yipping off on some new trail . . . and would check in when he had the story wrapped up. Ben does that sort of stunt-it's his profession." He sighed. "But now I don't think so. That knothead Kilgallen-he really does have a statprint message on file, apparently from Ben, telling Kilgallen that Ben would be away a few days; my man not only saw it but sneaked a photograph and checked. No fake-the message was sent."

      Jill looked puzzled. "I wonder why Ben didn't send me a statprint at the same time? It isn't like him-Ben's very thoughtful."

      Jubal repressed a groan. "Use your head, Gillian. Just because a package says 'Cigarettes' on the outside does not prove that the package contains cigarettes. You got here last Friday; the code groups on that statprint message show that it was filed from Philadelphia-Paoli Station Landing Flat, to be exact-just after ten thirty the morning before-lO.34 AM. Thursday. It was transmitted a couple of minutes after it was filed and was received at once, because Ben's office has its own statprinter. All right, now you tell me why Ben sent a printed message to his own office-during working hours-instead of telephoning?"

      "Why, I don't think he would, ordinarily. At least I wouldn't. The telephone is the normal-"

      "But you aren't Ben. I can think of half a dozen reasons, for a man in Ben's business. To avoid garbles. To insure a printed record in the files of I.T.&T. for legal purposes. To send a delayed message. All sorts of reasons. Kilgallen saw nothing odd about it-and the simple fact that Ben, or the syndicate he sells to, goes to the expense of maintaining a private statprinter in his office shows that Ben uses it regularly.

      "However," Jubal went on, "the snoops I hired are a suspicious lot; that message placed Ben at Paoli flat at ten thirty-four on Thursday-so one of them went there. Jill, that message was not sent from there."

      "But-"

      "One moment. The message was filed from there but did not originate there. Messages are either handed over the counter or telephoned. If one is handed over the counter, the customer can have it typed or he can ask for facsimile transmission of his handwriting and signature . . . but if it is filed by telephone, it has to be typed by the filing office before it can be photographed."

      "Yes, of course."

      "Doesn't that suggest anything, Jill?"

      "Uh ... Jubal, I'm so worried that I'm not thinking straight. What should it suggest?"

      "Quit the breast-beating; it wouldn't have suggested anything to me, either. But the pro who was working for me is a very sneaky character; he arrived at Paoli with a convincing statprint made from the photograph that was taken under Kilgallen's nose-and with business cards and credentials that made it appear that he himself was 'Osbert Kilgallen,' the addressee. Then, with his fatherly manner and sincere face, he hornswoggled a young lady employee of I.T.&T. into telling him things which, under the privacy amendment to the Constitution, she should have divulged only under court order-very sad. Anyhow, she did remember receiving that message for file and processing. Ordinarily she wouldn't remember one message out of hundreds-they go in her ears and out her fingertips and are gone, save for the filed microprint. But, luckily, this young lady is one of Ben's faithful fans; she reads his 'Crow's Nest' column every night-a hideous vice." Jubal blinked his eyes thoughtfully at the horizon. "Front!"

      Anne appeared, dripping. "Remind me," Jubal said to her, "to write a popular article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers. The title is 'Gossip Unlimited'-no, make that 'Gossip Gone Wild.'"

      "Boss, you're getting morbid."

      "Not me. But everybody else is. See that I write it some time next week. Now vanish; I'm busy." He turned back to Gillian. "She noticed Ben's name, so she remembered the message-quite thrilled about it, because it let her speak to one of her heroes . . . and was irked, I gather, because Ben hadn't paid for vision as well as voice. Oh, she remembers it and she remembers, too, that the service was paid for by cash from a public booth-in Washington."

      "'In Washington'?" repeated Jill. "But why would Ben call from-"

      "Of course, of course!" Jubal agreed pettishly. "If he's at a public phone booth anywhere in Washington, he can have both voice and vision direct to his office, face to face with his assistant, cheaper, easier, and. quicker than he could phone a stat message to be sent back to Washington from a point nearly two hundred miles away. It doesn't make sense. Or, rather, it makes just one kind of sense. Hanky-panky. Ben is as used to hanky-panky as a bride is to kisses. He didn't get to be one of the best winchells in the business through playing his cards face up."

      "Ben is not a winchell! He's a Lippmann!"

