Stranger in a Strange Land

“You tried to force it. Here—” Duke completed the adjustment Harshaw had muffed, then went ahead and inserted the first film cartridge. Neither of them re-opened the question of whether Duke was, or was not, still working for Jubal. The cameras were Mitchell servos; the projector was a Yashinon tabletop tank, with an adapter to permit it to receive Land Solid-Sight-Sound 4 mm. film. Shortly they were listening to and watching the events leading up to the disappearance of the empty brandy case.

Jubal watched the box being thrown at his head, saw it wink out in midair. “That’s enough,” he said. “Anne will be pleased to know that the cameras back her up. Duke, let’s repeat that last bit in slow motion.”

“Okay.” Duke spooled back, then announced, “This is ten-to-one.”

The scene was the same but the slowed-down sound was useless; Duke switched it off. The box floated slowly from Jill’s hands toward Jubal’s head, then quite suddenly ceased to be. But it did not simply wink out; under slow-motion projection it could be seen shrinking, smaller and smaller until it was no longer there.

Jubal nodded thoughtfully. “Duke, can you slow it down still more?”

“Just a sec. Something is fouled up with the stereo.”

“What?”

“Darned if I can figure it out. It looked all right on the fast run. But when I slowed it down, the depth effect was reversed. You saw it. That box went away from us fast, mighty fast—but it always looked closer than the wall. Swapped parallax, of course. But I never took that cartridge off the spindle. Gremlins.”

“Oh. Hold it, Duke. Run the film from the other camera.”

“Unh… oh, I see. That’ll give us a ninety-degree cross on it and we’ll see properly even if I did jimmy this film somehow.” Duke changed cartridges. “Zip through the first part, okay? Then undercranked ten-to-one on the part that counts.”

“Go ahead.”

The scene was the same save for angle. When the image of Jill grabbed the box, Duke slowed down the show and again they watched the box go away. Duke cursed. “Something was fouled up with the second camera too.”

“So?”

“Of course. It was looking at it around from the side so the box should have gone out of the frame to one side or the other. Instead it went straight away from us again. Well, didn’t it? You saw it. Straight away from us.”

“Yes,” agreed Jubal. “‘Straight away from us.’”

“But it can’t—not from both angles.”

“What do you mean, it can’t? It already did.” Harshaw added, “If we had used doppler-radar in place of each of those cameras, I wonder what they would have shown?”

“How should I know? I’m going to take both these cameras apart.”

“Don’t bother.”

“But—”

“Don’t waste your time, Duke; the cameras are all right. What is exactly ninety degrees from everything else?”

“I’m no good at riddles.”

“It’s not a riddle and I meant it seriously. I could refer you to Mr. A. Square from Flatland, but I’ll answer it myself. What is exactly at right angles to everything else? Answer: two dead bodies, one old pistol, and an empty liquor case.”

“What the deuce do you mean, Boss?”

“I never spoke more plainly in my life. Try believing what the cameras see instead of insisting that the cameras must be at fault because what they saw was not what you expected. Let’s see the other films.”

Harshaw made no comment as they were shown; they added nothing to what he already knew but did confirm and substantiate. The ash tray when floating near the ceiling had been out of camera angle, but its leisurely descent and landing had been recorded. The pistol’s image in the stereo tank was quite small but, so far as could be seen, the pistol had done just what the box appeared to have done: shrunk away into the far distance without moving. Since Harshaw had been gripping it tightly when it had shrunk out of his hand, he was satisfied—if “satisfied” was the right word, he added grumpily to himself. “Convinced” at least.

“Duke, when you get time, I want duplicate prints of all of those.”

Duke hesitated. “You mean I’m still working here?”

“What? Oh, damn it! You can’t eat in the kitchen, and Duke, try to cut your local prejudices out of the circuit and just while. Try really hard.”

“I’ll listen.”

“When Mike asked for the privilege of eating my stringy old carcass, he was doing me the greatest honor that he knew of—by the only rules he knows. What he had ‘learned at his mother’s knee,’ so to speak. Do you savvy that? You heard his tone of voice, you saw his manner. He was paying me his highest compliment—and asking of me a boon. You see? Never mind what they think of such things in Kansas; Mike uses the values taught him on Mars.”

“I think I’ll take Kansas.”