Stranger in a Strange Land

“Sure. The techs set up the transceiver down in the shop and it’s got a switch on it for that very purpose. Throw the switch, push the button; a light comes on. To test on through, you simply call ’em, right from the transceiver and tell ’em you want a hot test clear through to the cameras and back to the monitor stations.”

“And suppose the test shows that we aren’t getting through? If the trouble is here, can you spot what’s wrong?”

“Well, I might,” Larry said doubtfully, “if it wasn’t anything more than a loose connection. But Duke is the electron pusher around here—I’m more the intellectual type.”

“I know, son—I’m not too bright about practical matters, either. Well, do the best you can. Let me know.”

“Anything else, Jubal?”

“Yes, if you see the man who invented the wheel, send him up; I want to give him a piece of my mind. Meddler!”

Jubal spent the next few minutes in umbilical contemplation. He considered the possibility that Duke had sabotaged the “panic button” but rejected the thought as time wasting, if not unworthy. He allowed himself to wonder for a moment just what had really happened down in his garden and how the lad had done it—from ten feet under water. For he had no doubt that the Man from Mars had been behind those impossible shenanigans.

Admittedly, what he had seen only the day before in this very room was just as intellectually stupefying as these later events—but the emotional impact was something else. A mouse was as much a miracle of biology as was an elephant; nevertheless there was an important difference—an elephant was bigger.

To see an empty carton, just rubbish, disappear in midair logically implied the possibility that a squad car full of men could vanish in the same fashion. But one event kicked your teeth in—the other didn’t.

Well, he wasn’t going to waste tears on those Cossacks. Jubal conceded that cops qua cops were all right; he had met a number of honest cops in his life… and even a fee-splitting village constable did not deserve to be snuffed out like a candle. The Coast Guard was a fine example of what cops ought to be and frequently were.

But to be a member of the S.S. squads a man had to have larceny in his heart and sadism in his soul. Gestapo. Storm troopers in the service of whatever politico was in power. Jubal longed for the good old days when a lawyer could cite the Bill of Rights and not have some over-riding Federation trickery defeat him.

Never mind—What would logically happen now? Heinrich’s task force certainly had had radio contact with its base; ergo, its loss would be noted, if only by silence. Shortly more S.S. troops would come looking for them—were already headed this way if that second car had been chopped off in the middle of an action report. “Miriam—”

“Yes, Boss.”

“I want Mike, Jill, and Anne here at once. Then find Larry—in the shop, probably—and both of you come to the house, lock all doors, and all ground floor windows.”

“More trouble?”

“Get movin’, gal.”

If the S.S. apes showed up again—no, when they showed up—they probably would not have duplicate warrants. If their leader was silly enough to break into a locked house without a warrant, well, he might have to turn Mike loose on them. But this blind warfare of attrition had to be stopped—which meant that Jubal simply had to get through to the Secretary General.

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 S.S. 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?