      "Sorry, I'm color-blind in that range. Keep quiet. He might have believed that his phone was tapped but his statprinter was not. Or he might have suspected that both were tapped-and I've no doubt they are, by now, if not then-and that he could use this round-about relay to convince whoever was tapping him that he really was away from Washington and would not be back for several days." Jubal frowned. "In the latter case we would be doing him no favor by finding him. We might be endangering his life."

      "Jubal! No!"

      "Jubal, yes," he answered wearily. "That boy skates close to the edge, he always has. He's utterly fearless and that's how he's made his reputation. But the rabbit is never more than two jumps ahead of the coyote and this time maybe one jump. Or none, Jill, Ben has never tackled a more dangerous assignment than this. If he has disappeared voluntarily-and he may have-do you want to risk stirring things up by bumbling around in your amateur way, calling attention to the fact that he has dropped out of sight? Kilgallen still has him covered, as Ben's column has appeared every day. I don't ordinarily read it-but I've made it my business to know, this time."

      "Canned columns! Mr. Kilgallen told me so."

      "Of course. Some of Ben's perennial series on corrupt campaign funds. That's a subject as safe as being in favor of Christmas. Maybe they're kept on file for such emergencies-or perhaps Kilgallen is writing them. In any case, Ben Caxton, the ever-ready Advocate of the Peepul, is still officially on his usual soap box. Perhaps he planned it that way, my dear-because he found himself in such danger that he did not dare get in touch even with you. Well?"

      Gillian glanced fearfully around her-at a scene almost unbearably peaceful, bucolic, and beautiful-then covered her face with her hands. "Jubal ... I don't know what to do!"

      "Snap out of it," he said gruffly. "Don't bawl over Ben-not in my presence. The worst that can possibly have happened to him is death and that we are all in for-if not this morning, then in days, or weeks, or years at most. Talk to your protйgй Mike about it. He regards 'discorporation' as less to be feared than a scolding-and he may be right. Why, if I told Mike we were going to roast him and serve him for dinner tonight, he would thank me for the honor with his voice choked with gratitude."

      "I know he would," Jill agreed in a small voice, "but I don't have his philosophical attitude about such things."

      "Nor do I," Harshaw agreed cheerfully, "but I'm beginning to grasp it-and I must say that it is a consoling one to a man of my age. A capacity for enjoying the inevitable-why, I've been cultivating that all my life . . . but this infant from Mars, barely old enough to vote and too unsophisticated to stand clear of the horse cars, has me convinced that I've just reached the kindergarten class in this all-important subject. Jill, you asked if Mike was welcome to stay on. Child, he's the most welcome guest I've ever had. I want to keep that boy around until I've found out what it is that he knows and I don't! This 'discorporation' thing in particular it's not the Freudian 'death-wish' clichй, I'm sure of that. It has nothing to do with life being unbearable. None of that 'Even the weariest river' stuff -it's more like Stevenson's 'Glad did I live and gladly die and I lay me down with a will!' Only I've always suspected that Stevenson was either whistling in the dark, or, more likely, enjoying the compensating euphoria of consumption. But Mike has me halfway convinced that he really knows what he is talking about."

      "I don't know," Jill answered dully. "I'm just worried about Ben."

      "So am I," agreed Jubal. "So let's discuss Mike another time. Jill, I don't think that Ben is simply hiding any more than you do."

      "But you said-"

      "Sorry. I didn't finish. My hired men didn't limit themselves to Ben's office and Paoli Flat. On Thursday morning Ben called at Bethesda Medical Center in company with the lawyer he uses and a Fair Witness-the famous James Oliver Cavendish, in case you follow such things."

      "I don't, I'm afraid."

      "No matter. The fact that Ben retained Cavendish shows how seriously he took the matter; you don't hunt rabbits with an elephant gun. The three were taken to see the 'Man from Mars'-"

      Gillian gaped, then said explosively, "That's impossible! They couldn't have come on that floor without my knowing it!"

      "Take it easy, Jill. You're disputing a report by a Fair Witness and not just any Fair Witness. Cavendish himself. If he says it, it's gospel."

      "I don't care if he's the Twelve Apostles! He wasn't on my floor last Thursday morning!"

      "You didn't listen closely. I didn't say that they were taken to see our friend Mike-I said they were taken to see 'The Man from Mars.' The phony one, obviously-that actor fellow they stereovised."

