A Stranger in a Strange Land

"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 police!"

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."