Stranger in a Strange Land

She did not go to the roof; another cab was the last thing she wanted. She went out by the service door in the basement. There was no one there but a young man checking a kitchen delivery. He moved aside and let her roll the bag out onto the pavement. «Hi, sister. What you got in the keister?»

«A body,» she snapped.

He shrugged. «Ask a jerky question, get a jerky answer. I should learn.»

Part Two His Preposterous Heritage

IX

THE THIRD PLANET FROM SOL held 230,000 more humans this day than yesterday; among five billion terrestrials such increase was not noticeable. The Kingdom of South Africa, Federation associate, was again cited before the High Court for persecution of its white minority. The lords of fashion, gathered in Rio, decreed that hem lines would go down and navels would be covered. Federation defense stations swung in the sky, promising death to any who disturbed the planet's peace; commercial space stations disturbed the peace with endless clamor of endless trademarked trade goods. Half a million more mobile homes had set down on the shores of Hudson Bay than had migrated by the same date last year; the Chinese rice belt was declared an emergency malnutrition area by the Federation Assembly; Cynthia Duchess, known as the Richest Girl in the World, paid off her sixth husband.

The Reverend Doctor Daniel Digby, Supreme Bishop of the Church of the New Revelation (Fosterite) announced that he had nominated the Angel Azreel to guide Federation Senator Thomas Boone and that he expected Heavenly confirmation later today; news services carried it as straight news, the Fosterites having wrecked newspaper offices in the past. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Campbell VI had a son and heir by host-mother at Cincinnati Children's Hospital while the happy parents were vacationing in Peru. Dr. Horace Quackenbush, Professor of Leisure Arts at Yale Divinity School, called for a return to faith and cultivation of spiritual values; a betting scandal involved half the professionals of the West Point football squad; three bacterial warfare chemists were suspended at Toronto for emotional instability; they announced that they would carry their cases to the High Court. The High Court reversed the United States Supreme Court in re-primaries involving Federation Assemblymen in the case of Reinsberg vs. the State of Missouri.

His Excellency, the Most Honorable Joseph E. Douglas, Secretary General of the World Federation of Free States, picked at his breakfast and wondered why a man could not get a decent cup of coffee. His morning newspaper, prepared by the night shift of his information staff, moved past his eyes at his optimum reading speed in a feedback scanner. The words flowed as long as he looked in that direction. He was looking at it now, but simply to avoid the eyes of his boss across the table. Mrs. Douglas did not read newspapers; she had other ways of finding things out.

«Joseph — »

He looked up, the machine stopped. «Yes, my dear?»

«You have something on your mind.»

«Eh? What makes you say that, my dear?»

«Joseph! I've coddled you and darned your socks and kept you out of trouble for thirty-five years — Iknow when something is on your mind.»

The hell of it is, he admitted, she does know. He looked at her and wondered why he had ever let her bully him into a no-termination contract. She had been his secretary, back in «The Good Old Days» when he had been a state legislator. Their first contract had been a ninety-day cohabitation agreement, to economize campaign funds by saving on hotel bills; both had agreed that it was merely a convenience, with «cohabitation» to be construed simply as living under one roof — and she hadn't darned his socks even then!

He tried to remember how it had changed. Mrs. Douglas's biography Shadow of Greatness: One Woman's Story stated that he had proposed during ballot counting in his first election — and such was his romantic need that nothing would do but old-fashioned, death-do-us-part marriage.

Well, there was no use arguing with the official version.

«Joseph! Answer me!»

«Eh? Nothing, my dear. I spent a restless night.»

«I know. When they wake you in the night, don't I know it?»

He reflected that her suite was fifty yards across the palace from his. «How do you know it, my dear?»

«Hunh? Woman's intuition. What was the message Bradley brought you?»

«Please, my dear — I've got to finish the news before Council meeting.»

«Joseph Edgerton Douglas, don't evade me.»

He sighed. «We've lost sight of that beggar Smith.»

«Smith? You mean the Man from Mars? What do you mean: “ — lost sight of — ”? Ridiculous!»

«Be that as it may, my dear, he's gone. Disappeared from his hospital room yesterday.»

«Preposterous! How could he?»

«Disguised as a nurse, apparently.»

«But — Never mind. He's gone, that's the main thing. What muddle-headed scheme are you using to get him back?»