How?

            Call the Executive Palace again? Heinrich had probably been telling the simple truth when he said that a renewed attempt would simply be referred to Heinrich-or to whatever 5.5. boss was now warming that chair that Heinrich would never need again. Well? It would surely surprise them to have a man they had sent a squad to arrest blandly phoning in, face to face-he might be able to bull his way all the way up to the top. Commandant What's-his-name, chap with a face like a well-fed ferret, Twitchell. And certainly the commanding officer of the S.S. buckos would have direct access to the boss.

            No good. You had to have a feeling for what makes the frog jump. It would be a waste of breath to tell a man who believes in guns that you've got something better than guns and that he can't arrest you and might as well give up trying. Twitchell would keep on throwing men and guns at them till he ran out of both-but he would never admit he couldn't bring in a man whose location was known.

            Well, when you couldn't use the front door you got yourself slipped in through the back door-elementary politics. Jubal regretted mildly that he had ignored politics the last quarter century or so. Damn it, he needed Ben Caxton-Ben would know who had keys to the back door . - - and Jubal would know somebody who knew one of them.

            But Ben's absence was the whole reason for this silly donkey derby. Since he couldn't ask Ben, whom did he know who would know?

            Hell's halfwit, he had just been talking to one! Jubal turned back to the phone and tried to raise Tom Mackenzie again, running into only three layers of interference on the way, all of whom knew him and passed him along quickly. While he was doing this, his staff and the Man from Mars came in; Jubal ignored them and they sat down, Miriam first stopping to write on a scratch pad: "Doors and windows locked."

            Jubal nodded to her and wrote below it: "Larry-panic button?" then said to the screen, "Tom, sorry to bother you again."

            "A pleasure, Jubal."

            "Tom, if you wanted to talk to Secretary General Douglas, how would you go about it?"

            "Eh? I'd phone his press secretary, Jim Sanforth. Or possibly Jock Dumont, depending on what I wanted. But I wouldn't talk to the Secretary General at all. Jim would handle it."

            "But suppose you wanted to talk to Douglas himself."

            "Why, I'd tell Jim and let him arrange it. Be quicker just to tell Jim my problem, though; it might be a day or two before he could squeeze me in . . . and even then I might be bumped for something more urgent. Look, Jubal, the network is useful to the administration-and we know it and they know it. But we don't presume on it unnecessarily."

            "Tom ... assume that it is necessary. Suppose you just had to speak to Douglas. Right now. Not next week. In the next ten minutes."

            Mackenzie's eyebrows went up. "Well - . - if I just had to, I would explain to Jim why it was so urgent-"

            "No."

            "Be reasonable."

            "No. That's just what I can't be. Assume that you had caught Jim Sanforth stealing the spoons, so you couldn't tell him what the emergency was. But you had to speak to Douglas immediately."

            Mackenzie sighed. "I suppose I would tell Jim that I simply had to talk to the boss . - . and that if I wasn't put through to him right away, the administration would never get another trace of support from the network, Politely, of course. But make him understand that I meant it. Sanforth is nobody's fool; he would never serve his own head up on a platter."

            "Okay, Tom, do it."

            "Huh?"

            "Leave this call on. Call the Palace on another instrument-and have your boys ready to cut me in instantly. I've got to talk to the Secretary General right now!"

            Mackenzie looked pained. "Jubal, old friend-"

            "Meaning you won't."

            "Meaning I can't. You've dreamed up a hypothetical situation in which a-pardon me-major executive of an intercontinental network could speak to the Secretary General under conditions of dire necessity. But I can't hand this entrée over to somebody else. Look, Jubal, I respect you. Besides that, you are probably four of the six most popular writers alive today. The network would hate to lose you and we are painfully aware that you Won't let us tie you down to a contract. But I can't do it, even to please you. You must realize that one does not telephone the World chief of government unless he wants to speak to you."

            "Suppose I do sign an exclusive seven-year contract?"

            Mackenzie looked as if his teeth hurt, "I still couldn't do it. I'd lose my job-and you would still have to carry out your contract."

            Jubal considered calling Mike over into the instrument's visual pickup and naming him. He discarded the idea at once. Mackenzie's own program mes had run the fake 'Man from Mars' interviews-and Mackenzie was either crooked and in on the hoax . . . or he was honest, as Jubal thought he was, and simply would not believe that he himself had been hoaxed. "All right, Tom, I won't twist your arm. But you know your way around in the government better than I do. Who calls Douglas whenever he likes-and gets him? I don't mean Sanforth"

            "No one."

            "Damn it, no man lives in a vacuum! There must be at least a dozen people who can phone him and not get brushed off by a secretary."

            "Some of his cabinet, I suppose. And not all of them."

            "I don't know any of them, either; I've been out of touch. But I don't mean professional politicos. Who knows him so well that they can call him on a private line and invite him to play poker?"

            "Umm ... you don't want much, do you? Well, there's Jake Allenby. Not the actor, the other Jake Allenby. Oil."

            "I've met him. He doesn't like me. I don't like him. He knows it."

            "Douglas doesn't have very many intimate friends. His wife rather discourages-.- Say, Jubal - . . how do you feel about astrology?"

            "Never touch the stuff. Prefer brandy."

            "Well, that's a matter of taste. But-see here, Jubal, if you ever let on to anyone that I told you this, I'll cut your lying throat with one of your own manuscripts."

            "Noted. Agreed. Proceed."

            "Well, Agnes Douglas does touch the stuff.., and I know where she gets it. Her astrologer can call Mrs. Douglas at any time-and, believe you me, Mrs. Douglas has the ear of the Secretary General whenever she chooses. You can call her astrologer - . . and the rest is up to you."

            "I don't seem to recall any astrologers on my Christmas card list," Jubal answered dubiously. "What's his name?"

            "Her. And you might try crossing her palm with silver in convincing denominations. Her name is Madame Alexandra Vesant. Washington Exchange. That's V, E, S, A, N, T."

            "I've got it," Jubal said happily. "And, Tom, you've done me a world of good!"

            "Hope so. Anything for the network soon?"

            "Hold it." Jubal glanced at a note Miriam had placed at his elbow some moments ago. It read: "Larry says the transceiver won't trans-and he doesn't know why." Jubal went on, "That spot coverage failed earlier through a transceiver failure here-and I don't have anyone who can repair it."

            "I'll send somebody."

            "Thanks. Thanks twice."

            Jubal switched off, placed the call by name and instructed the operator to use hush & scramble if the number was equipped to take it. It was, not to his surprise. Very quickly Madame Vesant's dignified features appeared in his screen. He grinned at her and called, "Hey, Rube!"

            She looked startled, then looked more closely. "Why, Doe Harshaw, you old scoundrel! Lord love you, it's good to see you. Where have you been hiding?"

            "Just that, Becky-hiding. The clowns are after me."

            Becky Vesey didn't ask why; she answered instantly, "What can I do to help? Do you need money?"

            "I've got plenty of money, Becky, but thanks a lot. Money won't help; I'm in much more serious trouble than that-and I don't think anyone can help me but the Secretary General himself, Mr. Douglas. I need to talk to him-and right away. Now - . . or even sooner."

            She looked blank. "That's tall order, Doc."

            "Becky, I know it is-because I've been trying for a week to get through to him . . and I can't. But don't you get mixed up in it yourself, Becky . . . because, girl, I'm hotter than a smoky bearing. I just took a chance that you might be able to advise me-a phone number, maybe, where I could reach him. But I don't want you to mix into it personally. You'd get hurt-and I'd never be able to look the Professor in the eye if I ever meet him again . . . God rest his soul."

            "I know what the Professor would want me to do!" she said sharply. "So let's knock off the nonsense, Doc. The Professor always swore that you were the only sawbones fit to carve people; the rest were butchers. He never forgot that time in Elkton."

            "Now, Becky, we won't bring that up. I was paid."

            "You saved his life."

            "I did no such thing. It was his rugged constitution and his will to fight back-and your nursing."

            "Uh ... Doc, we're wasting time. Just how hot are you?"

            "They're throwing the book at me ... and anybody near me is going to get splashed. There's a warrant out for me-a Federation warrant- and they know where I am and I can't run. It will be served any minute now . . . and Mr. Douglas is the only person who can stop it."

            "You'll be sprung. I guarantee that."

            "Becky, I'm sure you would. But it might take a few hours. It's that 'back room' I'm afraid of, Becky. I'm too old for a session in the back room."

            "But- Oh, goodness! Doe, can't you give me some details? I really ought to cast a horoscope on you, then I'd know what to do. You're Mercury, of course, since you're a doctor. But if I knew what house to look in to find your trouble, I could do better."

            "Girl, there isn't time for that. But thanks." Jubal thought rapidly. Whom to trust? And when? "Becky, just knowing could put you in as much trouble as I am in . . . unless I convince Mr. Douglas."

            "Tell me, Doc. I've never taken a powder at a clem yet-and you know it."

            "All right. So I'm 'Mercury.' But the trouble lies in Mars."

            She looked at him sharply. "How?"

            "You've seen the news. You know that the Man from Mars is supposed to be making a retreat some place high up in the Andes. Well, he's not. That's just to hoax the yokels."

            Becky seemed startled but not quite as Jubal had expected her to be. "Just where do you figure in this, Doc?"

            "Becky, there are people all over this sorry planet who want to lay hands on that boy. They want to use him, they want to make him geek for them, their way. But he's my client and I don't propose to hold still for it. If I can help it. But my only chance is to talk with Mr. Douglas himself, face to face."

            "The Man from Mars is your client? You can turn him up?"

            "Yes. But only to Mr. Douglas. You know how it is Becky-the mayor can be a good Joe, kind to children and dogs. But he doesn't necessarily know everything his town clowns are up to-especially if they haul a man in and take him into that back room."

            She nodded. "I've had my troubles with cops. Cops!"

            "So I need to dicker with Mr. Douglas before they haul me in."

            "All you want is to talk to him on the telephone?"

            "Yes. If you can swing it. Here, let me give you my number-and I'll be sitting right here, hoping for a call . . . until they pick me up. If you can't swing it . . . thanks anyway, Becky, thanks a lot. I'll know you tried."

            "Don't switch off!" she said sharply.

            "Eh?"

            "Keep the circuit, Doc, while I see what I can do. If I have any luck, they can patch right through this phone and save time. So hold on." Madame Vesant left the screen without saying good-by, then called Agnes Douglas. She spoke with calm confidence, pointing out to Agnes that this was precisely the development foretold by the stars-and exactly on schedule. Now had come the critical instant when Agnes must guide and sustain her husband, using all her womanly wit and wisdom to see that he acted wisely and without delay. "Agnes dear, this configuration will not be repeated in a thousand years-Mars, Venus and Mercury in perfect trine, just as Venus reaches the meridian, making Venus dominant. Thus you see-"

            "Allie, what do the Stars tell me to do? You know I don't understand the scientific part."

            This was hardly surprising, since the described relationship did not obtain at the moment. Madame Vesant had not had time to compute a new horoscope and was improvising. But she was untroubled by it; she was speaking a "higher truth," giving good advice and helping her friends. To be able to help two friends at once made Becky Vesey especially happy. "Dear, you really do understand it, you have born talent for it. You are Venus, as always, and Mars is reinforced, being both your husband and that young man Smith for the duration of this crisis. Mercury is Dr. Harshaw. To offset the imbalance caused by the reinforcement of Mars, Venus must sustain Mercury until the crisis is past. But you have very little time for it; Venus waxes in influence until reaching meridian, only seven minutes from now-after that your influence will decline. You must act quickly."

            "You should have warned me sooner."

            "My dear, I have been waiting here by my phone all thy, ready to act instantly. The Stars tell us the nature of each crisis; they never tell us the details. But there is still time. I have Dr. Harshaw waiting on the telephone here; all that is necessary is to bring them face to face-if possible before Venus reaches meridian."

            "Well- All right, Allie. I've got to dig Joseph out of some silly conference but I'll get him. Keep this line open. Give me the number of the phone you have this Doctor Rackshaw on-or can you transfer the call there?"

            "I can switch it over here. Just get Mr. Douglas. Hurry, dear."

            "I will."

            When Agnes Douglas' face left the screen, Becky went to still another phone. Her profession required ample phone service; it was her largest single business expense. Humming happily she called her broker.

XVII

            As MADAME VESANT LEFT THE SCREEN Jubal Harshaw leaned back from his phone. "Front," he said.

            "Okay, Boss," Miriam acknowledged.

            "This is one for the 'Real-Experiences' group. Specify on the cover sheet that I want the narrator to have a sexy contralto voice-"

            "Maybe I should try out for it."

            "Not that sexy. Shut up. Dig out that list of null surnames we got from the Census Bureau, pick one and put an innocent, mammalian first name with it, for the pen name. A girl's name ending in 'a'-that always suggests a 'C' cup."

            "Huh! And not one of us with a name ending in 'a.' Why, you louse!"

            "Flat-chests bunch, aren't you? 'Angela.' Her name is 'Angela.' Title: 'I Married a Martian.' Start: All my life I had longed to become an astronaut. Paragraph. When I was just a tiny thing, with freckles on my nose and stars in my eyes, I saved box tops just as my brothers did-and cried when Mummy wouldn't let me wear my Space Cadet helmet to bed. Paragraph. In those carefree childhood days I did not dream to what strange, bittersweet fate my tomboy ambition would-"

            "Boss!"

            "Yes, Dorcas?"

            "Here come two more loads."

            Jubal got up from the telephone chair. "Hold for continuation. Miriam, sit down at the phone." He went to the window, saw the two air cars Dorcas had spotted, decided that they could be squad cars, and might be about to land on his property. "Larry, bolt the door to this room. Anne, put on your robe. Watch them but stand back from the window; I want them to think the house is empty. Jill, you stick close to Mike and don't let him make any hasty moves. Mike, you do what Jill tells you to."

            "Yes, Jubal. I will do."

            "Jill, don't turn him loose unless you have to. To keep one of us from being shot, I mean. If they bust down doors, let them-I rather hope they do. Jill, if it comes to scratch, I'd much rather he snatched just the guns and not the men."

            "Yes, Jubal."

            "Make sure he understands. This indiscriminate elimination of cops has got to stop."

            "Telephone, Boss!"

            "Coming." Jubal went unhurriedly back to the phone. "All of you stay out of pickup. Dorcas, you can take a nap. Miriam, note down another title for later: 'I Married a Human.' " He slid into the seat as Miriam vacated it and said, "Yes?"

            A blandly handsome man looked back at him. "Doctor Harshaw?"

            "Yes."