      "Oh. Of course, And Ben caught them out!"

      Jubal looked pained. "Little girl, count to ten thousand by twos while I finish this. Ben did not catch them out. In fact, even the Honorable Mr. Cavendish did not catch them out-at least he won't say so. You know how Fair Witnesses behave."

      "Well ... no, I don't. I've never had any dealings with Fair Witnesses."

      "So? Perhaps you weren't aware of it. Anne!"

      Anne was seated on the springboard; she turned her head. Jubal called out, "That new house on the far hilltop-can you see what color they've painted it?"

      Anne looked in the direction in which Jubal was pointing and answered, "It's white on this side." She did not inquire why Jubal had asked, nor make any comment.

      Jubal went on to Jill in normal tones, "You see? Anne is so thoroughly indoctrinated that it doesn't even occur to her to infer that the other side is probably white, too. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't force her to commit herself as to the far side - . . unless she herself went around to the other side and looked-and even then she wouldn't assume that it stayed whatever color it might be after she left because they might repaint it as soon as she turned her back,"

      "Anne is a Fair Witness?"

      "Graduate, unlimited license, and admitted to testify before the High Court. Sometime ask her why she decided to give up public practice. But don't plan on anything else that day-the wench will recite the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that takes time. Back to Mr. Cavendish- Ben retained him for open witnessing, full disclosure, without enjoining him to privacy. So when Cavendish was questioned, he answered, in full and boring detail. I've got a tape of it upstairs. But the interesting part of his report is what he does not say. He never states that the man they were taken to see was not the Man from Mars . . . but not one word can be construed as indicating that Cavendish accepted the exhibit he was called to view as being in fact the Man from Mars. If you knew Cavendish-and I do-this would be conclusive. If Cavendish had seen Mike, even for a few minutes, he would have reported what he had seen with such exactness that you and I, who know Mike, would know that he had seen him. For example, Cavendish reports in precise professional jargon the shape of this exhibit's ears ... and it does not match Mike's ear shape at all. Q.E.D.; he didn't see Mike. Nor did Ben. They were shown a phony. Furthermore Cavendish knows it, even though he is professionally restrained from giving opinions or conclusions."

      "But I told you so. They never came near my floor."

      "Yes. But it tells us something more. This occurred hours before you pulled your jail break for Mike-about eight hours earlier, as Cavendish sets their arrival in the presence of the phony 'Man from Mars' at 9.14 Thursday morning. That is to say, the government still had Mike under their thumb at that moment. In the same building. They could have exhibited him. Yet they took the really grave risk of offering a phony for inspection by the most noted Fair Witness in Washington-in the country. Why?"

      He waited. Jill answered slowly, "You're asking me? I don't know. Ben told me that he intended to ask Mike if he wanted to leave the hospital-and help him to do so if he said, 'Yes.'"

      "Which Ben did try, with the phony."

      "So? Out, Jubal, they couldn't have known that Ben intended to do that . . . and, anyhow, Mike wouldn't have left with Ben."

      "Why not? Later that day he left with you."

      "Yes-but I was already his 'water brother,' just as you are now. He has this crazy Martian idea that he can trust utterly anyone with whom he has shared a drink of water. With a 'water brother' he is completely docile and with anybody else he is stubborn as a mule. Ben couldn't have budged him." She added, "At least that is the way he was last week-he's changing awfully fast."

      "So he is. Too fast, maybe. I've never seen muscle tissue develop so rapidly-I'm sorry I didn't weigh him the day you arrived. Never mind, back to Ben-Cavendish reports that lien dropped him and the lawyer, a chap named Frisby, at nine thirty-one, and Ben kept the cab. We don't know where Ben went then. But an hour later he-or let's say somebody who said he was Ben-phoned that message to Paoli Flat."

      "You don't think it was Ben?"

      "I do not. Cavendish reported the license number of the cab and my scouts tried to get a look at the daily trip tape for that cab. If Ben used his credit card, rather than feeding coins into the cab's meter, his charge number should be printed on the tape-but even if he paid cash the tape should show where the cab had been and when."

      "Well?"

