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
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 —
The hell of it is, he admitted, she
He tried to remember how it had changed. Mrs. Douglas's biography
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?»
«Well, we have people searching. Trusted ones. Berquist — »
«
«But, my dear, you don't see the situation. We
«
«But, my dear, you suggested it.»
«I did not. And don't contradict me. Mmm … send for Berquist.»
«Uh, Berquist is out on his trail. He hasn't reported back yet.»
«Uh? Berquist is half way to Zanzibar by now. He's sold us out. I never did trust that man. I told you when you hired him that — »
«When
«Don't interrupt. -that any man who takes money two ways would take it three ways.» She frowned. «Joseph, the Eastern Coalition is behind this. You can expect a vote-of-confidence move in the Assembly.»
«Eh? I don't see why. Nobody knows it.»
«Oh, for Heaven's sake! Everybody will know; the Eastern Coalition will see to that. Keep quiet and let me think.»
Douglas shut up. He read that the Los Angeles City-County Council had petitioned the Federation for aid in their smog problem, on the grounds the Ministry of Health had failed to provide something or other — a sop must be thrown to them as Charlie was going to have a tough time being reelected with the Fosterites running their own candidate. Lunar Enterprises was up two points at closing —
«Joseph.»
«Yes, my dear?»
«Our “Man from Mars” is the only one; the one the Eastern Coalition will pop up with is a fake. That is how it must be.»
«But, my dear, we can't make it stick.»
«What do you mean, we can't? We've
«But we
«Scientists!»
«But they can, you know.»
«I don't know anything of the sort. Scientists indeed! Half guess work and half superstition. They ought to be locked up; they ought to be prohibited by law. Joseph, I've told you repeatedly, the only true science is astrology.»
«Well, I don't know, my dear. I'm not running down astrology — »
«You'd better not! After all it's done for
« — but these science professors are pretty sharp. One was telling me the other day about a star that weighs six thousand times as much as lead. Or was it sixty thousand? Let me see — »