            "Please hold on. The Secretary General will speak with you." The tone implied that a genuflection was in order.

            "Okay."

            The screen flickered, then rebuilt in the tousled image of His Excellency the Honorable Joseph Edgerton Douglas, Secretary General of the World Federation of Free Nations. "Dr. Harshaw? Understand you need to speak with me. Shoot."

            "No, sir."

            "Eh? But I understood-"

            "Let me rephrase it precisely, Mr. Secretary. You need to speak with me."

            Douglas looked surprised, then grinned. "Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you? Well, Doctor, you have just ten seconds to prove that. I have other things to do."

            "Very well, sir. I am attorney for the Man from Mars."

            Douglas suddenly stopped looking tousled. "Repeat that."

            "I am attorney for Valentine Michael Smith, known as the Man from Mars. Attorney with full power. In fact, it may help to think of me as defacto Ambassador from Mars . . . in the spirit of the Larkin Decision, that is to say."

            Douglas stared at him. "Man, you must be out of your mind!"

            "I've often thought so, lately. Nevertheless I am acting for the Man from Mars. And he is prepared to negotiate."

            "The Man from Mars is in Ecuador."

            "Please, Mr. Secretary. This is a private conversation. He is not in Ecuador, as both of us know. Smith-the real Valentine Michael Smith, not the one who has appeared in the newscasts-escaped from confinement-and, I should add, illegal confinement-at Bethesda Medical Center on Thursday last, in company with Nurse Gillian Boardman. He kept his freedom and is now free-and he will continue to keep it. If any of your large staff of assistants has told you anything else, then someone has been lying to you . . . which is why I am speaking to you yourself. So that you can straighten it out."

            Douglas looked very thoughtful. Someone apparently spoke to him from off screen, but no words came over the telephone. At last he said, "Even if what you said were true, Doctor, you can't be in a position to speak for young Smith. He's a ward of the State."

            Jubal shook his head. "Impossible. The Larkin Decision."

            "Now see here, as a lawyer myself, I assure you-"

            "As a lawyer myself, I must follow my own opinion-and protect my client."

            "You are a lawyer? I thought that you meant that you claimed to be attorney-in-fact, rather than counsellor."

            "Both. You'll find that I am an attorney at law, in good standing, and admitted to practice before the High Court. I don't hang my shingle these days, but I am." Jubal heard a dull boom from below and glanced aside. Larry whispered, "The front door, I think. Boss- Shall Igo look?"

            Jubal shook his head in negation and spoke to the screen. "Mr. Secretary, while we quibble, time is running out. Even now your men-your S.S. hooligans-are breaking into my house. It is most distasteful to be under siege in my own home. Now, for the first and last time, will you abate this nuisance? So that we can negotiate peaceably and equitably? Or shall we fight it out in the High Court with all the stink and scandal that would ensue?"

            Again the Secretary appeared to speak with someone off screen. He turned back, looking troubled. "Doctor, if the Special Service police are trying to arrest you, it is news to me. I do not see-"

            "If you'll listen closely, you'll hear them tromping up my staircase, sir! Mike! Anne! Come here." Jubal shoved his chair back to allow the camera angle to include three people. "Mr. Secretary General Douglas- the Man from Mars!" He did not, of course, introduce Anne, but she and her white cloak of probity were fully in view.

            Douglas stared at Smith; Smith looked back at him and seemed uneasy. "Jubal-"

            "Just a moment, Mike. Well, Mr. Secretary? Your men have broken into my house-I hear them pounding on my study door this moment." Jubal turned his head. "Larry, unbolt the door. Let them in." He put a hand on Mike. "Don't get excited, lad, and don't do anything unless I tell you to."

            "Yes, Jubal. That man. I have know him."

            "And he knows you." Over his shoulder Jubal called out to the now open door, "Come in, Sergeant. Right over here."

            The S.S. sergeant standing in the doorway, mob gun at the ready, did not come in. Instead he called out, "Major! Here they are!"

            Douglas said, "Let me speak to the officer in charge of them, Doctor." Again he spoke off screen.

            Jubal was relieved to see that the major for whom the sergeant had shouted showed up with his sidearm still in its holster; Mike's shoulder had been trembling under Jubal's hand ever since the sergeant's gun had come into view-and, while Jubal lavished no fraternal love on these troopers, he did not want Smith to display his powers . . . and cause awkward questions.

            The major glanced around the room. "You're Jubal Harshaw?"

            "Yes. Come over here. Your boss wants you."

            "None of that. You come along. I'm also looking for-"

            "Come here! The Secretary General himself wants a word with you- on this phone."

            The S.S. major looked startled, then came on into the study, around Jubal's desk, and in sight of the screen-looked at it, suddenly came smartly to attention and saluted. Douglas nodded. "Name, rank, and duty."

            "Sir, Major C. D. Bloch, Special Service Squadron Cheerio, Maryland Enclave Barracks."

            "Now tell me what you are doing where you are, and why."

            "Sir, that's rather complicated. I-"

            "Then unravel it for me. Speak up, Major."

            "Yes, sir. I came here pursuant to orders. You see-"

            "I don't see."

            "Well, sir, about an hour and a half ago a flying squad was sent here to make several arrests. They didn't report in when they should have and when we couldn't raise them by radio, I was sent with the reserve squad to find them and render assistance as needed."

            "Whose orders?"

            "Uh, the Commandant's, sir."

            "And did you find them?"

            "No, sir. Not a trace of them."

            Douglas looked at Harshaw. "Counsellor, did you see anything of another squad, earlier?"

            "It's no part of my duties to keep track of your servants, Mr. Secretary. Perhaps they got the wrong address. Or simply got lost."

            "That is hardly an answer to my question."

            "You are correct, sir. I am not being interrogated. Nor will I be, other than by due process. I am acting for my client; I am not nursemaid to these uniformed, uh, persons. But I suggest, from what I have seen of them, that they might not be able to find a pig in a bath tub."

            "Mmm ... possibly. Major, round up your men and return. I'll confirm that via channels."

            "Yes, sir!" The major saluted.

            "Just a moment!" Harshaw said sharply. "These men broke into my house. I demand to see their warrant."

            "Oh. Major, show him your search warrant."

            Major Bloch turned brick red. "Sir, the officer ahead of me had the warrants. Captain Heinrich. The one who's missing."

            Douglas stared at him. "Young man ... do you mean to stand there and tell me that you broke into a citizen's home without a Warrant?"

            "But- Sir, you don't understand! There was a warrant-there are warrants. I saw them. But, of course, Captain Heinrich took them with him. Sir."

            Douglas just looked at him. "Get on back. Place yourself under arrest when you get there. I'll see you later."

            "Yes, sir."

            "Hold it," Harshaw demanded. "Under the circumstances I shan't let him leave. I exercise my right to make a citizen's arrest. I shall take him down and charge him in this township and have him placed in our local lockup. 'Armed breaking and entering.'"

            Douglas blinked thoughtfully. "Is this necessary, sir?"

            "I think it is. These fellows seem to be awfully hard to find when you want them-so I don't want to let this one leave our local jurisdiction. Why, aside from the serious criminal charges, I haven't even had opportunity to assess the damage to my property."

            "You have my assurance, sir, that you will be fully compensated."

            "Thank you, sir. But what is to prevent another uniformed joker from coming along twenty minutes from now, perhaps this time with a warrant? Why, he wouldn't even need to break down the door! My castle stands violated, open to any intruder. Mr. Secretary, only the few precious moments of delay afforded by my Once-stout door kept this scoundrel from dragging me away before I could reach you by telephone . . . and you heard him say that there was still another like him at large-with, so he says, warrants."

            "Doctor, I assure you that I know nothing of any such warrant."

            "Warrants, sir. He said 'warrants for several arrests.' Though perhaps a better term would be 'lettres de cachet.'"

            "That's a serious imputation."

            "This is a serious matter. You see what has already been done to me."

            "Doctor, I know nothing of these warrants, if they exist. But I give you my personal assurance that I will look into it at once, find Out why they were issued, and act as the merits of the matter may appear. Can I say more?"

            "You can say a great deal more, sir. I can reconstruct exactly why those warrants were issued. Some one in your service, in an excess of zeal, caused a pliant judge to issue them . . . for the purpose of seizing the persons of myself and my guests in order to question us, safely out of your sight. Out of anyone's sight, sir! We will discuss all issues with you but we will not be questioned by such as this creature-" Jubal hooked a thumb at the S.S. major "-in some windowless back room! Sir, I hope for, and expect, justice at your hands . . . but if those warrants are not canceled at once, if I am not assured by you personally beyond any possibility of quibble that the Man from Mars, Nurse Boardman, and myself will be left undisturbed in our persons, free to come and go, then-" Jubal stopped and shrugged helplessly. "-I must seek a champion elsewhere. There are, as you know, persons and powers outside the administration who hold deep interest in the affairs of the Man from Mars."

            "You threaten me."

            "No, sir. I plead with you. I have come to you first. We wish to negotiate. But we cannot speak easily while we are being hounded. I beg of you, sir-call off your dogs!"

            Douglas glanced down, looked up again. "Those warrants, if any, will not be served. As soon as I. can track them down they will be canceled."

            "Thank you, sir."

            Douglas glanced at Major Bloch. "You still insist on booking him locally?"

            Jubal looked at him contemptuously. "Him? Oh, let him go, he's merely a fool in uniform. And let's forget the damages, too. You and I have more serious matters to discuss."

            "You may go, Major." The S.S. officer saluted and left very abruptly. Douglas continued, "Counsellor, it is my thought that we now need conversations face to face. The matters you raise can hardly be settled over the telephone."

            "I agree."

            "You and your, uh, client will be my guests at the Palace. I'll send my yacht to pick you up. Can you be ready in an hour?"

            Harshaw shook his head. "Thank you, Mr. Secretary. But that won't be necessary. We'll sleep here . . . and when it comes time to meet I'll dig up a dog sled, or something. No need to send your yacht."

            Mr. Douglas frowned. "Come, Doctor! As you yourself pointed out, these conversations will be quasi-diplomatic in nature. In proffering proper protocol I have, in effect, conceded this. Therefore I must be allowed to provide official hospitality."

            "Well, sir, I might point out that my client has had entirely too much official hospitality already-he had the Devil's own time getting shut of it."

            Douglas' face became rigid. "Sir, are you implying-"

            "I'm not implying anything. I'm simply saying that Smith has been through quite a lot and is not used to high-level ceremony. He'll sleep sounder here, where he feels at home. And so shall I. I am a crochety old man, sir, and I prefer my own bed. Or I might point out that our talks may break down and my client and I would be forced to look elsewhere-in which case I would find it embarrassing to be a guest under your roof."

            The Secretary General looked very grim. "Threats again. I thought you trusted me, sir? And I distinctly heard you say that you were 'ready to negotiate.'"

            "I do trust you, sir." (-about as far as I could throw a fit!) "And we are indeed ready to negotiate. But I use 'negotiate' in its original sense, not in this new-fangled meaning of 'appeasement.' However, we intend to be reasonable. But we can't start talks at once in any case; we're shy one factor and we must wait. How long, I don't know."

            "What do you mean?"

            "We expect the administration to be represented at these talks by whatever delegation you choose-and we have the same privilege."

            "Surely. But let's keep it small. I shall handle this myself, with only an assistant or two. The Solicitor General, I think . . . and our experts in space law. But to transact business you require a small group-the smaller the better."

            "Most certainly. Our group will be small Smith himself-myself-I'll bring a Fair Witness-"

            "Oh, come now!"

            "A Witness does not slow things up. I suggest you retain one also. We'll have one or two others perhaps-but we lack one key man. I have firm instructions from my client that a fellow named Ben Caxton must be present . . . and I can't find the beggar."

            Jubal, having spent hours of most complex maneuvering in order to toss in this one remark, now waited with his best poker face to see what would happen. Douglas stared at him. 0 'Ben Caxton?' Surely you don't mean that cheap winchell?"

            "The Ben Caxton I refer to is a newspaperman. He has a column with one of the syndicates."

            "Absolutely out of the question!"

            Harshaw shook his head. "Then that's all, Mr. Secretary. My instructions are firm and give me no leeway. I'm sorry to have wasted your time. I beg to be excused now." He reached out as if to switch off the phone.

            "Hold it."

            "Sir?"

            "Don't cut that circuit; I'm not through speaking to you!"

            "I most humbly beg the Secretary General's pardon. We will, of course, wait until he excuses us."

            "Yes, yes, but never mind the formality. Doctor, do you read the tripe that comes out of this Capitol labeled as news?"

            "Good Heavens, not"

            "I wish I didn't have to. It's preposterous to talk about having a journalist present at these talks in any case. We'll let them in later, after everything is settled. But even if we were to have any of them present, Caxton would not be one of them. The man is utterly poisonous . . . a keyhole sniffer of the worst sort."

            "Mr. Secretary, we have no objection to the full glare of publicity throughout. In fact, we shall insist on it."

            "Ridiculous!"

            "Possibly. But I serve my client as I think best. If we reach agreement affecting the Man from Mars and the planet which is his home, I want every person on this planet to have opportunity to know exactly how it was done and what was agreed. Contrariwise, if we fail to agree, people must hear how and where the talks broke down. There will be no star chamber proceedings, Mr. Secretary."

            "Damn it, man, I wasn't speaking of a star chamber and you know it! I simply meant quiet, orderly talks without our elbows being jostled!"

            "Then let the press in, sir, through their cameras and microphones but with their feet and elbows outside. Which reminds me-we will be interviewed, my client and I, over one of the networks later today-and I shall announce that we want full publicity on these coming talks."

            "What? You mustn't give out interviews now-why, that's contrary to the whole spirit of this discussion."

            "I can't see that it is. We won't discuss this private conversation, of course-but are you suggesting that a private citizen must have your permission to speak to the press?"

            "No, of course not, but-"

            "I'm afraid it's too late, in any case. The arrangements have all been made and the only way you could stop it now would be by sending more carloads of your thugs-with or without warrants. But I'm afraid they would be too late, even so. My only reason for mentioning it is that it occurs to me that you might wish to give out a news release-in advance of this coming interview-telling the public that the Man from Mars has returned from his retreat in the Andes . . . and is now vacationing in the Poconos. So as to avoid any possible appearance that the government was taken by surprise. You follow me?"

            "I follow you-quite well." The Secretary General stared silently at Harshaw for several moments, then said, "Please wait." He left the screen entirely.