      Harshaw shrugged. "The records show that that cab was in for repairs and was never in use Thursday morning. That gives us two choices: either a Fair Witness misread or misremembered a cab's serial number or somebody tampered with the record." He added grimly, "Maybe a jury would decide that even a Fair Witness could glance at a cab's serial number and misread it, especially if he had not been asked to remember it-but I don't believe it . . . not when the Witness is James Oliver Cavendish. Cavendish would either be certain of that serial number-or his report would never mention it."

      Harshaw scowled and went on, "Jill, you're forcing me to rub my own nose in it-and I don't like it, I don't like it at all! Granted that Ben could have sent that message, it is most unlikely that he could have tampered with the daily record of that cab . . and still less believable that he had any reason to. No, let's face it. Ben went somewhere in that cab- and somebody who could get at the records of a public carrier went to a lot of trouble to conceal where he went . . and sent a phony message to keep anyone from realizing that he had disappeared."

      "'Disappeared!' Kidnapped, you mean!"

      "Softly, Jill. 'Kidnapped' is a dirty word."

      "It's the only word for it! Jubal, how can you sit there and do nothing when you ought to be shouting it from the-"

      "Stop it, Jill! There's another word. Instead of kidnapped, he might be dead."

      Gillian slumped. "Yes," she agreed dully. "That's what I'm really afraid of."

      "So am I. But we'll assume he is not, until we have seen his bones. But it's one or the other-so we assume that he is kidnapped. Jill, what's the greatest danger about kidnapping? No, don't bother your pretty head; I'll tell you. The greatest danger to the victim is a hue-and-cry-because if a kidnapper is frightened, he will almost always kill his victim. Had you thought of that?"

      Gillian looked woeful and did not answer. Harshaw went on gently, "I am forced to say that I think it is extremely likely that Ben is dead. He has been gone too long. But we've agreed to assume that he is alive-until we know otherwise. Now you intend to look for him. Gillian, can you tell me how you will go about this? Without increasing the risk that lien will be done away with by the unknown party or parties who kidnapped him?"

      "Uh- But we know who they are!"

      "Do we?"

      "Of course we do! The same people who were keeping Mike a prisoner-the government!"

      Harshaw shook his head. "We don't know it. That's an assumption based on what Ben was doing when last seen. But it's not a certainty. Ben has made lots of enemies with his column and by no means all of them are in the government. I can think of several who would willingly kill him if they could get away with it. However-" Harshaw frowned. "Your assumption is all we have to go on. But not 'the government'-that's too sweeping a term. 'The government' is several million people, nearly a million in Washington alone. We have to ask ourselves: Whose toes were being stepped on? What person or persons? Not 'the government'-but what individuals?"

      "Why, that's plain enough, Jubal. I told you, just as Ben told it to me. It's the Secretary General himself."

      "No," Harshaw denied. "While that may be true, it's not useful to us. No matter who did what, if it is anything rough or illegal, it won't be the Secretary General who did it, even if he benefits by it. Nobody would ever be able to prove that he even knew about it. It is likely that he would not know about it-not the rough stuff. No, Jill, we need to find out which lieutenant in the Secretary General's large staff' of stooges handled this operation. But that isn't as hopeless as it sounds-I think. When Ben was taken in to see that phony 'Man from Mars,' one of Mr. Douglas's executive assistants was with him-tried to talk him out of it, then went with him. It now appears that this same top-level stooge also dropped out of sight last Thursday - . . and I don't think it is a coincidence, not when he appears to have been in charge of the phony 'Man from Mars.' If we find him, we may find Ben, Gilbert Berquist is his name and I have reason-"

      "Berquist?"

      "That's the name. And I have reason to suspect that-Jill, what's the trouble? Stop it! Don't faint, or sweip me, I'll dunk you in the pool!"

      "Jubal. This 'Berquist.' Is there more than one Berquist?"

      "Eh? I suppose so ... though from all I can find out he does seem to be a bit of a bastard; there might be only one. Out I mean the one on the Executive staff. Why? Do you know him?"

      "I don't know. But if it is the same one ... I don't think there's any use looking for him."

      "Mmm ... talk, girl."

      "Jubal, I'm sorry-I'm terribly sorry-but I didn't tell you quite everything."

      "People rarely do. All right, out with it."

      Stumbling, stuttering, and stammering, Gillian managed to tell about the two men who suddenly were not there. Jubal Simply listened. "And that's all," she concluded sadly. "I screamed and scared Mike ... and he went into that trance you saw him in-and then I had a simply terrible time getting here. But I told you about that."

