more suited for enfolding the self. He looked with interest at the view window at one end but did not recognize it as such, mistaking it for a living picture like those at home … his suite at Bethesda had no windows, it being in a new wing; he had never acquired the idea of «window.»
He noticed with approval that simulation of depth and movement in the «picture» was perfect — some very great artist must have created it. Up to now he had seen nothing to cause him to think that these people possessed art; his grokking of them was increased by this new experience and he felt warmed.
A movement caught his eye; he turned to find his brother removing false skins and slippers from its legs.
Jill sighed and wiggled her toes in the grass. «Gosh, how my feet hurt!» She glanced up and saw Smith watching with that curiously disturbing baby-faced stare. «Do it yourself. You'll love it.»
He blinked. «How do?»
«I keep forgetting. Come here. I'll help.» She got his shoes off, untaped the stockings and peeled them off. «There, doesn't that feel good?»
Smith wiggled his toes in the grass, then said timidly, «But these live?»
«Sure, it's alive, it's real grass. Ben paid a lot to have it that way. Why, the special lighting circuits alone cost more than I make in a month. So walk around and let your feet enjoy it.»
Smith missed most of this but did understand that grass was living beings and that he was being invited to walk on them. «Walk on living things?» He asked with incredulous horror.
«Huh? Why not? It doesn't hurt this grass; it was specially developed for house rugs.»
Smith was forced to remind himself that a water brother could not lead him into wrongful action. He let himself be encouraged to walk around — and found that he did enjoy it and the living creatures did not protest. He set his sensitivity for such as high as possible; his brother was right, this was their proper being — to be walked on. He resolved to enfold and praise it, an effort like that of a human trying to appreciate the merits of cannibalism — a custom which Smith found proper.
Jill let out a sigh. «I must stop playing. I don't know how long we will be safe.»
«Safe?»
«We can't stay here. They may be checking on everything that left the Center.» She frowned in thought. Her place would not do, this place would not do — and Ben had intended to take him to Jubal Harshaw. But she did not know Harshaw, nor where he lived — somewhere in the Poconos, Ben had said. Well, she would have to find out; she had nowhere else to turn.
«Why are you not happy, my brother?»
Jill snapped out of it and looked at Smith. Why, the poor infant didn't know anything was wrong! She tried to look at it from his point of view. She failed, but did grasp that he had no notion that they were running away from … from what? The cops? The hospital authorities? She was not sure what she had done, what laws she had broken; she simply knew that she had pitted herself against the Big People, the Bosses.
How could she tell the Man from Mars what they were up against when she herself did not know? Did they have policemen on Mars? Half the time talking to him was like shouting down a rain barrel.
Heavens, did they even have rain barrels on Mars? Or rain?
«Never mind,» she said soberly. «You just do what I tell you to.»
«Yes.»
It was an unlimited acceptance, an eternal yea. Jill suddenly felt that Smith would jump out the window if she told him to — and she was correct; he would have jumped, enjoyed every second of the twenty-story drop, and accepted without surprise or resentment discorporation on impact. Nor would he have been unaware that such a fall would kill him; fear of death was an idea beyond him. If a water brother selected for him such strange discorporation, he would cherish it and try to grok.
«Well, we can't stand here. I've got to feed us, I've got to get you into different clothes, and we've got to leave. Take those off.» She left to check Ben's wardrobe.
She selected a travel suit, a beret, shirt, underclothes, shoes, then returned. Smith was snarled like a kitten in knitting; he had one arm prisoned and his face wrapped in the skirt. He had not removed the cape before trying to take off the dress.
Jill said, «Oh, dear!» and ran to help.
She got him loose from the clothes, then stuffed them down the oubliette … she would pay Etta Schere later and she did not want cops finding them — just in case. «You are going to have a bath, my good man, before I dress you in Ben's clean clothes. They've been neglecting you. Come along.» Being a nurse, she was inured to bad odors, but (being a nurse) she was fanatic about soap and water … and it seemed that no one had bathed this patient recently. While Smith did not stink, he did remind her of a horse on a hot day.
With delight he watched her fill the tub. There was a tub in the bathroom of suite K-12 but Smith had not known its use; bed baths were what he had had and not many of those; his trancelike withdrawals had interfered.
Jill tested the temperature. «All right, climb in.»
Smith looked puzzled.
«Hurry!» Jill said sharply. «Get in the water.»
The words were in his human vocabulary and Smith did as ordered, emotion shaking him. This brother wanted him to place
He placed one trembling foot in the water, then the other … slipped down until water covered him completely.
«Hey!» yelled Jill, and dragged his head above water — was shocked to find that she seemed to be handling a corpse. Good Lord! he couldn't
From far away Smith heard his brother call, and returned. His eyes ceased to be glazed, his heart speeded up, he resumed breathing. «Are you all right?» Jill demanded.
«I am all right. I am very happy … my brother.»
«You scared me. Look, don't get under the water again. Just sit up, the way you are now.»
«Yes, my brother.» Smith added something in a croaking meaningless to Jill, cupped a handful of water as if it were precious jewels and raised it to his lips. His mouth touched it, then he offered it to Jill.
«Hey, don't drink your bath water! Now, I don't want it, either.»
«Not drink?»
His defenseless hurt was such that Jill did not know what to do. She hesitated, then bent her head and touched her lips to the offering. «Thank you.»
«May you never thirst!»
«I hope you are never thirsty, too. But that's enough. If you want a drink, I'll get you one. Don't drink any more of this water.»
Smith seemed satisfied and sat quietly. By now Jill knew that he had never had a tub bath and did not know what was expected. No doubt she could coach him … but they were losing precious time.
Oh, well! It was not as bad as tending disturbed patients in N.P. wards. Her blouse was wet to the shoulders from dragging Smith off the bottom; she took it off and hung it up. She had been dressed for the street and was wearing a little pediskirt that floated around her knees. She glanced down. Although the pleats were permanized, it was silly to get it wet. She shrugged and zipped it off; it left her in brassiиre and panties.
Smith was staring with the interested eyes of a baby. Jill found herself blushing, which surprised her. She believed herself to be free of morbid modesty — she recalled suddenly that she had gone on her first bareskin swimming party at fifteen. But this childlike stare bothered her; she decided to put up with wet underwear rather than do the obvious.
She covered discomposure with heartiness. «Let's get busy and scrub the hide.» She knelt beside the tub, sprayed soap on him, and started working it into lather.
Presently Smith reached out and touched her right mammary gland. Jill drew back hastily. «Hey! None of that!»