            Harshaw motioned Larry to him while he reached up with his other hand and covered the telephone's sound pickup. "Look, son," he whispered, "with that transceiver out I'm bluffing on a busted flush. I don't know whether he's left to issue that news release I suggested . . . or has gone to set the dogs on us again while he keeps me tied up on the phone. And I won't know, either way. You high tail it out of here, get Tom Mackenzie on the phone, and tell him that if be doesn't get the setup here working at once, he's going to miss the biggest story since the Fall of Troy. Then be careful coming home-there may be cops crawling out of the cracks."

            "Got it. But how do I call Mackenzie?"

            "Uh-" Douglas was just sitting back down on screen. "Speak to Miriam. Git."

            "Dr. Harshaw, I took your suggestion. A news release much as you worded it . . . plus a few substantiating details." Douglas smiled warmly in a good simulation of his homespun public persona. "And there is no use in half measures. I can see that, if you insist on publicity, there is no way to stop you, foolish as it is to hold exploratory talks in public. So I added to the release that the administration had arranged to discuss future interplanetary relations with the Man from Mars-as soon as he had rested from his trip-and would do so publicly . . . quite publicly." His smile became chilly and he stopped looking like good old Joe Douglas.

            Harshaw grinned jovially, in honest admiration-why, the old thief had managed to roll with the punch and turn a defeat into a coup for the administration. "That's just perfect, Mr. Secretary! Much better if such matters come officially from the government. We'll back you right down the line!"

            "Thank you. Now about this Caxton person- Letting the press in does not apply to him. He can Sit at home, watch it over stereovision, and make up his lies from that-and no doubt he will. But he will not be present at the talks. I'm sorry. No."

            "Then there will be no talks. Mr. Secretary, no matter what you have told the press."

            "I don't believe you understand me, Counsellor. This man is offensive to me. Personal privilege."

            "You are correct, sir. It is a matter of personal privilege."

            "Then we'll say no more about it."

            "You misunderstand me. It is indeed personal privilege. But not yours. Smith's."

            "You are privileged to select your advisers to be present at these talks -and you can fetch the Devil himself and we shall not complain. Smith is privileged to select his advisers and have them present. If Caxton is not present, we will not be there. In fact, you will find us across the street, at some quite different conference. One where you won't be welcome, Even if you speak fluent Hindi. Now do you understand me?"

            There was a long silence, during which Harshaw thought clinically that a man of Douglas' age really should not indulge in such evident rage. Douglas did not leave the screen but he consulted offscreen and silently. At last he spoke-to the Man from Mars.

            Mike had stayed on screen the whole time, as silently and at least as patiently as the Witness. Douglas said to him, "Smith, why do you insist on this ridiculous condition?"

            Harshaw put a hand on Mike and said instantly, "Don't answer, Mike!" -then to Douglas: "Tut, tut, Mr. Secretary! The Canons, please! You may not inquire why my client has instructed me. And let me add that the Canons are violated with exceptional grievance in that my client has but lately learned English and cannot be expected to hold his own against you. If you will first take the trouble to learn Martian, I may permit you to put the question again . . . in his language. Or I may not. But certainly not today."

            Douglas sighed. "Very well. It might be pertinent to inquire into what Canons you have played fast and loose with, too-but I haven't time; I have a government to run. I yield. But don't expect me to shake hands with this Caxton!"

            "As you wish, sir. Now back to the first point. We are held up. I haven't been able to find Caxton. His office says that he is out of town."

            Douglas laughed. "That's hardly my problem. You insisted on a privilege-one I find personally offensive. Bring whom you like. But round them up yourself."

            "Reasonable, sir, very reasonable. But would you be willing to do the Man from Mars a favor?"

            "Eh? What favor?"

            "The talks will not begin until Caxton is located-that is flat and is not subject to argument. But I have not been able to find him . . . and my client is getting restive. I am merely a private citizen . . . but you have resources."

            "What do you mean?"

            "Some minutes ago I spoke rather disparagingly of the Special Service squadrons-check it off to the not unnatural irk of a man who has just had his front door broken down. But in truth I know that they can be amazingly efficient . . . and they have the ready cooperation of police forces everywhere, local, state, national, and all Federation departments and bureaus. Mr. Secretary, if you were to call in your S.S. Commandant and tell him that you were anxious to locate a certain man as quickly as was humanly possible-well, sir, it would produce more meaningful activity in the next hour than I myself could hope to produce in a century."

            "Why on Earth should I alert all police forces everywhere to find one scandal-mongering reporter?"

            "Not 'on Earth,' my dear sir-on Mars. I asked you to regard this as a favor to the Man from Mars."

            "Well ...it's a preposterous request but I'll go along." Douglas looked directly at Mike. "As a favor to Smith, only. But I shall expect similar cooperation when we get down to cases."

            "You have my assurance that it will ease the situation enormously."

            "Well, I can't promise anything. You say the man is missing. If he is, he may have fallen in front of a truck; he may be dead-and I, for one, would not mourn."

            Harshaw looked very grave. "Let us hope not, for all of our sakes."

            "What do you mean?"

            "I've tried to point out that sad possibility to my client-but it is like shouting into the wind. He simply won't listen to the idea." Harshaw sighed. "A shambles, sir. If we can't find this Caxton, that is what we will both have on our bands: a shambles."

            "Well, I'll try. But don't expect miracles, Doctor."

            "Not I, sir. My client. He has the Martian viewpoint ... and he does expect miracles. So let's pray for one."

            "You'll hear from me. That's all I can say."

            Harshaw bowed without getting up. "Your servant, sir."

            As the Secretary General's image cleared from the screen Jubal sighed and stood up, and at once found Gillian's arms around his neck. "Oh, Jubal, you were wonderful!"

            "We aren't out of the woods yet, child."

            "I know. But if anything can save Ben, you've just done it." She kissed him.

            "Hey, none of that stuff'! I swore off smooching before you were born. So kindly show respect for my years." He kissed her carefully and thoroughly. "That's just to take the taste of Douglas out of my mouth- between kicking him and kissing him I was getting nauseated. Now go smooch Mike instead. He deserves it-for holding still to my damned lies."

            "Oh, I shall!" Jill let go of Harshaw, put her arms around the Man from Mars. "Such wonderful lies, Jubal!" She kissed Mike.

            Jubal watched with deep interest as Mike initiated a second section of the kiss himself, performing it very solemnly but not quite as a novice- clumsy, Harshaw decided, but he did not bump noses nor hang back. Harshaw awarded him a B-minus, with an A for effort.

            "Son," he said, "you continue to amaze me. I would have expected that to cause you to curl up in one of your faints."

            "I so did," Mike answered seriously, without letting go of Jill, "on the first kissing time."

            "Well! Congratulations, Jill. A.C., or D.C.?"

            She looked at Harshaw. "Jubal, you're a tease but I love you anyhow and refuse to let you get my goat. Mike got a little upset once-but no longer, as you can see."

            "Yes," Mike agreed, "it is a goodness. For water brothers it is a growing-closer. I will show you. Yes?" He let go of Jill.

            Jubal hastily put up a palm. "No."

            "No?"

            "Don't be hurt. But you would be disappointed, son. It's a growingcloser for water brothers only if they are young girls and pretty-such as Jill."

            "My brother Jubal, you speak rightly?"

            "I speak very rightly. Kiss girls all you want to-it beats the hell Out of card games."

            "Beg pardon?"

            "It's a fine way to grow closer ... but just with girls. Hmmm . . Jubal looked around the room. "I wonder if that first-time phenomenon would repeat? Dorcas, I want your help in a scientific experiment."

            "Boss, I am not a guinea pig! You go to hell."

            "In due course, I shall. Don't be difficult, girl; Mike has no communicable diseases, or I wouldn't let him use the pool-which reminds me: Miriam, when Larry gets back, tell him I want the pool drained and refilled tonight-we're through with murkiness, Well, Dorcas?"

            "How do you know it would be our first time?" "Mmm, there's that. Mike, have you ever kissed Dorcas?"

            "No, Jubal. Only today did I learn that Dorcas is my water brother."

            "She is?"

            "Yes. Dorcas and Anne and Miriam and Larry. They are your water brothers, my brother Jubal."

            "Mmm, yes. Correct in essence."

            "Yes. It is essence, the grokking-not sharing of water. I speak rightly?"

            "Very rightly, Mike."

            "They are your water brothers." Mike paused to think words. "In catenative assemblage, they are my brothers." Mike looked at Dorcas. "For brothers, growing-closer is good. But I did not know."

            Jubal said, "Well, Dorcas?"

            "Huh? Oh, Heavens! Boss, you're the world's worst tease. But Mike isn't teasing. He's sweet." She walked up to him, stood on tiptoes, and held up her arms. "Kiss me, Mike."

            Mike did. For some seconds they "grew closer."

            Dorcas fainted.

            Jubal spotted it and kept her from falling, Mike being far too inexperienced to cope with it. Then Jill had to speak sharply to Mike to keep him from trembling into withdrawal when he saw what had happened to Dorcas. Luckily Dorcas came out of it shortly and was able to reassure Mike that she was all right, that she had indeed "grown closer" and would happily grow closer again-but she needed to catch her breath. "Whew!"

            Miriam had watched round-eyed. "I wonder if I dare risk it?"

            Anne said, "By seniority, please. Boss, are you through with me as a Witness?"

            "For the time being, at least."

            "Then hold my cloak." She slipped out of it. "Want to bet on it?"

            "Which way?"

            "I'll give you seven-to-two I don'! faint-but I wouldn't mind losing."

            "Done."

            "Dollars, not hundreds. Mike dear ... let's grow lots closer."

            In time Anne was forced to give up through simple hypoxia, although Mike, with his Martian training, could have gone without oxygen much longer. She gasped for air and said, "I don't think I was Set just right. Boss, I'm going to give you another chance for your money."

            She started to offer her face again but Miriam tapped her on the shoulder. "Out."

            "Don't be so eager."

            "'Out,' I said. The foot of the line for you, wench," Miriam insisted.

            "Oh, well!" Anne pecked Mike hastily and gave way. Miriam moved in, smiled at him, and said nothing. It was not necessary; they grew close and continued to grow closer.

            "Front!"

            Miriam looked around. "Boss, can't you see I'm busy?"

            "All right, all right! But get out of the pickup angle-I'll answer the phone myself."

            "Honest, I didn't even hear it."

            "Obviously. But for a while we've got to pretend to a modicum of dignity around here-it might be the Secretary General. So get out of range."

            But it was Mr. Mackenzie. "Jubal, what in the devil is going on?"

            "Trouble?"

            "A short while ago I got a wild phone call from a young man claiming to speak for you who urged me to drop everything and get cracking, because you've finally got something for me. Since I had already ordered a mobile unit to your place-"

            "Never got here."

            "I know. They called in, after wandering around somewhere north of you. Our despatcher straightened them out and they should be there any moment now. I tried twice to call you and your circuit was busy. What have I missed?"

            "Nothing yet." Jubal considered it. Damnation, he should have had someone monitor the babble box. Had Douglas actually made that news release? Was Douglas committed? Or would a new passel of cops show up? While the kids played post office! Jubal, you're getting senile. "I'm not sure that there's going to be, just yet. Has there been anything special in the way of a news flash this past hour?"

            "Why, no-oh, one item: the Palace announced that the Man from Mars had returned north and was vacationing in the-Jubal! Are you mixed up in that?"

            "Just a moment. Mike, come to the phone. Anne, grab your robe."

            "Got it, Boss."

            "Mr. Mackenzie-meet the Man from Mars."

            Mackenzie's jaw dropped, then his professional reflexes came to his aid. "Hold it. Just hold it right there and let me get a camera on this! We'll pick it up in flat, right off the phone-and we'll repeat in stereo just as quick as those jokers of mine get there. Jubal, I'm safe on this? You wouldn't- You wouldn't-"

            "Would I swindle you with a Fair Witness at my elbow? Yes, I would, if necessary. But I'm not forcing this interview on you. Matter of fact, we should wait and tie in Argus and Trans-Planet."

            "Jubal! You can't do this to me."

            "And I won't. The agreement with all of you was to monitor what the cameras saw . . . when I signalled. And use it if it was newsworthy. But! didn't promise not to give out interviews in addition to that-and New World can have this interview, oh, say thirty minutes ahead of Argus and Trans-P . . . if you want it." Jubal added, "Not only did you loan us all the equipment for the tie-in, but you've been very helpful personally, Tom. I can't express how helpful you've been."

            "You mean, uh, that telephone number?"

            "Correct!"

            "And it got results?"

            "It did. But no questions about that, Tom. Not on the air. Ask me privately-next year."

            "Oh, I wouldn't think of it. You keep your lip buttoned and I'll keep mine. Now don't go away-"

            "One more thing. That spool of messages you're holding for me against the same signal. Make damn sure they don't go out. Send them back to me."

            "Eh? All right, all right-I've been keeping them in my desk, you were so fussy about it. Jubal, I've got a camera on this phone screen right now. Can we start?"

            "Shoot."

            "And I'm going to do this one myself!" Mackenzie turned his face away and apparently looked at the camera. "flash news! This is your NWNW reporter on the spot while its hot! The Man from Mars has just phoned you right here in your local station and wants to talk to you! Cut. Monitor, insert flash-news plug and acknowledgment to sponsor. Jubal, anything special I should ask him?"

            "Don't ask him questions about South America-he's not a tourist. Swimming is your safest subject. You can ask me about his future plans."

            "Okay. End of cut. Friends, you are now face to face and voice to voice with Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from Mars! As NWNW, always first with the burst, told you earlier, Mr. Smith has just returned from his solitary retreat high in the Andes-and we welcome him back! Wave to your friends, Mr. Smith-"

            ("Wave at the telephone, son. Smile and wave at it.")

            "Thank you, Valentine Michael Smith. We're all happy to see you looking so healthy and tan. I understand that you have been gathering strength by learning to swim?"

            "Boss! Visitors. Or something."

            "Cut before interruption-after the word 'swim.' What the hell, Juhal?"

            "I'll have to see. Jill, ride herd on Mike again-it might be General Quarters."

            But it was not. It was the NWNW mobile stereovision unit landing- and again rose bushes were damaged-Larry returning from phoning Mackenzie from the village, and Duke, returning. Mackenzie decided to finish the flat black & white interview quickly, since he was now assured of depth and color through his mobile unit, and in the meantime its technical crew could check the trouble with the equipment on loan to Jubal. Larry and Duke went with them.

            The interview was finished with inanities, Jubal fielding any questions Mike failed to understand; Mackenzie signed off with a promise to the public that a color & depth special interview with the Man from Mars would follow in thirty minutes. "Stay synched with this station!" He stayed on the phone and waited for his technicians to report.

