Stranger in a Strange Land

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.”