      "Mmm ... yes, so you did. I wish that you had told me about this, too."

      She turned red. "I didn't think anybody would believe me. And I was scared. Jubal, can they do anything to us?"

      "Eh?" Jubal seemed surprised. "Do what?"

      "Send us to jail, or something?"

      "Oh. My dear, it has not yet been declared a crime to be present at a miracle. Nor to work one. But this matter has more aspects than a cat has hair. Keep quiet and let me think."

      Jill kept quiet. Jubal held still about ten minutes. At last he opened his eyes and said, "I don't see your problem child. He's probably lying on the bottom of the pool again-"

      "He is."

      "-so dive in and get him. Dry him off and bring him up to my study. I want to find Out if he can repeat this stunt at will . . . and I don't think we need an audience. No, we do need an audience. Tell Anne to put on her Witness robe and come along-tell her I want her in her official capacity. I want Duke, too."

      "Yes, Boss."

      "You're not privileged to call me 'Boss'; you're not tax deductible."

      "Yes, Jubal."

      "That's better. Mmm ... I wish we had somebody here who never would be missed. Regrettably we are all friends. Do you suppose Mike can do this Stunt with inanimate objects?"

      "I don't know."

      "We'll find out. Well, what are you standing there for? Haul that boy out of the water and wake him up." Jubal blinked thoughtfully. "What a way to dispose of-no, I mustn't be tempted. See you upstairs, girl."

XII

      A FEW MINUTES LATER Jill reported to Jubal's study. Anne was there, seated and enveloped in the long white robe of her guild; she glanced at Jill, said nothing. Jill found a chair and kept quiet, as Jubal was at his desk and dictating to Dorcas; he did not appear to notice Jill's arrival and went on dictating:

      "-from under the sprawled body, soaking one corner of the rug and seeping out beyond it in a spreading dark red pool on the tiled hearth, where it was attracting the attention of two unemployed flies. Miss Simpson clutched at her mouth. 'Dear me!' she said in a distressed small voice, 'Daddy's favorite rug! . . . and Daddy, too, I do believe.' End of chapter, Dorcas, and end of first installment. Mail it off. Git."

      Dorcas stood up and left, taking along her shorthand machine, and nodding and smiling to Jill as she did so. Jubal said, "Where's Mike?"

      "In his room," answered Gillian, "dressing. He'll be along soon."

      "'Dressing'?" Jubal repeated peevishly. "I didn't say the party was formal."

      "But he has to get dressed."

      "Why? It makes no never-mind to me whether you kids wear skin or fleece-lined overcoats-and it's a warm day. Chase him in here."

      "Please, Jubal. He's got to learn how to behave. I'm trying so hard to train him."

      "Hmmph! You're trying to force on him your own narrow-minded, middle class, Bible Belt morality. Don't think I haven't been watching."

      "I have not! I haven't concerned myself with his morals; I've simply been teaching him necessary customs."

      "Customs, morals-is there a difference? Woman, do you realize what you are doing? Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe-.--and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land! Why don't you go whole hog? Get him a brief case and make him carry it wherever he goes-make him feel shame if he doesn't have it."

      "I'm not doing anything of the sort! I'm just trying to keep him out of trouble. It's for his own good."

      Jubal snorted. "That's the excuse they gave the tomcat just before his operation."

      "Oh!" Jill stopped and appeared to be counting ten. Then she said formally and blealdy, "This is your house, Doctor Harshaw, and we are in your debt. If you will excuse me, I will fetch Michael at once." She got up to leave.

      "Hold it, Jill."

      "Sir?"

      "Sit back down-and for God's sake quit trying to be as nasty as I am; you don't have my years of practice. Now let me get something straight: you are not in my debt. You can't be. Impossible-because I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it. So please don't invent a debt that does not exist, or before you know it you will be trying to feel gratitude-and that is the treacherous first step downward to complete moral degradation. You grok that? Or don't you?"

      Jill bit her lip, then grinned. "I'm not sure I know what 'grok' means."

      "Nor do I. But I intend to go on taking lessons from Mike until I do. But I was speaking dead seriously. Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment. Resentment from most people I do not mind-but from pretty little girls it is distasteful to me."

      "Why, Jubal, I don't resent you-that's silly."