            Which the crew boss did, almost at once: "Nothing wrong with that transceiver, Mr. Mackenzie, nor with any part of this field setup."

            "Then what was wrong with it before?"

            The technician glanced at Larry and Duke, then grinned. "Nothing. But it helps quite a bit to put power through it. The breaker was open at the board."

            Harshaw intervened to stop a wrangle between Larry and Duke, one which seemed concerned with the relative merits of various sorts of idiocy more than with the question of whether Duke had, or had not, told Larry that a certain tripped circuit breaker must be reset if it was anticipated that the boirowed equipment was going to be used. The showman's aspect of Jubal's personality regretted that the "finest unrehearsed spectacular since Elijah bested the Priests of Baal" had been missed by the cameras. But the political finagler in him was relieved that mischance had kept Mike's curious talents still a close secret-Jubal anticipated that he still might need them, as a secret weapon . . . not to mention the undesirability of trying to explain to skeptical strangers the present whereabouts of certain policemen plus two squad cars.

            As for the rest, it merely confirmed his own conviction that science and invention had reached its peak with the Model-T Ford and had been growing steadily more decadent ever since. And besides, Mackenzie wanted to get on with the depth & color interview- They got through that with a minimum of rehearsing, Jubal simply making sure that no question would be asked which could upset the public fiction that the Man from Mars had just returned from South America. Mike sent greetings to his friends and brothers of the Champion, including one to Dr. Mahmoud delivered in croaking, throat rasping Martian Jubal decided that Mackenzie had his money's worth.

            At last the household could quiet down. Jubal set the telephone for two hours refusal, stood up, stretched, sighed, and felt a great weariness, wondered if he were getting old. "Where's dinner? Which one of you wenches was supposed to get dinner tonight? And why didn't you? Gad, this household is falling to wrack and ruin!"

            "It was my turn to get dinner tonight," Jill answered, "but-"

            "Excuses, always excuses."

            "Boss," Anne interrupted sharply, "how do you expect anyone to cook when you've kept every single one of us penned up here in your study all afternoon?"

            "That's the moose's problem," Jubal said dourly. "I want it clearly understood that, even if Armageddon is held on these premises I expect meals to be hot and on time right up to the ultimate trump. Furthermore-"

            "Furthermore," Anne completed, "it is now only seven-forty and plenty of time to have dinner by eight. So quit yelping, Boss, until you have something to yelp about. Cry-baby."

            "Is it really only twenty minutes of eight? Seems like a week since lunch. Anyhow ~OU haven't left me a civilized amount of time to have a pre-dinner drink."

            "Poor you?'

            "Somebody get me a drink. Get everybody a drink. On second thought let's skip a formal dinner tonight and drink our dinners; I feel like getting as tight as a tent rope on a rainy day. Anne, how are we fixed for smorgasbord?"

            "Plenty."

            "Then why not thaw out eighteen or nineteen kinds and spread 'em around and let anybody eat what he feels like when he feels like it? What's all the argument about?"

            "Right away," agreed Jill.

            Anne stopped to kiss him on his bald spot. "Boss, you've done nobly. We'll feed you and get you drunk and put you to bed. Wait, Jill, I'm going to help."

            "I may to help, too?" Smith said eagerly.

            "Sure, Mike. You can carry trays. Boss, dinner will be by the pool. It's a hot night."

            "How else?" When they had left, Jubal said to Duke, "Where the hell have you been all day?"

            "Thinking."

            "Doesn't pay to. Just makes you discontented with what you see around you. Any results?"

            "Yes," said Duke, "I've decided that what Mike eats, or doesn't eat, is no business of mine."

            "Congratulations. A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human 'wisdom . . . and the other twenty percent isn't very important."

            "You butt into other people's business. All the time."

            "Who said I was Wise? I'm a professional bad example. You can learn a lot by watching me. Or listening to me. Either one."

            "Jubal, if I walked up to Mike and offered him a glass of water, do you suppose he would go through that lodge routine?"

            "I feel certain that he would. Duke, almost the only human characteristic Mike seems to possess is an 0verwhelming desire to be liked. But I want to make sure that you know how Serious it is to him. Much more serious than getting married. I myself accepted water brotherhood with Mike before I understood it-and I've become more and more deeply entangled with its responsibilities the more I've grokked it. You'll be committing yourself never to lie to him, never to mislead or deceive him in any way, to stick by him come what may-because that is just what he will do with you. Better think about it."

            "I have been thinking about it, all day. Jubal, there's something about Mike that makes you want to take care of him."

            "I know. You've probably never encountered complete honesty before -I know I hadn't. Innocence. Mike has never tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil . . . so we, who have, don't understand what makes him tick. Well, on your own head be it. I hope you never regret it." Jubal looked up. "Oh, there you are! I thought you had stopped to distill the stuff."

            Larry answered, "Couldn't find a cork screw, at first."

            "Machinery again. Why didn't you bite the neck off? Duke, you'll find some glasses stashed behind The Anatomy of Melancholy up there-"

            "I know where you hide them."

            "-and we'll all have a quick one, neat, before we get down to serious drinking." Duke got the glasses; Jubal poured and held up his own. "The golden sunshine of Italy congealed into tears. Here's to alcoholic brotherhood . . . much more suited to the frail human soul, if any, than any other sort."

            "Health."

            "Cheers."

            Jubal poured his slowly down his throat. "Ah~" he said happily, and belched. "Offer some of that to Mike, afterwards, Duke, and let him learn how good it is to be human. Makes me feel creative. Front! Why are those girls never around when I need them? Ftvnt!!"

            "I'm still 'Front,' " Miriam answered, at the door, "but-"

            "I know. And I was saying: '-to what strange, bittersweet fate my tomboy ambition-'"

            "But I finished that story while you were chatting on the telephone with the Secretary General."

            "Then you are no longer 'Front.' Send it off."

            "Don't you want to read it first? Anyhow, I've got to revise it- kissing Mike gave me a new insight on it."

            Jubal shuddered. "Read it?' Good God, no! It's bad enough to write such a thing. And don't even consider revising it, certainly not to fit the facts. My child, a true-confession story should never be tarnished by any taint of truth."

            "Okay, Boss. And Anne says if you want to come down to the pool and have a bite before you eat, come on."

            "I can't think of a better time. Shall we adjourn to the terrace, gentlemen'?"

            At the pool the party progressed liquidly with bits of fish and other Scandinavian high-caloric comestibles added to taste. At Jubal's invitation Mike tried brandy, somewhat cut with water. Mike found the resulting sensation extremely disquieting, so he analysed his trouble, added oxygen to the ethanol in an inner process of reversed fermentation and converted it to glucose and water, which gave him no trouble.

            Jubal had been observing with interest the effect of his first drink of liquor on the Man from Mars-saw him become drunk almost at once, saw him sober up even more quickly. In an attempt to understand what had happened, Jubal urged more brandy on Mike-which he readily accepted since his water brother offered it. Mike sopped up an extravagant quantity of fine imported liquor before Jubal was willing to concede that it was impossible to get him drunk.

            Such was not the case with Jubal, despite his years of pickling; staying sociable with Mike during the experiment dulled the edge of his wits. So, when he attempted to ask Mike what he had done, Mike thought that he was inquiring about the events during the raid by the S.S.-concerfling which Mike still felt latent guilt. He tried to explain and, if needed, receive Jubal's pardon.

            Jubal interrupted when at last he figured out what the boy was talking about. "Son, I don't want to know what you did, nor how you did it. What you did was just what was needed-perfect, just perfect. But-" He blinked owlishly. "-don't tell me about it. Don't ever tell anybody about it."

            "Not?"

            "'Not.' It was the damnedest thing I've seen since my uncle with the two heads debated free silver and triumphantly refuted himself. An explanation would spoil it."

            "I do not grok rightly?"

            "Nor do I. So let's not worry and have another drink."

            Reporters and other newsmen started arriving while the party was still climbing. Jubal received each of them with courteous dignity, invited them to eat, drink, and relax-but to refrain from badgering himself or the Man from Mars.

            Those who failed to heed his injunction were tossed into the pool.

            At first Jubal kept Larry and Duke at flank to administer the baptism as necessary. But, while some of the unfortunate importunates became angry and threatened various things which did not interest Jubal (other than to caution Mike not to take any steps), others relaxed to the inevitable and added themselves to the dousing squad on a volunteer basis, with the fanatic enthusiasm of proselytes-Jubal had to stop them from ducking the doyen lippmann of the New York Times for a third time.

            During the evening Dorcas came out of the house, sought out Jubal and whispered in his ear: "Telephone, Boss. For you."

            "Take a message."

            "You must answer it, Boss."

            "I'll answer it with an ax! Duke, get me an ax. I've been intending to get rid of that Iron Maiden for some time-and tonight I'm in the mood for it."

            "Boss ... you want to answer this one. It's the man you spoke to for quite a long time this afternoon."

            "Oh. Why didn't you say so?" Jubal lumbered upstairs, made sure his study door was bolted behind him, went to the phone. Another of Douglas' sleek acolytes was on the screen but was replaced quickly by Douglas. "It took you long enough to answer your phone."

            "It's my phone, Mr. Secretary. Sometimes I don't answer it at all."

            "So it would seem. Why didn't you tell me that this Caxton fellow is an alcoholic?"

            "Is he?"

            "He certainly is! He isn't missing-not in the usual sense. He's been off on one of his periodic benders. He was located, sleeping it off, in a fleabag in Sonora."

            "I'm glad to hear that he has been found. Thank you, sir."

            "He's been picked up on a technical charge of 'vagrancy.' The charge won't be pressed-instead we are releasing him to you."

            "I am very much in your debt, sir."

            "Oh, it's not entirely a favor! I'm having him delivered to you in the state in which he was found-filthy, unshaven, and, I understand, smelling like a brewery. I want you to see for yourself what sort of a tramp he is."

            "Very well, sir. When may I expect him?"

            "Almost at once, I fancy. A courier arrow left Nogales some time ago. At Mach three or better it should be overhead soon. The pilot has instructions to deliver him to you and get a receipt."

            "He shall have it."

            "Now, Counsellor ... having delivered him, I wash my hands of it. I shall expect you, and your client, to appear for talks whether you fetch along that drunken libeller or not."

            "Agreed. When?"

            "Shall we say tomorrow at ten? Here."

            "'Twere best done quickly.' Agreed."

            Jubal went back downstairs and paused at his broken door. "Jill! Come here, child."

            "Yes, Jubal." She trotted toward him, a reporter in close formation with her.

            Jubal waved the man back. "Private," he said firmly. "Family matter. Go have a drink."

            "Whose family?"

            "A death in yours, if you insist. Scat!" The newsman grinned and accepted it. Jubal leaned over Gillian and said softly, "It worked. He's safe."

            "Ben?"

            "Yes. He'll be here soon."

            "Oh, Jubal!" She started to bawl.

            He took her shoulders. "Stop it," he said firmly. "Go inside and lock your door until you get control of yourself. This is not for the press."

            "Yes, Jubal. Yes, Boss."

            "That's better. Go cry in your pillow, then wash your face." He went on out to the pool. "Quiet everybody! Quite! I have an announcement to make. We've enjoyed having you-but the party is over."

            "Boo!"

            "Toss him in the pool, somebody. I've got work to do early tomorrow morning, I'm an old man and I need my rest, And so does my family. Please leave quietly and as quickly as possible. Black coffee for any who need it-but that's all. Duke, cork those bottles. Girls, clear the food away."

            There was minor grumbling, but the more responsible quieted their colleagues. In ten minutes they were alone.

            In twenty minutes Ben Caxton arrived. The S.S. officer commanding the courier car silently accepted Harshaw's signature and thumb print on a prepared receipt, then left at once while Jill continued to sob on Ben's shoulder.

            Jubal looked him over in the light from the pool. "Ben, you're a mess. I hear you've been drunk for a week-and you look it."

            Ben cursed, fluently and well, while continuing to pat Jill's back.

            "'M drunk, awri'-but haven' had a drink."

            "What happened?"

            "I don't know. I don't know!"

            An hour later Ben's stomach had been pumped out (alcohol and gastric juices, no food); Jubal had given him shots to offset alcohol and barbiturates; he was bathed, shaved, dressed in clean clothes that did not fit him, had met the Man from Mars, and was sketchily brought up to date, while ingesting milk and bland food.

            But he was unable to bring them up to date. For Ben, the past week had not happened-he had become unconscious in a taxicab in Washington; he had been shaken into drunken wakefulness two hours earlier. "Of course I know what happened. They kept me doped and in a completely dark room . . . and wrung rue out. I vaguely remember some of it. But I can't prove anything. And there's the village Jefe and the madam of this dive they took me to-plus, I'm sure, plenty of other witnesses-'tO swear just how this gringo spent his time. And there's nothing I can do about it."

            "Then don't fight it," Jubal advised. "Relax and be happy."

            "The hell I will! I'll get that-"

            "Tut, tut! You've won, Ben. And you're alive ... which I would have given long odds against, earlier today. Douglas is going to do exactly what we want him to-and smile and like it."

            "I want to talk about that. I think-"

            "I think you're going to bed. Now. With a glass of warm milk to conceal Old Doe Harshaw's Secret Ingredient for secret drinkers."

            Shortly thereafter Caxton was in bed and beginning to snore. Jubal was puttering around, heading for bed himself, and encountered Anne in the upper hall. He shook his head tiredly. "Quite a day, lass."

            "Yes, quite. I wouldn't have missed it ... and I don't want to repeat it. You go to bed, Boss."

            "In a moment. Anne, tell me something. What's so special about the way that lad kisses?"

            Anne looked dreamy and then dimpled. "You should have tried it when he invited you to."

            "I'm too old to change my ways. But I'm interested in everything about the boy. Is this actually something different, too?"

            Anne pondered it. "Yes."

            "How?"

            "Mike gives a kiss his whole attention."

            "Oh, rats! I do myself. Or did."

            Anne shook her head. "No. Some men try to. I've been kissed by men who did a very good job of it indeed. But they don't really give kissing a woman their whole attention. They can't No matter how hard they try, some parts of their minds are on something else. Missing the last bus, maybe-Or how their chances are for making the gal-Or their own techniques in kissing-Or maybe worry about their jobs, or money, or will husband or papa or the neighbors catch on. Or something. Now Mike doesn't have any technique . . . but when Mike kisses you he isn't doing anything else. Not anything. You're his whole universe for that moment and the moment is eternal because he doesn't have any plans and he isn't going anywhere. Just kissing you." She shivered. "A woman notices. It's overwhelming."

            "Hmm-"

            "Don't 'Hmm' at me, you old lecher! You don't understand."

