A Stranger in a Strange Land

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 matre d'htel 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 un-American 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 'alive' 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 Department 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."