      "I hope you don't... but you certainly will if you don't root out of your mind this delusion that you are indebted to me. The Japanese have five different ways to say 'thank you'-and every one of them translates literally as resentment, in various degrees. Would that English had the same built-in honesty on this point! Instead, English is capable of defining sentiments that the human nervous system is quite incapable of experiencing. 'Gratitude,' for example."

      "Jubal, you're a cynical old man. I do feel grateful to you and I shall go on feeling grateful."

      "And you are a sentimental young girl. That makes us a perfect complementary pair. Hmm - let's run over to Atlantic City for a weekend of illicit debauchery, just us two."

      "Why, Jubal!"

      "You see how deep your gratitude goes when I attempt to draw on it?"

      "Oh. I'm ready. How soon do we leave?"

      "Hmmmphtt We should have left forty years ago. Shut up. The second point I want to make is that you are right; the boy does indeed have to learn human customs. He must be taught to take off his shoes in a mosque and to wear his hat in a synagogue and to cover his nakedness when taboo requires it, or our tribal shamans will burn him for deviationism. But, child, by the myriad deceptive aspects of Ahrilflafl, don't brainwash him in the process. Make sure he is cynical about each part of it."

      "Uh, I'm not sure how to go about that, Jubal. Well, Mike just doesn't seem to have any cynicism in him."

      "So? Yes. Well, I'll take a band in it. What's keeping him? Shouldn't he be dressed by now?"

      "I'll go see."

      "In a moment. Jill, I explained to you why I had not been anxious to accuse anyone of kidnapping Ben . . . and the reports I have had since Serve to support the probability that that was a tactically correct decision. If Ben is being unlawfully detained (to put it at its sweetest), at least we have not crowded the opposition into getting rid of the evidence by getting rid o~ Ben. If he is alive he stands a chance of staying alive. But I took 0ther steps the Ilrst night you were here. Do you know your Bible?"

      "Uh, not very well."

      "It merits study, it contains very practical advice for most emergencies. '-every one that doeth evil hateth the light-' John something or other, Jesus speaking to Nicodeus. I have been expecting at any moment an attempt to get Mike away from us, for it didn't seem likely that you had managed to cover your tracks perfectly. And if they do try? Well, this is a lonely place and we haven't any heavy artillery. But there is one weapon that might balk them. Light. The glaring spotlight of publicity. So I made some phone calls and arranged for any ruckus here to have publicity. Not just a little publicity that the administration might be able to hush up, but great gobs of publicity worldwide and all at once. The details do not matter-where and how the cameras are mounted and what line of sight linkages have been rigged, I mean. But if a fight breaks out here, it will be picked up by three networks and, at the same time, a number of hold for release messages will be delivered to a wide spread of V.I.P.s, all of whom would like very much to catch our Honorable Secretary General with his pants down."

      Harshaw frowned. "The weakness in this defense is that I can't maintain it indefinitely. Truthfully, when I set it up, my worry was to set up fast enough-I expected whatever popped' to pop inside of twenty four hours. Now my worry is reversed and I think we are going to have to force some action quickly while I can still keep a spotlight on us."

      "What sort of action, Jubal?"

      "I don't know. I've been fretting about it the past three days, to the point where I can't enjoy my food. But you gave me a glitn1Uefl0~ of a new approach when you told me that remarkable story about what happened when they tried to grab you two in Ben's apartment."

      "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, Jubal. But I didn't think anybody would believe me and I must say that it makes me feel good that you do believe me."

      "I didn't say I believed you."

      "What? But you-"

      "I think you were telling the truth, Jill. But a dream IS a true experience of a sort and so is a hypnotic delusion. But what happens in this room during the next half hour will be seen by a Fair Witness and by cameras which are" he leaned forward and pressed a button. "rolling right now. I don't think Anne can be hypnotized when she's on duty and I'll lay long odds that cameras can't be. We should be able to find out what kind of truth we're dealing with-after which we should be able to decide how to go about forcing the powers-that-be to drop the other shoe . . . and maybe figure a way that will help Ben at the same time. Go get Mike."