            "No. And I'm sorry to say I probably never will. Well, goodnight- and, oh, by the way . . . I told Mike to bolt his door tonight."

            She made a face at him. "Spoilsport!"

            "He's learning quite fast enough. Mustn't rush him."

XVIII

            THE CONFERENCE WAS POSTPONED to the afternoon, then quickly re-postponed to the following morning, which gave Caxton an extra twenty-four hours of badly needed recuperation, a chance to hear in detail about his missing week, a chance to "grow closer" with the Man from Mars-for Mike grokked at once that Jill and Ben were "water brothers," consulted Jill about it, and solemnly offered water to Ben.

            Ben had been adequately briefed by Jill. He accepted it just as solemnly and without mental reservations . . . after soul searching in which he decided that his own destiny was, in truth, interwoven with that of the Man from Mars-through his own initiative before he ever met Mike.

            Ben had had to chase down, in the crannies of his soul, one uneasy feeling before he was able to do this. He at last decided that it was simple jealousy, and, being such, had to be cauterized. He had discovered that he felt irked at the closeness between Mike and Jill. His own bachelor persona, he learned, had been changed by a week of undead oblivion; he found that he wanted to be married, and to Jill. He proposed to her again, without a trace of joking about it, as soon as he got her alone.

            Jill had looked away. "Please, Ben."

            "Why not? I'm solvent, I've got a fairly good job, I'm in good health-or I will be, as soon as I get their condemned 'truth' drugs washed out of my system . . . and since I haven't, quite, I feel an overpowering compulsion to tell the truth right now. I love you. I want you to marry me and let me rub your poor tired feet. So why not? I don't have any vices that you don't share with me and we get along together better than most married couples. Am I too old for you? I'm not that old! Or are you planning to marry somebody else?"

            "No, neither one! Dear Ben ... Ben, I love you. But don't ask me to marry you now. I have . . . responsibilities."

            He could not shake her firmness. Admittedly, Mike was more nearly Jill's age-almost exactly her age, in fact, which made Ben slightly more than ten years older than they were. But he believed Jill when she denied that age was a factor; the age difference wasn't too great and it helped, all things considered, for a husband to be older than his wife.

            But he finally realized that the Man from Mars couldn't be a rival- he was simply Jill's patient. And at that point Ben accepted that a man who marries a nurse must live with the fact that nurses feel maternal toward their charges-live with it and like it, he added, for if Gillian had not had the character that made her a nurse, he would not love her. It was not the delightful figure-eight in which her pert fanny waggled when she walked, nor even the still pleasanter and very mammalian view from the other direction-he was not, thank God, the permanently infantile type, interested solely in the size of the mammary glands! No, it was Jill herself he loved.

            Since what she was would make it necessary for him to take second place from time to time to patients who needed her (unless she retired, of course, and he could not be sure it would stop completely even then, Jill being Jill), then he was bloody-be-damned not going to start by being jealous of the patient she had now! Mike was a nice kid-just as innocent and guileless as Jill had described him to be.

            And besides, he wasn't offering Jill any bed of roses; the wife of a working newspaperman had things to put up with, too. He might be-he would be-gone for weeks at times and his hours were always irregular. He wouldn't like it if Jill bitched about it. But Jill wouldn't. Not Jill.

            Having reached this summing up, Ben accepted the water ceremony from Mike whole-heartedly.

            Jubal needed the extra day to plan tactics. "Ben, when you dumped this hot potato in my lap I told Gililan that I would not lift a finger to get this boy his so-called 'rights.' But I've changed my mind. We're not going to let the government have the swag."

            "Certainly not this administration!"

            "Nor any other administration, as the next one will probably be worse. Ben, you undervalue Joe Douglas."

            "He's a cheap, courthouse politician, with morals to match!"

            "Yes. And besides that, he's ignorant to six decimal places. But he is also a fairly able and usually conscientious world chief executive-better than we could expect and probably better than we deserve. I would enjoy a session of poker with him . . . for he wouldn't cheat and he wouldn't welch and he would pay up with a smile. Oh, he's an S.O.B.-but you can read that as 'Swell Old Boy,' too. He's middlin' decent."

            "Jubal, I'm damned if I understand you. You told me yesterday that you had been fairly certain that Douglas had had me killed . . . and, believe me, it wasn't far from it! . . . and that you had juggled eggs to get me out alive if by any chance I still was alive . . . and you did get me out and God knows I'm grateful to you! But do you expect me to forget that Douglas was behind it all? It's none of his doing that I'm alive-he would rather see me dead."

            "I suppose he would. But, yup, just that-forget it."

            "I'm damned if I will!"

            "You'll be silly if you don't. In the first place, you can't prove anything. In the second place, there's no call for you to be grateful to me and I won't let you lay this burden on me. I didn't do it for you."

            "Huh?"

            "I did it for a little girl who was about to go charging out and maybe get herself killed much the same way-if I didn't do something. I did it because she was my guest and I temporarily stood in loco parentis to her. I did it because she was all guts and gallantry but too ignorant to be allowed to monkey with such a buzz saw; she'd get hurt. But you, my cynical and sin-stained chum, know all about those buzz saws. If your own asinine carelessness caused you to back into one, who am I to tamper with your karma? You picked it."

            "Mmm ... I see your point. Okay, Jubal, you can go to hell-for monkeying with my karma. If I have one."

            "A moot point. The predestinationers and the free-willers were still tied in the fourth quarter, last I heard. Either way, I have no wish to disturb a man sleeping in a gutter; I assume until proved otherwise that he belongs there. Most do-gooding reminds me of treating hemophilia-the only real cure for hemophilia is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death . before they breed more hemophiliacs."

            "You could sterilize them."

            "You would have me play God? But we're veering off the subject. Douglas didn't try to have you assassinated."

            "Says who?"

            "Says the infallible Jubal Harshaw, speaking ex cathedra from his belly button. See here, son, if a deputy sheriff beats a prisoner to death, it's sweepstakes odds that the county commissioners didn't order it, didn't know it, and wouldn't have permitted it had they known. At worst they shut their eyes to it-afterwards-rather than upset their own applecarts. But assassination has never been an accepted policy in this country."

            "I'd like to show you the backgrounds of quite a number of deaths I've looked into."

            Jubal waved it aside. "I said it wasn't a policy. We've always had political assassination-from prominent ones like Huey Long to men beaten to death on their own front steps with hardly a page-eight story in passing. But it's never been a policy here and the reason you are sitting in the sunshine right now is that it is not Joe Douglas' policy. Consider. They snatched you clean, no fuss, no inquiries. They squeezed you dry-then they had no more use for you . . . and they could have disposed of you as quietly as flushing a dead mouse down a toilet. But they didn't. Why not? Because they knew their boss didn't really like for them to play that rough and if he became convinced that they had (whether in court or out), it would cost their jobs if not their necks."

            Jubal paused for a swig. "But consider. Those S.S. thugs are just a tool; they aren't yet a Praetorian Guard that picks the new Caesar. Such being, whom do you really want for Caesar? Courthouse Joe whose basic indoctrination goes back to the days when this country was a nation and not just a satrapy in a polyglot empire of many traditions . . . Douglas, who really can't stomach assassination? Or do you want to toss him out of office (we can, you know, tomorrow-just by double-crossing him on the deal I've led him to expect-toss him out and thereby put in a Secretary General from a land where life has always been cheap and political assassination a venerable tradition? If you do this, Ben-tell me what happens to the next snoopy newsman who is careless enough to walk down a dark alley?"

            Caxton didn't answer.

            "As I said, the S.S. is just a tool. Men are always for hire who like dirty work. How dirty will that work become if you nudge Douglas out of his majority?"

            "Jubal, are you telling me that I ought not to criticize the administration? When they're wrong? When I know they're wrong?"

            "Nope. Gadflies such as yourself are utterly necessary. Nor am I opposed to 'turning the rascals out'-it's usually the soundest rule of politics. But it's well to take a look at what new rascals you are going to get before you jump at any chance to turn your present rascals out. Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried. Democracy's worst faults is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents-a depressingly low level, but what else can you expect? So take a look at Douglas and ponder that, in his ignorance, stupidity, and self-seeking, he much resembles his fellow Americans, including you and me . . . and that in fact he is a notch or two above the average. Then take a look at the man who will replace him if his government topples."

            "There's precious little choice."

            "There's always a choice! This one is a choice between 'bad' and 'worse'-which is a difference much more poignant than that between 'good' and 'better.'"

            "Well, Jubal? What do you expect me to do?"

            "Nothing," Harshaw answered. "Because I intend to run this show myself. Or almost nothing. I expect you to refrain from chewing out Joe Douglas over this coming settlement in that daily poop you write-maybe even praise him a little for 'statesmanlike restraint-'"

            "You're making me vomit!"

            "Not in the grass, please. Use your hat. -because I'm going to tell you ahead of time what I'm going to do, and why, and why Joe Douglas is going to agree to it. The first principle in riding a tiger is to hang on tight to its ears."

            "Quit being pompous. What's the deal?"

            "Quit being obtuse and listen. If this boy were a penniless nobody, there would be no problem. But he has the misfortune to be indisputably the heir to more wealth than Croesus ever dreamed of . . . plus a highly disputable claim to political power even greater through a politico-judicial precedent unparalleled in pure jug-headedness since the time Secretary Fall was convicted of receiving a bribe that Doheny was acquitted of having given him."

            "Yes, but-"

            "I have the floor. As I told Jill, I have no slightest interest in 'True Prince' nonsense. Nor do I regard all that wealth as 'his'; he didn't produce a shilling of it. Even if he had earned it himself-impossible at his age -'property' is not the natural and obvious and inevitable concept that most people think it is."

            "Come again?"

            "Ownership, of anything, is an extremely sophisticated abstraction, a mystical relationship, truly. God knows our legal theorists make this mystery complicated enough-but I didn't begin to see how subtle it was until I got the Martian slant on it. Martians don't have property. They don't own anything . . . not even their own bodies."

            "Wait a minute, Jubal. Even animals have property. And the Martians aren't animals; they're a highly developed civilization, with great cities and all sorts of things."

            "Yes. 'Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests.' And nobody understands a property line and the 'meus-et-tuus' involved better than a watch dog. But not Martians. Unless you regard an undistributed joint ownership of everything by a few millions or billions of senior citizens -'ghosts' to you, my friend-as being 'property.'"

            "Say, Jubal, how about these 'Old Ones' Mike talks about?"

            "Do you want the official version? Or my private opinion?"

            "Huh? Your private opinion. What you really think."

            "Then keep it to yourself. I think it is a lot of pious poppycock, suitable for enriching lawns. I think it is a superstition burned into the boy's brain at so early an age that he stands no chance of ever breaking loose from it."

            "Jill talks as if she believed it."

            "At all other times you will hear me talk as if I believed it, too. Ordinary politeness. One of my most valued friends believes in astrology; I would never offend her by telling her what I think of it. The capacity of a human mind to believe devoutly in what seems to me to be the highly improbable-from table tapping to the superiority of their own children- has never been plumbed. Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it-.--especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible. Mike's faith in his 'Old Ones' is surely no more irrational than a conviction that the dynamics of the universe can be set aside through prayers for rain. Furthermore, he has the weight of evidence on his side; he has been there. I haven't."

            "Mmm, Jubal, I'll confess to a sneaking suspicion that immortality is a fact-but I'm glad that my grandfather's ghost doesn't continue to exercise any control over me. He was a cranky old devil."

            "And so was mine. And so am I. But is there any really good reason why a citizen's franchise should be voided simply because he happens to be dead? Come to think of it, the precinct I was raised in had a very large graveyard vote-almost Martian. Yet the town was a pleasant one to live in. As may be, our lad Mike can't own anything because the 'Old Ones' already own everything. So you see why I have had trouble explaining to him that he owns over a million shares of Lunar Enterprises~ plus the Lyle Drive, plus assorted chattels and securities? It doesn't help that the original owners are dead; that makes it worse, they are 'Old Ones'-and Mike wouldn't dream of sticking his nose into the business of 'Old Ones.'"

            "Uh ... damn it, he's obviously legally incompetent."

            "Of course he is. He can't manage property because he doesn't believe in its mystique-any more than I believe in his ghosts. Ben, all that Mike owns at the present time is a toothbrush I gave him-and he doesn't know he owns that. If you took it away from him, he wouldn't object, he wouldn't even mention it to me-he would simply assume conclusively that the 'Old Ones' had authorized the change."

            Jubal sighed. "So he is incompetent ... even though he can recite the law of property verbatim. Such being the case I shan't allow his competency to be tried . . . nor even mentioned-for what guardian would be appointed?"

            "Huh? Douglas. Or, rather, one of his stooges."

            "Are you certain, Ben? Consider the present makeup of the High Court. Might not the appointed guardian be named Savvonavong? Or Nadi? Or Kee?"

            "Uh ... you could be right."

            "In which case the lad might not live very long. Or he might live to a ripe old age in some pleasantly gardened prison-for-one a great deal more difficult to escape from than Bethesda Hospital."

            "What do you plan to do?"

            "The power the boy nominally owns is far too dangerous and cumbersome for him to handle. So we throw it away."

            "How the hell do you go about giving away that much money?"

            "You don't. You can't. It's impossible. The very act of giving it away would be an exercise of its latent power, it would change the balance of power-and any attempt to do so would cause the boy to be examined on his competence to manage in jig time. So, instead, we let the tiger run like hell while hanging onto its ears for dear life. Ben, let me outline the fait accornpli I intend to hand to Douglas . . . then you do your damnedest to pick holes in it. Not the legality of it, as Douglas' legal staff will write the double-talk and I'll check it for boobytraps-dOn't worry about that; the idea is to give Douglas a plan be won't want to booby-trap because he'll like it. I want you to sniff it for its political feasibility, whether or not we can put it over. Now here's what we are going to do-"

XIX

            THE MARTIAN DIPLOMATIC DELEGATION & Inside Straight Sodality, Unlimited, as organized by Jubal HarshaW, landed on the flat of the Executive Palace shortly before ten o'clock the next morning. The unpretentious pretender to the Martian throne, Mike Smith, had not worried about the purpose of the trip; he had simply enjoyed every minute of the short flight south, with utter and innocent delight.

            The trip was made in a chartered Flying Greyhound, and Mike sat up in the astrodome above the driver, with Jill on one side and Dorcas on his other, and stared and stared in awed wonderment as the girls pointed out sights to him and chattered in his ears. The seat, being intended for two people, was very crowded, but Mike did not mind, as a warming degree of growing closer necessarilY resulted. He sat with an arm around each, and looked and listened and tried to grok and could not have been happier if he had been ten feet under water.

