Stranger in a Strange Land

Dr. Nelson had not seen the broadcast. Yes, he had heard about it; no, he had no reason to think it had been faked. Did Dr. Nelson know that an attempt had been made to coerce Smith into surrendering his rights under the Larkin Decision? No, and he would not be interested if it were true; it was preposterous to talk about anyone «owning» Mars; Mars belonged to Martians. So? Let's propose a hypothetical question, Doctor; if someone were trying to —

Dr. Nelson switched off. When Caxton tried to reconnect, a recorded voice stated: «The subscriber has suspended service temporarily. If you care to record — »

Caxton made a foolish statement concerning Dr. Nelson's parentage. What he did next was much more foolish; he phoned the Executive Palace, demanded to speak to the Secretary General.

In his years as a snooper, Caxton had learned that secrets could often be cracked by going to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that twisting the tiger's tail was dangerous; he understood the psychopathology of great power as thoroughly as Jill Boardman did not — but he relied on his position as a dealer in another sort of power almost universally appeased.

What he forgot was that, in phoning the Palace from a taxicab, he was not doing so publicly.

Caxton spoke with half a dozen underlings and became more aggressive with each one. He was so busy that he did not notice when his cab ceased to hover.

When he did notice, it was too late; the cab refused to obey orders. Caxton realized bitterly that he had let himself be trapped by a means no hoodlum would fall for; his call had been traced, his cab identified, its robot pilot placed under orders of an over-riding police frequency — and the cab was being used to fetch him in, privately and with no fuss.

He tried to call his lawyer.

He was still trying when the taxicab landed inside a court-yard and his signal was cut off by its walls. He tried to leave the cab, found that the door would not open — and was hardly surprised to discover that he was fast losing consciousness —

VIII

JILL TOLD herself that Ben had gone off on another scent and had forgotten to let her know. But she did not believe it. Ben owed his success to meticulous attention to human details. He remembered birthdays and would rather have welched on a poker debt than have omitted a bread-and-butter note. No matter where he had gone, nor how urgently, he could have — wouldhave! — taken two minutes in the air to record a message to her.

He must have left word! She called his office at her lunch break and spoke with Ben's researcher and office chief, Osbert Kilgallen. He insisted that Ben had left no message for her, nor had any come in since she had called.

«Did he say when he would be back?»

«No. But we always have columns on the hook to fill in when one of these things comes up.»

«Well … where did he call you from? Or am I being snoopy?»

«Not at all, Miss Boardman. He did not call; it was a statprint, filed from Paoli Flat in Philadelphia.»

Jill had to be satisfied with that. She lunched in the nurses' dining room and picked at her food. It wasn't, she told herself, as if anything were wrong … or as if she were in love with the lunk …

«Hey! Boardman! Snap out of the fog!»

Jill looked up to find Molly Wheelwright, the wing's di etitian, looking at her. «Sorry.»

«I said, “Since when does your floor put charity patients in luxury suites?”»

«We don't.»

«Isn't K-12 on your floor?»

«K-12? That's not charity; it's a rich old woman, so wealthy that she can pay to have a doctor watch her breathe.»

«Humph! She must have come into money awfully suddenly. She's been in the N.P. ward of the geriatrics sanctuary the past seventeen months.»

«Some mistake.»

«Not mine — I don't allow mistakes in my kitchen. That tray is tricky — fat-free diet and a long list of sensitivities, plus concealed medication. Believe me, dear, a diet order can be as individual as a fingerprint.» Miss Wheelwright stood up. «Gotta run, chicks.»

«What was Molly sounding off about?» a nurse asked.

«Nothing. She's mixed up.» It occurred to Jill that she might locate the Man from Mars by checking diet kitchens. She put the idea out of her mind; it would take days to visit them all. Bethesda Center had been a naval hospital back when wars were fought on oceans and enormous even then. It had been transferred to Health, Education, & Welfare and expanded; now it belonged to the Federation and was a small city.

But there was something odd about Mrs. Bankerson's case. The hospital accepted all classes of patients, private, charity, and government; Jill's floor usually had government patients and its suites were for Federation Senators or other high officials. It was unusual for a private patient to be on her floor.

Mrs. Bankerson could be overflow, if the part of the Center open to the fee-paying public had no suite available. Yes, probably that was it.