      Mike's delay was not mysterious, merely worrisome to him. He had managed to tie his left shoestring to his right-then had stood up, tripped himself, fallen flat, and, in so doing, jerked the knots almost hopelessly tight. He had spent the rest of the time analysing his predicament, concluding correctly why he had failed, and slowly, slowly, slowly getting the snarl untied and the strings correctly tied, one bow to each shoe, unlinked. He had not been aware that his dressing had taken long; he had simply been troubled that he had failed to repeat correctly something which Jill had already taught him. He confessed his failure abjectly to her even though he had repaired it by the time she came to fetch him.

      She soothed and reassured him, combed his hair, and herded him in to see Jubal. Harshaw looked up. "Hi, son. Sit down."

      "Hi, Jubal," Valentine Michael Smith answered gravely, sat down- waited. Jill had to rid herself of the impression that Smith had bowed deeply, when in fact he had not even nodded.

      Harshaw put aside a hush-mike and said, "Well, boy what have you learned today?"

      Smith smiled happily, then answered-as always with a slight pause. "I have today learned to do a one-and-a-half gainer. That is a jumping, a dive, for entering our water by-"

      "I know, I saw you doing it. But you splashed. Keep your toes pointed, your knees straight, and your feet together."

      Smith looked unhappy. "I rightly did not it do?"

      "You did it very rightly, for a first time. Watch how Dorcas does it. Hardly a ripple in the water."

      Smith considered this slowly. "The water groks Dorcas. It cherishes him."

      "'Her.' Dorcas is a 'her,' not a 'him.'"

      "'Her,' " Smith corrected. "Then my speaking was false? I have read in Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, published in Springfield, Massachusetts, that the masculine gender includes the feminine gender in speaking. In Hagworth's Law of Contracts, Fifth Edition, Chicago, Illinois, 1978, on page 1012, it says-"

      "Hold it," Harshaw said hastily. "The trouble is with the English language, not with you. Masculine speech forms do include the feminine, when you are speaking in general-but not when you are talking about a particular person. Dorcas is always 'she' or 'her'-never 'he' or 'him.' Remember it."

      "I will remember it."

      "You had better remember it-~r you may provoke Dorcas into proving just how female she is." Harshaw blinked thoughtfully. "Jill, is the lad sleeping with you? Or with one of you?"

      She barely hesitated, then answered flatly, "SO far as I know, Mike doesn't sleep."

      "You evaded my question."

      "Then perhaps you had better assume that I intended to evade it. However, he is not sleeping with me."

      "Mmm .. damn it, my interest is scientific. However, we'll pursue another line of inquiry. Mike, what else have you learned today?"

      "I have learned two ways to tie my shoes. One way is only good for lying down. The other way is good for walking. And I have learned conjugations. 'I am, thou art, he is, we are, you are, they are, I was, thou wast-''

      "Okay, that's enough. What else?"

      Mike smiled delightedly. "To yesterday I am learning to drive the tractor, brightly, brightly, and with beauty."

      "Eh?" Jubal turned to Jill. 'When did this happen?"

      "Yesterday afternoon while you were napping, Jubal. It's all right- Duke was very careful not to let him get hurt."

      "Umm ... well, obviously he did not get hurt. Mike, have you been reading?"

      "Yes, Jubal."

      "What?"

      "I have read," Mike recited carefully, "three more volumes of the Encyclopedia, Maryb to Mushe, Mushr to Ozon, P to Planti. You have told me not to read too much of the Encyclopedia at one reading, so I then stopped. I then read the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by Master William Shakespeare of London. I then read the Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Sein gait as translated into English by Arthur Machen. I then read The Art of Cross-Exam mat ion by Francis Weilman. I then tried to grok what I had read until Jill told me that I must come to breakfast."

      "And did you grok it?"

      Smith looked troubled. "Jubal, I do not know."

      "Is anything bothering you, Mike?"

      "I do not grok all fullness of what I read. In the history written by Master William Shakespeare I found myself full of happiness at the death of Romeo. Then I read on and learned that he had discorporated too soon-or so I thought I grokked. Why?"

      "He was a blithering young idiot."

      "Beg pardon?"

      "I don't know, Mike."

      Smith considered this. Then he muttered something in Martian and added, "I am only an egg."

      "Eh? You usually say that when you want to ask a favor, Mike. What is it this time? Speak up."

      Smith hesitated. Then he blurted out, "Jubal my brother, would please you ask Romeo why he discorporated? I cannot ask him; I am only an egg. But you can-and then you could teach me the grokking of it."