            It was, in fact, his first view of Terran civilization He had seen nothing at all in being removed from the Champion to suite K-12 at Bethesda Center; he had indeed spent a few minutes in a taxi ten days earlier going from the hospital to Ben's apartment but at the time he had grokked none of it. Since that time his world had been bounded by a house and a swimming pool, plus 5urroundiflg garden and grass and trees-he had not been as far as Jubal's gate.

            But now he was enormously more sophisticated than he had been ten days ago. He understood windows, realized that the bubble surrounding him was a window and meant for looking out of and that the changing sights he saw were indeed the cities of these people. He understood maps and could pick out, with the help of the girls, where they were and what they were seeing on the map flowing across the lap board in front of them. But of course he had always known about maps; he simply had not known until recently that humans knew about maps. It had given him a twinge of happy homesickness the first time he had grokked a human map. Sure, it was static and dead compared with the maps used by his people-but it was a map. Mike was not disposed by nature and certainly not by training to invidious comparisons even human maps were very Martian in essence -he liked them.

            Now he saw almost two hundred miles of countryside, much of it sprawling world metropolis, and savored every inch of it, tried to grok it. He was startled by the enormous size of human cities and by their bustling activity visible even from the air, so very different from the slow motion, monestary-garden pace of cities of his own people. It seemed to him that a human city must wear out almost at once, becoming so choked with living experience that only the strongest of the Old Ones could bear to visit its deserted streets and grok in contemplation the events and emotions piled layer on endless Layer in it. He himself had visited abandoned cities at home only on a few wonderful and dreadful occasionS, and then his teachers had stopped having him do so, grokking that he was not strong enough for such experience.

            Careful questions to Jill and Dorcas, the answers of which he then related to what he had read, enabled him to grok in part enough to relieve his mind sotnewbat the city was very young; it had been founded only a little over two Earth centuries ago. Since Earth time units had no real flavor for him, he converted to Martian years and Martian numbers years (3^4 + 3^3 = 108 Martian years).

            Terrifying and beautiful! Why, these people must even now be preparing to abandon the city to its thoughts before it shattered under the strain and became not. And yet, by mere time, the city was only an egg.

            Mike looked forward to returning to Washington in a century or two to walk its empty streets and try to grow close to its endless pain and beauty, grokking thirstily until he was Washington and the city was himself-if he were strong enough by then. Then he firmly filed the thought away as he knew that he must grow and grow and grow before he would be able to praise and cherish the city's mighty anguish.

            The Greyhound driver swung far east at one point in response to a temporary rerouting of unscheduled traffic (caused, unknown to Mike, by Mike's own presence)~ and Mike, for the first time, saw the sea.

            Jill had to point it out to him and tell him that it was water, and Dorcas added that it was the Atlantic Ocean and traced the shore line on the map. Mike was not ignorant: he had known since he was a nestling that the planet next nearer the Sun was almost covered with the water of life and lately he had learned that these people accepted this lavish richness casually. He had even taken, unassisted, the much more difficult hurdle of grokking at last the Martian orthodoxy that the water ceremony did not require water, that water was merely symbol for the essence beautiful but not indispensable.

            But, like many a human still virgin toward some major human experience, Mike discovered that knowing a fact in the abstract was not at all the same thing as experiencing its physical reality; the sight of the Atlantic Ocean filled him with such awe that Jill squeezed him and said sharply, "Stop it, Mike! Don't you dare!"

            Mike chopped off his emotion and stored it away for later use. Then he stared at the ocean, stretching out to an unimaginably distant horizon, and tried to measure its size in his mind until his head was buzzing with threes and powers of threes and superpowers of powers.

            As they landed Jubal called out, "Now remember, girls, form a square around him and don't be at all backward about planting a heel in an instep or jabbing an elbow into some oaf's solar plexus. Anne, I realize you'll be wearing your cloak but that's no reason not to step on a foot if you're crowded. Or is it?"

            "Quit fretting, Boss; nobody crowds a Witness-but I'm wearing spike heels and I weigh more than you do."

            "Okay. Duke, you know what to do-but get Larry back here with the bus as soon as possible. I don't know when I'll need it."

            "I grok it, Boss. Quit jittering."

            "I'll jitter as I please. Let's go." Harshaw, the four girls with Mike, and Caxton got out; the bus took off at once. To Harshaw's mixed relief and apprehension the landing flat was not crowded with newsmen.

            But it was far from empty. A man picked him out at once, stepped briskly forward and said heartily, "Dr. Harshaw? I'm Tom Bradley, senior executive assistant to the Secretary General. You are to go directly to Mr. Douglas' private office. He will see you for a few moments before the conference starts."

            "No."

            Bradley blinked. "I don't think you understood me. These are instructions from the Secretary General. Oh, he said that it was all right for Mr. Smith to come with you-the Man from Mars, I mean-"

            "No. This party stays together, even to go to the washroom. Right now we're going to that conference room. Have somebody lead the way. And have all these people stand back; they're crowding us. In the meantime, I have an errand for you. Miriam, that letter."

            "But, Dr. Harshaw-"

            "I said, 'No!' Can't you understand plain English? But you are to deliver this letter to Mr. Douglas at once and to him ersonal1Ya1~ fetch back his receipt to me." Harshaw paused to write his signature across the flap of the envelope Miriam had handed to him, pressed his thumb print over the signature, and handed it to Bradley. "Tell him that it is most urgent that he read this at once-before the meeting."

            "But the Secretary General specifically desires-"

            "The Secretary desires to see that letter. Young man, I am endowed with second sight . . . and I predict that you won't be working here later today if you waste any time getting it to him."

            Bradley locked eyes with Jubal, then said, "Jim, take over," and left, with the letter. Jubal sighed inwardly. He had sweated over that letter; Anne and he had been up most of the night preparing draft after draft. Jubal had every intention of arriving at an open settlement, in full view of the world's news cameras and microphones-but he bad no intention of letting Douglas be taken by surprise by any proposal.

            Another man stepped forward in answer to Bradley's order; Jubal sized him up as a prime specimen of the clever, conscienceless young-men-on-the-way-up who gravitate to those in power and do their dirty work; he disliked him on sight. The man smiled heartily and said smoothly, "The name's Jim Sanforth, Doctor-I'm the Chief's press secretary. I'll be buffering for you from now on-arranging your press interviews and so forth. I'm sorry to say that the conference room is not quite ready; there have been last minute changes and we've had to move to a larger room. Now it's my thought that-"

            "It's my thought that we'll go to that conference room right now. We'll stand up until chairs are fetched for us."

            "Doctor, I'm sure you don't understand the situation. They are still stringing wires and things, and that room is swarming with reporters and commentators."

            "Very well. We'll chat with 'em till you're ready."

            "No, Doctor. I have instructions"

            "Youngster, you can take your instructions, fold them until they are all corners and shove them in your oubliette. We are not at your beck and call. You will not arrange press interviews for us. We are here for just one purpose: a public conference. If the conference is not ready to meet, we'll see the press now-in the conference room."

            "But-"

            "And that's not all. You're keeping the Man from Mars standing on a windy roof" Harshaw raised his voice. "Is there anyone here smart enough to lead us straight to this conference room without getting lost?"

            Sanforth swallowed and said, 'Follow me, Doctor."

            The conference room was indeed crowded with newsmen and technicians but there was a big oval table, plenty of chairs, and several smaller tables. Mike was spotted at once and Sanforth's protests did not keep them from crowding in on him. But Mike's flying wedge of amateur Amazons got him as far as the big table; Jubal sat him against it with Dorcas and Jill in chairs flanking him and the Fair Witness and Miriam seated behind him. Once this was done, Jubal made no attempt to fend oft questions or pictures. Mike had been warned that he would meet lots of people and that many of them would do strange things and Jubal had most particularly warned him to take no sudden actions (such as causing persons or things to go away, or to stop) unless Jill told him to.

            Mike took the confusion gravely, without apparent upset; Jill was holding his hand and her touch reassured him.

            Jubal wanted news pictures taken, the more the better; as for questions put directly to Mike, Jubal did not fear them and made no attempt to field them. A week of trying to talk with Mike had convinced him that no reporter could possibly get anything of importance out of Mike in only a few minutes-without expert help. Mike's habit of answering a question as asked, answering it literally and stopping, would be enough to nullify most attempts to pump him.

            And so it proved. Most questions Mike answered with a polite: "I do not know," or an even less committal; "Beg pardon?"

            But one question backfired on the questioner. A Reuters correspondent, anticipating a monumental fight over Mike's status as an heir, tried to sneak in his own test of Mike's competence: "Mr. Smith? What do you know about the laws of inheritance here?"

            Mike was aware that he was having trouble grokking in fullness the human concept of property and, in particular, the ideas of bequest and inheritance. So he most carefully avoided inserting his own ideas and stuck to the book-a book which Jubal recognized shortly as Ely on Inheritance and Bequest, chapter one.

            Mike related what he had read, with precision and careful lack of expression, like a boring but exact law professor, for page after tedious page, while the room gradually settled into stunned silence and his interrogator gulped.

            Jubal let it go on until every newsman there knew more than he wanted to know about dower and curtesy, consanguinean and uterine, per stirpes and per capita, and related mysteries. At last Jubal touched his shoulder, "That's enough, Mike."

            Mike looked puzzled. "There is much more."

            "Yes, but later. Does someone have a question on some other subject?"

            A reporter for a London Sunday paper of enormous circulation jumped in with a question closer to his employer's pocketbook: "Mr. Smith, we understand you like the girls here on Earth. But have you ever kissed a girl?"

            "Yes."

            "Did you like it?"

            "Yes."

            "How did you like it?"

            Mike barely hesitated over his answer. "Kissing girls is a goodness," he explained very seriously. "It is a growing-closer. It beats the hell out of card games."

            Their applause frightened him. But he could feel that Jill and Dorcas were not frightened, that indeed they were both trying to restrain that incomprehensible noisy expression of pleasure which he himself could not learn. So he calmed his fright and waited gravely for whatever might happen next.

            By what did happen next he was saved from further questions, answerable or not, and was granted a great joy; he saw a familiar face and figure just entering by a side door, "My brother Dr. Mahmoud!" Mike went on talking in overpowering excitement-but in Martian.

            The Champion's staff semanticist waved and smiled and answered in the same jarring language while hurrying to Mike's side. The two continued talking in unhuman symbols, Mike in an eager torrent, Mahmoud not quite as rapidly, with sound effects like a rhinoceros ramming an ironmonger's lorry.

            The newsmen stood it for some time, those who operated by sound recording it and the writers noting it as local color. But at last one interrupted. "Dr. Mahmoud! What are you saying? Clue us!"

            Mahmoud turned, smiled briefly and said in clipped Oxonian speech, "For the most part, I've been saying, 'Slow down, my dear boy-do, please.'

            "And what does he say?"

            "The rest of our conversation is personal, private, of no possible intrest to others, I assure you. Greetings, y'know. Old friends." He turned back to Mike and continued to chat-in Martian.

            In fact, Mike was telling his brother Malimoud all that had happened to him in the fortnight since he had last seen him, so that they might grok closer-but Mike's abstraction of what to tell was purely Martian in concept, it being concerned primarily with new water brothers and the unique flavor of each . . . the gentle water that was Jill . . . the depth of Anne . . . the strange not-yet-fully-grokked fact that Jubal tasted now like an egg, then like an Old One, but was neither-the ungrokkable vastness of ocean-

            Mahmoud had less to tell Mike since less had happened in the interim to him, by Martian standards-one Dionysian excess quite unMartian and of which he was not proud, one long day spent lying face down in Washington's Suleiman Mosque, the results of which he had not yet grokked and was not ready to discuss. No new water brothers.

            He stopped Mike presently and offered his hand to Jubal. "You're Dr. Harshaw, I know. Valentine Michael thinks he has introduced me to all of you-and he has, by his rules."

            Harshaw looked him over as he shook hands with him. Chap looked and sounded like a huntin', shootin', sportin' Britisher, from his tweedy, expensively casual clothes to a clipped grey moustache . . . but his skin was naturally swarthy rather than ruddy tan and the genes for that nose came from somewhere close to the Levant. Harshaw did not like fake anything and would choose to eat cold compone over the most perfect syntho "sirloin."

            But Mike treated him as a friend, so "friend" he was, until proved otherwise.

            To Mahmoud, Harshaw looked like a museum exhibit of what he thought of as a "Yank"-vulgar, dressed too informally for the occasion, loud, probably ignorant and almost certainly provincial. A professional man, too, which made it worse, as in Dr. Mahmoud's experience most American professional men were under-educated and narrow, mere technicians. He held a vast but carefully concealed distaste for all things American. Their incredible polytheistic babel of religions, of course, although they were hardly to be blamed for that . . . their cooking (cooking/Il), their manners, their bastard architecture and sickly arts . . . and their blind, pathetic, arrogant belief in their superiority long after their sun had set. Their women. Their women most of all, their immodest, assertive women, with their gaunt, starved bodies which nevertheless reminded him disturbingly of houris. Four of them here, crowded around Valentine Michael-at a meeting which certainly should be all male- But Valentine Michael had offered him all these people-including these ubiquitous female creatures-offered them proudly and eagerly as his water brothers, thereby laying on Mahmoud a family obligation closer and more binding than that owed to the sons of one's father's brother-since Mahmoud understood the Martian term for such accretive relationships from direct observation of what it meant to Martians and did not need to translate it clumsily and inadequately as "catenative assemblage," nor even as "things equal to the same thing are equal to each other." He had seen Martians at home; he knew their extreme poverty (by Earth standards); he had dipped into-and had guessed at far more-of their cultural extreme wealth; and had grokked quite accurately the supreme value that Martians place on interpersonal relationships.

            Well, there was nothing else for it-he had shared water with Valentine Michael and now he must justify his friend's faith in him . . . he simply hoped that these Yanks were not complete bounders.

            So he smiled warmly and shook hands firmly. "Yes. Valentine Michael has explained to me-most proudly-that you are all in-" (Mahmoud used one word of Martian.) "-to him."

            "Eh?"

            "Water brotherhood. You understand?"

            "I grok it."

            Mahmoud strongly doubted if Harshaw did, but he went on smoothly, "Since I myself am already in that relationship to him, I must ask to be considered a member of the family. I know your name, and I have guessed that this must be Mr. Caxton-in fact I have seen your face pictured at the head of your column, Mr. Caxton; I read it when I have opportunity-but let me see if I have the young ladies straight. This must be Anne."

            "Yes. But she's cloaked at the moment."

            "Yes, of course. I'll pay my respects to her when she is not busy professionally."

            Harshaw introduced him to the other three . . . and Jill startled him by addressing him with the correct honorific for a water brother, pronouncing it about three octaves higher than any adult Martian would talk but with sore-throat purity of accent. It was one of the scant dozen Martian words she could speak out of the hundred-odd that she was beginning to understand-but this one she had down pat because it was used to her and by her many times each day.

            Dr. Mahmoud's eyes widened slightly-perhaps these people would turn out not to be mere uncircumcised barbarians after all . . . and his young friend did have strong intuitions. Instantly he offered Jill the correct honorific in response and bowed over her hand.

            Jill saw that Mike was obviously delighted; she managed, slurringly but passably, to croak the shortest of the nine forms by which a water brother may return the response-although she did not grok it fully and would not have considered suggesting (in English) the nearest human biological equivalent . . . certainly not to a man she had Just met!

            However, Mahmoud, who did understand it, took it in its symbolic meaning rather than its (humanly impossible) literal meaning, and spoke rightly in response. But Jill had passed the limit of her linguistic ability; she did not understand his answer at all and could not reply, even in pedestrian English.

            But she got a sudden inspiration. At intervals around the huge table were placed the age-old furniture of human palavers-water pitchers each with its clump of glasses. She stretched and got a pitcher and a tumbler, filled the latter.

            She looked Mahmoud in the eye, said earnestly, "Water. Our nest is yours." She touched it to her lips and handed it to Mahmoud.

            He answered her in Martian, saw that she did not understand him and translated, "Who shares water shares all." He took a sip and started to hand the glass back to Jill-checked himself, looked at Harshaw and offered him the glass.

            Jubal said, "I can't speak Martian, son-but thanks for water. May you never be thirsty." He took a sip, then drank about a third of it. "Ak!" He passed the glass to Ben.

            Caxton looked at Mahmoud and said very soberly, "Grow closer. With the water of life we grow closer." He wet his lips with it and passed it to Dorcas.

            In spite of the precedents already set, Dorcas hesitated. "Dr. Mahmoud? You do know how serious this is to Mike?"

            "I do, Miss."

            "Well ...it's just as serious to us. You understand? You grok?"

            "I grok its fullness ... or I would have refused to drink."

            "All right. May you always drink deep. May our eggs share a nest." Tears started down her cheeks: she drank and passed the glass hastily to Miriam.

            Miriam whispered, "Pull yourself together, kid," then spoke to Mike, "With water we welcome our brother,"-then added to Mahmoud, "Nest, water, life." She drank. "Our brother." She offered him the glass.

            Mahmoud finished what was left in it and spoke, neither in Martian nor English, but Arabic: "'And if ye mingle your affairs with theirs, then they are your brothers.'"

            "Amen," Jubal agreed.

            Dr. Mahmoud looked quickly at him, decided not to enquire just then whether Harshaw had understood him, or was simply being polite; this was neither the time nor the place to say anything which might lead to unbottling his own troubles, his own doubts. Nevertheless he felt warmed in his soul-as always-by water ritual . . . even though it smelled of heresy.

            His thoughts were cut short by the assistant chief of protocol bustling up to them. "You're Dr. Mahmoud. You belong over on the far side of the table, Doctor. Follow me."

            Mahmoud looked at him, then looked at Mike and smiled. "No, I belong here, with my friends. Dorcas, may I pull a chair in here and sit between you and Valentine Michael?"

            "Certainly, Doctor. Here, I'll scrunch over."

            The a.c. of p. was almost tapping his foot in impatience. "Dr. Mahmoud, please! The chart places you over on the other side of the room! The Secretary General will be here any moment-and the place is still simply swarming with reporters and goodness knows who else who doesn't belong here . . . and I don't know what I'm going to do!"

            "Then go do it someplace else, bub," Jubal suggested.

            "What? Who are you? Are you on the list?" He worriedly consulted the seating chart he carried.

            "Who are you?" Jubal answered. "The head waiter? I'm Jubal Harshaw. If my name is not on that list, you can tear it up and start over. And look, buster, if the Man from Mars wants his friend Dr. Mahmoud to sit by him, that settles it."

            "But he can't sit here! Seats at the main conference table are reserved for High Ministers, Chiefs of Delegations, High Court Justices, and equal ranks-and I don't know how I can squeeze them all in if any more show up-and the Man from Mars, of course."

            "'Of course,'" Jubal agreed dryly.

            "And of course Dr. Mahmoud has to be near the Secretary General- just back of him, so that he'll be ready to interpret as needed. I must say you're not being helpful."

            "I'll help." Jubal plucked the paper out of the official's hand, sat down at the table and studied it. "Mmm ... lemme see now. The Man from Mars will sit directly opposite the Secretary General, just about where he happens to be sitting. Then-" Jubal got out a heavy soft pencil and attacked the seating chart. "-this entire half of the main table, from here clear over to here, belongs to the Man from Mars." Jubal scratched two big black cross marks to show the limits and joined them with a thick black arc, then began scratching out names assigned to seats on that side of the table. "That takes care of half of your work ... because I'll seat anybody who sits on our side of the table."

            The protocol officer was too shocked to talk. His mouth worked but no meaningful noises came out. Jubal looked at him mildly. "Something the matter? Oh-I forgot to make it official." He scrawled under his amendments: "J. Harshaw for V At Smith." "Now trot back to your top sergeant, son, and show him that. Tell him to check his rule book on official visits from heads of friendly planets."

            The man looked at it, opened his mouth-then left very rapidly without stopping to close it. But he was back very quickly on the heels of another, older man. The newcomer said in a firm, no-nonsense manner, "Dr. Harshaw, I'm LaRue, Chief of Protocol. Do you actually need half the main table? I understood that your delegation was quite small."

            "That's beside the point."

            LaRue smiled briefly. "I'm afraid it's not beside the point to me, sir. I'm at my wit's end for space. Almost every official of first rank in the Federation has elected to be present today. If you are expecting more people-though I do wish you had notified me-I'll have a table placed behind these two seats reserved for Mr. Smith and yourself."

            "No."

            "I'm afraid that's the way it must be. I'm sorry."

            "So am I-for you. Because if half the main table is not reserved for the Mars delegation, we are leaving right now. Just tell the Secretary General that you busted up his conference by being rude to the Man from Mars."

            "Surely you don't mean that?"

            "Didn't you get my message?"

            "Uh ... well, I took it as a jest. A rather clever one, I admit."

            "Son, I can't afford to joke at these prices. Smith is either top man from another planet paying an official visit to the top man of this planet- in which case he is entitled to all the side boys and dancing girls you can dig up-or he is just a simple tourist and gets no official courtesies of any sort. You can't have it both ways. But I suggest that you look around you, count the 'officials of first rank' as you called them, and make a quick guess as to whether they would have bothered to show up if, in their minds, Smith is just a tourist."

            LaRue said slowly, "There's no precedent."

            Jubal snorted. "I saw the Chief of Delegation from the Lunar Republic come in a moment ago-go tell him there's no precedent. Then duck!- I hear he's got a quick temper." He sighed. "But, son, I'm an old man and I had a short night and it's none of my business to teach you your job. Just tell Mr. Douglas that we'll see him another day . . . when he's ready to receive us properly. Come on, Mike." He started to roust himself painfully out of his chair.

            LaRue said hastily, "No, no, Dr. Harshaw! We'll clear this side of the table. I'll- Well, I'll do something. It's yours."

            "That's better." But Harshaw remained poised to get up. "But where's the Flag of Mars? And how about honors?"

            "I'm afraid I don't understand you."

            "Never seen a day when I had so much trouble with plain English. Look- See that Federation Banner back of where the Secretary is going to sit? Where's the one like it over here, for Mars?"

            LaRue blinked. "I must admit you've taken me by surprise. I didn't know the Martians used flags."

            "They don't. But you couldn't possibly whop up what they use for high state occasions." (And neither could I, boy, but that's beside the point.) "So we'll let you off easy and take an attempt for the deed. Piece of paper, Miriam-now, like this." Harshaw drew a rectangle, sketched in it the traditional human symbol for Mars, a circle with an arrow leading out from it to the upper right "Make the field in white and the sigil of Mars in red-should be sewed in bunting of course, but with a clean sheet and a bucket of paint any Boy Scout could improvise one in ten minutes. Were you a Scout?"

            "Uh, some time ago."

            "Good. Then you know the Scout's motto. Now about honors- maybe you're caught unprepared there, too, eh? You expect to play 'Hail to Sovereign Peace' as the Secretary comes in?"

            "Oh, we must. It's obligatory."

            "Then you'll want to follow it with the anthem for Mars."

            "I don't see how I can. Even if there were one ... we don't have it. Dr. Harshaw, be reasonable!"

            "Look, son, I am being reasonable. We came here for a quiet, small, informal meeting-strictly business. We find you've turned it into a circus. Well, if you're going to have a circus, you've got to have elephants and there's no two ways about it. Now we realize you can't play Martian music, any more than a boy with a tin whistle can play a symphony. But you can play a symphony-'The Ten Planets Symphony.' Grok it? I mean, 'Do you catch on?' Have the tape cut in at the beginning of the Mars movement; play that . . . or enough bars to let the theme be recognized."

            LaRue looked thoughtful. "Yes, I suppose we could-but, Dr. Harshaw, I promised you half the table . . . but I don't see how I can promise sovereign honors-the flag and the music-even on this improvised, merely symbolic scale. I- I don't think I have the authority."

            "Nor the guts," Harshaw said bitterly. "Well, we didn't want a circus -so tell Mr. Douglas that we'll be back when he's not so busy . . . and not so many visitors. Been nice chatting with you, son. Be sure to stop by the Secretary's office and say hello when we come back-if you're still here." He again went through the slow, apparently painful act of being a man too old and feeble to get out of a chair easily.

            LaRue said, "Dr. Harshaw, please don't leave! Uh ... the Secretary won't come in until I send word that we are ready for him-so let me see what I can do. Yes?"

            Harshaw relaxed with a grunt. "Suit yourself. But one more thing, while you're here. I heard a ruckus at the main door a moment ago-what I could catch, one of the crew members of the Champion wanted to come in. They're all friends of Smith, so let 'em in. We'll accommodate 'em. Help to fill up this side of the table." Harshaw sighed and rubbed a kidney.

            "Very well, sir," LaRue agreed stiffly and left.

            Miriam said out of the corner of her mouth: "Boss-did you sprain your back doing hand stands night before last?"

            "Quiet, girl, or I'll paddle you." With grim satisfaction Jubal surveyed the room, which was continuing to fill with high officials. He had told Douglas that he wanted a "small, informal" talk-no formality while knowing with utter certainty that the mere announcement of such talks would fetch all the powerful and power-hungry as surely as light attracts moths. And now (he felt sure) Mike was about to be treated as a sovereign by each and every one of those nabobs-with the whole world watching. Just let 'em try to roust the boy around after this!

            Sanforth was still trying mightily to shoo out the remaining newsmen, and the unfortunate assistant chief of protocol, deserted by his boss, was jittering like a nervous baby-sitter in his attempt to play musical chairs with too few chairs and too many notables, They continued to come in and Jubal concluded that Douglas had never intended to convene this public meeting earlier than eleven o'clock, and that everyone else had been so informed-the earlier hour given Jubal was to permit the private preconference that Douglas had demanded and that Jubal had refused. Well, the delay suited Jubal's plans.

            The leader of the Eastern Coalition came in. Since Mr. King was not, by his own choice, the nominal Chief of Delegation for his nation, his status under strict protocol was merely that of Assemblyman-but Jubal was not even mildly surprised to see the harried assistant chief of protocol drop what he was doing and rush to seat Douglas' chief political enemy at the main table and near the seat reserved for the Secretary General; it simply reinforced Jubal's opinion that Douglas was no fool.

            Dr. Nelson, surgeon of the Champion, and Captain van Tromp, her skipper, came in together, and were greeted with delight by Mike. Jubal was pleased, too, as it gave the boy something to do, under the cameras, instead of just sitting still like a dummy. Jubal made use of the disturbance to rearrange the seating since there was now no longer any need to surround the Man from Mars with a bodyguard. He placed Mike precisely opposite the Secretary General's chair and himself took the chair on Mike's left-not only to be close to him as his counsel but to be where he could actually touch Mike inconspicuously. Since Mike had only the foggiest notions of human customary manners, Jubal had arranged with him signals as imperceptible as those used by a rider in putting a high-schooled horse through dressage maneuvers-"stand up," "sit down," "bow," "shake hands"-with the difference that Mike was not a horse and his training had required only five minutes to achieve utterly dependable perfection.

            Mahmoud broke away from the reunion of shipmates, came around, and spoke to Jubal privately. "Doctor, I must explain that the Skipper and the Surgeon are also water brothers of our brother-and Michael Valentine wanted to confirm it at once by again using the ritual, all of us. I told him to wait. Do you approve?"

            "Eh? Yes. Yes, certainly. Not in this mob." Jubal worried it for a moment. Damn it, how many water brothers did Mike have? How long was this daisy chain? "Maybe you three can come with us when we leave? And have a bite and a talk in private."

            "I shall be honored. And I feel sure the other two will come also, if possible."

            "Good. Dr. Mahmoud, do you know of any other brothers of our young brother who are likely to show up?"

            "No. Not from the company of the Champion, at least; there are no more." Mahmoud hesitated, then decided not to ask the obvious complementary question, as it would hint at how disconcerted he had been-at first-to discover the extent of his own conjugational commitments. "I'll tell Sven and the Old Man." He went back to them.

            Harshaw saw the Papal Nuncio come in, saw him seated at the main table, and smiled inwardly-if that long-eared debit, LaRue, had any lingering doubts about the official nature of this meeting, he would do well to forget them!

            A man came up behind Harshaw, tapped him on the shoulder. "Is this where the Man from Mars hangs out?"

            "Yes," agreed Jubal.

            "Which one is he? I'm Tom Boone-Senator Boone, that is-and I've got a message for him from Supreme Bishop Digby."

            Jubal suppressed his personal feelings and let his cortex go into emergency high speed. "I'm Jubal Harshaw, Senator-" He signalled Mike to stand up and offer to shake hands. "-and this is Mr. Smith. Mike, this is Senator Boone."

            "How do you do, Senator Boone," Mike said in perfect dancingschool form. He looked at Boone with interest. He had already had it straightened out for him that "Senator" did not mean "Old One" as the words seemed to shape; nevertheless he was interested in seeing just what a "Senator" was. He decided that he did not yet grok it.