      For the next several minutes the conversation became very tangled. Jubal saw at once that Mike believed that Romeo of Montague had been a living, breathing person, and Jubal managed with no special shock to his own concepts to realize that Mike expected him to be able, somehow, to conjure up Romeo's ghost and demand of him explanations for his conduct when in the flesh.

      But to get over to Mike the idea that none of the Capulets and Montagues had ever had any sort of corporate existence was another matter. The concept of fiction was nowhere in Mike's experience; there was nothing on which it could rest, and Jubal's attempts to explain the idea were so emotionally upsetting to Mike that Jill was afraid that he was about to roll up into a ball and withdraw himself.

      But Mike himself saw how perilously close he was coming to that necessity and he had already learned that he must not resort to this refuge in the presence of his friends, because (with the exception of his brother Doctor Nelson) it always caused them emotional disturbance. So he made a mighty effort, slowed down his heart, calmed his emotions, and smiled. "I will waiting till a grokking comes of itself."

      "That's better," agreed Jubal. "But hereafter, before you read anything, ask me or ask Jill, or somebody, whether or not it is fiction. I don't want you to get mixed up."

      "I will ask, Jubal." Mike decided that, when he did grok this strange idea, that he must report the fullness to the Old Ones . . . and suddenly found himself wondering if the Old Ones knew about "fiction." The completely incredible idea that there might be something which was as strange to the Old Ones as it was to himself was so much more revolutionary (indeed heretically so) than the sufficiently weird concept of fiction that he hastily put it aside to cool, saved it for future deep contemplation.

      "-but I didn't," his brother Jubal was saying, "call you in here to discuss literary forms. Mike, you remember the day that Jill took you away from the hospital?"

      "'Hospital'?" Mike repeated.

      "I'm not sure, Jubal," Jill interrupted, "that Mike ever knew that it was a hospital-at least I never told him it was one. Let me try it."

      "Go ahead."

      "Mike, you remember the place where you were, where you lived alone in a room, before I dressed you and took you away."

      "Yes, Jill.''

      "Then we went to another place and I undressed you and gave you a bath."

      Smith smiled in pleased recollection. "Yes. It was a great happiness."

      "Then I dried you off-and then two men came."

      Smith's smile wiped away. He relived that critical cusp of decision and the horror of his discovery that, somehow, he had chosen wrong action and hurt his water brother. He began to tremble and huddle into himself.

      Jill said loudly, "Mike! Stop it! Stop it at once! Don't you dare go away!"

      Mike took control of his being and did what his water brother required of him. "Yes, Jill," he agreed.

      "Listen to me, Mike. I want you to think about that time-but you mustn't get upset or go away. Just remember it. There were two men there. One of them pulled you Out into the living room."

      "The room with the joyful grasses on the floor," he agreed.

      "That's right. He pulled you Out into the room with the grass on the floor and I tried to stop him. He hit me. Then he was gone. Y~u remember?"

      "You are not angry?"

      "What? No, no, not at all. But I was frightened. One man disappeared, then the other one pointed a gun at me-and then he was gone, too. I was very frightened-but I was not angry."

      "You are not angry with me now?"

      "Mike, dear-I have never been angry with you. But sometimes I have been frightened. I was frightened that time-but I am not afraid now. Jubal and I want to know what happened. Those two men were there, in that room with us. And then you did something . . . and they were gone. You did it twice. What was it you did? Can you tell us?"

      "Yes, I will tell you. The man-the big man-hit you ... and I was frightened, too. So I-" He croaked a phrase in Martian, then looked puzzled. "I do not know words."

      Jubal said, "Mike, can you use a lot of words and explain it a little at a time?"

      "I will try, Jubal. Something is there, in front of me. It is a wrong thing and it must not be there. It must go. So I reach out and-" He stopped again and looked perplexed. "It is such a simple thing, such an easy thing. Anyone can do it. Tying shoe laces is much more hard. But the words not are. I am very sorry. I will learn more words." He considered it. "Perhaps the words are in Plants to Raym, or Rayn to Sarr, or Sars to Sorc. I will read them tonight and tell you at breakfast."

      "Maybe," Jubal admitted. "Just a minute, Mike." He got up from his desk, went to a corner and returned with a large carton which had lately contained twelve fifths of brandy. "Can you make this go away?"