            "Pretty well, thank you, Mr. Smith. But I won't take up your time; they seem to be about to get this shindig started. Mr. Smith, Supreme Bishop Digby sent me to give you a personal invite to attend services at the Archangel Foster Tabernacle of the New Revelation."

            "Beg pardon?"

            Jubal moved in on it. "Senator, as you know, many things here- everything-is new to the Man from Mars. But it so happens that Mr. Smith has already seen one of your church services by stereovision-"

            "Not the same thing."

            "I know. But he expressed great interest in it and asked many questions about it-many of which I could not answer."

            Boone looked keenly at him. "You're not one of the faithful?"

            "I must admit that I am not."

            "Come along yourself. Always hope for a sinner."

            "Thank you, I will." (You're right, I will, friend!-for I certainly won't let Mike go into your trap alone!)

            "Next Sunday then-I'll tell Bishop Digby."

            "Next Sunday if possible," Jubal corrected. "We might be in jail by then."

            Boone grinned. "There's always that, ain't th'r? But send word around to me or the Supreme Bishop and you won't stay in long." He looked around the crowded room. "Seem to be kind o' short on chairs in here. Not much chance for a plain senator with all those muckamucks elbowing each other."

            "Perhaps you would honor us by joining us, Senator," Jubal answered smoothly, "at this table?"

            "Eh? Why, thank you, sir! Don't mind if I do-ringside seat."

            "That is," Harshaw added, "if you don't mind the political implications of being seen seated with the official Mars delegation. We aren't trying to crowd you into an embarrassing situation."

            Boone barely hesitated. "Not at all! Who cares what people think? Matter of fact, between you and I, the Bishop is very, very interested in this young man."

            "Fine. There's a vacant chair there by Captain van Tromp-that man there . . . but probably you know him."

            "Van Tromp? Sure, sure, old friends, know him well-met him at the reception." Senator Boone nodded at Smith, swaggered down and seated himself.

            Most of those present were seated now and fewer were getting past the guards at the doors. Jubal watched one argument over seating and the longer he watched it the more it made him fidget. At last he felt that he simply could not stand it; he could not sit still and watch this indecency go on. So he leaned over and spoke very privately with Mike, made sure that, if Mike did not understand why, at least he understood what Jubal wanted him to do.

            Mike listened. "Jubal, I will do."

            "Thanks, son." Jubal got up and approached a group of three: the assistant chief of protocol, the Chief of the Uruguayan Delegation, and a third man who seemed angry but baffled. The Uruguayan was saying forcefully: "-seat him, then you must find seats for any and all other local chiefs of state-eighty or more. You've admitted that you can't do that. This is Federation soil we stand on . . . and no chief of state has precedence over any other chief of state. If any exceptions are made-"

            Jubal interrupted by addressing the third man, "Sir-" He waited just long enough to gain his attention, plunged on. "-the Man from Mars has instructed me to ask you to do him the great honor of sitting with him if your presence is not required elsewhere."

            The man looked startled, then smiled broadly. "Why, yes, that would be satisfactory."

            The other two, both the palace official and the Uruguayan dignitary, started to object. Jubal turned his back on them. "Let's hurry, sir-I think we have very little time." He had seen two men coming in with what appeared to be a stand for a Christmas tree and a bloody sheet-but what was almost certainly the "Martian Flag." As they hurried to where he was, Mike got up and was standing, waiting for them.

            Jubal said, "Sir, permit me to present Valentine Michael Smith. Michael-the President of the United States!"

            Mike bowed very low.

            There was barely time to seat him on Mike's right, as the improvised flag was even then being set up behind them. Music started to play, everyone stood, and a voice proclaimed:

            "The Secretary General!"

XX

            JUBAL HAD CONSIDERED HAVING Mike remain seated while Douglas came in, but had rejected the idea; he was not trying to place Mike a notch higher than Douglas but merely to establish that the meeting was between equals. So, when he stood up, he signaled Mike to do so likewise. The great double doors at the back of the conference hall had opened at the first strains of "Hail to Sovereign Peace" and Douglas came in. He went straight to his chair and started to sit down.

            Instantly Jubal signaled Mike to sit down, the result being that Mike and the Secretary General sat down simultaneously-with a long, respectful pause of some seconds before anyone else resumed his seat. Jubal held his breath. Had LaRue done it? Or not? He hadn't quite promised- Then the first fortissimo tocsin of the "Mars" movement filled the room-the "War God" theme that startles even an audience expecting it. With his eyes on Douglas and with Douglas looking back at him, Jubal was at once up out of his chair again, like a scared recruit snapping to attention. Douglas stood up, too, not as quickly but promptly.

            But Mike did not get up; Jubal had not signalled him to do so. He sat quietly, impassively, quite unembarrassed by the fact that everyone else without any exception got quickly back on his feet when the Secretary General stood up. Mike did not understand any of it and was quite content to do what his water brother told him to do. Jubal had puzzled over this bit, after he had demanded the "Martian Anthem." If the demand was met, what should Mike do while it was played? It was a nice point, and the answer depended on just what role Mike was playing in this comedy- The music stopped. On Jubal's signals Mike then stood up, bowed quickly, and sat down, seating himself about as the Secretary General and the rest were seated. They were all back in their seats much more quickly this time, as no one could have missed the glaring point that Mike had remained seated through the "anthem." Jubal sighed with relief. He had gotten away with it. A great many years earlier he had seen one of that vanishing tribe of royalty (a reigning queen) receive a parade-and he had noticed that the royal lady had bowed after her anthem was played, i.e., she had acknowledged a salute offered to her own sovereign self.

            But the political head of a democracy stands and uncovers for his nation's anthem like any other citizen-for he is not a sovereign.

            But, as Jubal had pointed out to LaRue, one couldn't have it two ways. Either Mike was merely a private citizen (in which case this silly gymkhana should never have been held; Douglas should have had the guts to tell all these overdressed parasites to stay home!)-or, by the preposterous legal theory inherent in the Larkin Decision, the kid was a sovereign all by his little lonesome.

            Jubal felt tempted to offer LaRue a pinch of snuff. Well, the point had not been missed by at least one-the Papal Nuncio was keeping his face straight but his eyes were twinkling.

            Douglas started to speak: "Mr. Smith, we are honored and happy to have you here as our guest today. We hope that you will consider the planet Earth your home quite as much as the planet of your birth, our neighbor-our good neighbor-Mars-" He went on at some length, in careful, rounded, pleasant periods, which did not quite say anything. Mike was welcome-but whether he was welcome as a sovereign, as a tourist from abroad, or as a citizen returning home, was quite impossible to determine (Jubal decided) from Douglas' words.

            Jubal watched Douglas, hoping to catch his eye, looking for some nod or expression that would show how Douglas had taken the letter Jubal had sent to him by hand immediately on arrival. But Douglas never looked at him. Presently Douglas concluded, still having said nothing and said it very well.

            Jubal said quietly, "Now, Mike."

            Smith addressed the Secretary General-in Martian.

            But he cut it off before consternation could build up and said gravely: "Mr. Secretary General of the Federation of Free Nations of the Planet Earth-" then went on again in Martian.

            Then in English: "-we thank you for our welcome here today. We bring greetings to the peoples of Earth from the Ancient Ones of Mars-" and shifted again into Martian.

            Jubal felt that "Ancient Ones" was a good touch; it carried more bulge than "Old Ones" and Mike had not objected to the change in terminology. In fact, while Mike had insisted on "speaking rightly," Jubal's draft had not required much editing. It had been Jill's idea to alternate, sentence by sentence, a Martian version and an English version-and Jubal admitted with warm pleasure that her gimmick puffed up a formal little speech as devoid of real content as a campaign promise into something as rollingly impressive as Wagnerian opera. (And about as hard to figure out, Jubal added.)

            It didn't matter to Mike. He could insert the Martian translation as easily as he could memorize and recite the edited English version, i.e., without effort for either. If it would please his water brothers to say these sayings, it made Mike happy.

            Someone touched Jubal on the shoulder, shoved an envelope in his hand, and whispered, "From the Secretary General." Jubal looked up, saw that it was Bradley, hurrying silently away. Jubal opened the envelope in his lap, glanced at the single sheet inside.

            The note was one word: "Yes," and had been signed with initials "J.E.D."-all in the famous green ink.

            Jubal looked up, found that Douglas' eyes were now on him; Jubal nodded ever so slightly and Douglas looked away. The conference was now over; all that remained was to let the world know it.

            Mike concluded the sonorous nullities he had been given; Jubal heard his own words: "-growing closer, with mutual benefit to both worlds-" and "-each race according to its own nature-" but did not listen. Douglas then thanked the Man from Mars, briefly but warmly. There was a pause.

            Jubal stood up. "Mr. Secretary General-"

            "Yes, Dr. Harshaw?"

            "As you know, Mr. Smith is here today in a dual role. Like some visiting prince in the past history of our own great race, traveling by caravan and sailing across uncharted vastnesses to a distant realm, he brings to Earth the good wishes of the Ancient Powers of Mars. But he is also a human being, a citizen of the Federation and of the United States of America. As such, he has rights and properties and obligations." Jubal shook his head. "Pesky ones, I'm sorry to say. As attorney for him in his capacity as a citizen and a human being, I have been puzzling over his business affairs and I have not even managed a complete list of what he owns-much less decide what to tell tax collectors-"

            Jubal stopped to wheeze. "I'm an old man, I might not live to complete the task. Now you know that my client has had no business experience in the human sense-Martians do these things differently. But he is a young man of great intelligence-the whole world knows that his parents were geniuses-and blood will tell. There's no doubt that in a few years, he could, if he wished, do very nicely on his own without the aid of one old, broken-down lawyer. But his affairs need attention today; business won't wait.

            "But, in fact, he is more eager to learn the history and the arts and the ways of the people of this, his second home, than he is to bury himself in debentures and stock issues and royalties-and I think in this he is wise. Although without business experience, Mr. Smith possesses a direct and simple wisdom that continues to astonish me . . . and to astonish all who meet him. When I explained to him the trouble I was having, he simply looked at me with a clear, calm gaze and said, 'Why, that's no problem, Jubal-we'll ask Mr. Douglas.'" Jubal paused and said anxiously, "The rest of this is just personal business, Mr. Secretary. Should I see you about it privately? And let the rest of these ladies and gentlemen go home?"

            "Go right ahead, Dr. Harshaw." Douglas added, "Protocol is dispensed with as of now. Anyone who wishes to leave please feel free to do so."

            No one left. "All right," Jubal went on. "I can wrap it up in one sentence. Mr. Smith wants to appoint you his attorney-in-fact, with full power to handle all his business affairs. Just that."

            Douglas looked convincingly astonished. "That's a tall order, Doctor."

            "I know it is, sir. I pointed out to him that it was an imposition, that you are the busiest man on this planet and didn't have time for his affairs." Jubal shook his head and smiled. "I'm afraid it didn't impress him-seems on Mars the busier a person is the more is expected of him. Mr. Smith simply said, 'We can ask him.' So I'm asking you. Of course we don't expect an answer off hand-that's another Martian trait: Martians are never in a hurry. Nor are they inclined to make things complicated. No bond, no auditing, none of that claptrap-a written power of attorney if you want it. But it does not matter to him; he would do it just as readily, orally and right now-Chinese style. That's another Martian trait; if a Martian trusts you, he trusts you all the way. He doesn't come prying around to see if you're keeping your word. Oh, I should add: Mr. Smith is not making this request of the Secretary General; he's asking a favor of Joseph Edgerton Douglas, you personally. If you should retire from public life, it would not affect this in the slightest. Your successor in office, whoever he might be, doesn't figure in it. It's you he trusts ... not just whoever happens to occupy the Octagon Office in this Palace."

            Douglas nodded. "Regardless of my answer, I feel honored .. and humble."

            "Because if you decline to serve, or can't serve, or do take on this chore and want to drop it later, or anything, Mr. Smith has his own second choice for the job-Ben Caxton, it is. Stand up for a second, Ben; let people see you. And if both you and Caxton can't or won't, his next choice is-well, I'll guess we'll reserve that name for the moment; just let it rest that there are successive choices. Uh, let me see now-" Jubal looked fuddled- "I'm out of the habit of talking on my feet. Miriam, where is that piece of paper we listed things on?"

            Jubal accepted a sheet from her, and added, "Better give me the other copies, too-" She passed over to him a thick stack of sheets. "This is a little memo we prepared for you, sir-or for Caxton, if it turns out that way. Mmm, lemme see-oh yes, steward to pay himself what he thinks the job is worth but not less than-well, a considerable sum, nobody else's business, really. Steward to deposit monies in a drawing account for living expenses of party of the first part-uh, oh yes, I thought maybe you would want to use the Bank of Shanghai, say, as your depository, and, say, Lloyd's as your business agent-or maybe the other way around-just to protect your own name and fame. But Mr. Smith won't hear of any fixed instructions-just an unlimited assignment of power, revocable by either side at choice. But I won't read all this; that's why we wrote it out-" Jubal turned and looked vacantly around. "Uh, Miriam-trot around and give this to the Secretary General, that's a good girl. Urn, these other copies, I'll leave them here. You may want to pass 'em out to people ... or you may need them yourself. Oh, I'd better give one to Mr. Caxton though- here, Ben-"

            Jubal looked anxiously around. "Uh, I guess that's all I have to say, Mr. Secretary. Did you have anything more to say to us?'

            "Just a moment. Mr. Smith?"

            "Yes, Mr. Douglas?"

            "Is this what you want? Do you want me to do what it says on this paper?"

            Jubal held his breath, avoided even glancing at his client- Mike had been carefully coached to expect such a question - . - but there had been no telling what form it would take, nor any way to tell in advance how Mike's literal interpretations could trip them.

            "Yes, Mr. Douglas." Mike's voice rang out clearly in the big room- and in a billion rooms around a planet.

            "You want me to handle your business affairs?"

            "Please, Mr. Douglas. It would be a goodness. I thank you-"

            Douglas blinked. "Well, that's clear enough. Doctor, I'll reserve my answer-but you shall have it promptly."

            "Thank you, sir. For myself as well as for my client."

            Douglas started to stand up. Assemblyman Kung's voice sharply interrupted. "One moment! How about the Larkin Decision?"

            Jubal grabbed it before Douglas could speak. "Ah, yes, the Larkin Decision. I've heard quite a lot of nonsense talked about the Larkin Decision-but mostly from irresponsible persons. Mr. Kung, what about the Larkin Decision?"

            "I'm asking you. Or your .. client. Or the Secretary General."