Changing spools the next day was easy; the patient was asleep. She woke while Jill was perched on a chair; Jill diverted her with a spicy ward rumor.
Jill sent the exposed wire by mail, as the postal system seemed safer than a cloak and dagger ruse. But her attempt to insert a third spool she muffed. She waited for the patient to be asleep but had just mounted the chair when the patient woke. «Oh! Hello, Miss Boardman.»
Jill froze. «Hello, Mrs. Fritschlie,» she managed to answer. «Have a nice nap?»
«Fair,» the woman answered peevishly. «My back aches.»
«I'll rub it.»
«Doesn't help. Why are you always fiddling in my closet? Is something wrong?»
Jill tried to reswallow her stomach. «Mice,» she answered.
«“Mice”? Oh I'll have to have another room!»
Jill tore the instrument loose and stuffed it into her pocket, jumped down. «Now, now, Mrs. Fritschlie — I was just looking to see if there were mouse holes. There aren't.»
«You're
«Quite sure. Now let's rub the back. Easy over.»
Jill decided to risk the empty room which was part of K- 12, the suite of the Man from Mars. She got the pass key.
Only to find the room unlocked and holding two more marines; the guard had been doubled. One looked around as she opened the door. «Looking for someone?»
«No. Don't sit on the bed, boys,» she said crisply. «If you need chairs, we'll send for them.» The guard got reluctantly up; she left, trying to conceal her trembling.
The bug was still in her pocket when she went off duty; she decided to return it to Caxton. Once in the air and headed toward Ben's apartment she breathed easier. She phoned him in flight.
«Caxton speaking.»
«Jill, Ben. I want to see you.»
He answered slowly,«I don't think it's smart.»
«Ben, I've got to. I'm on my way.»
«Well, okay, if that's how it's got to be.»
«Such enthusiasm!»
«Now look, hon, it isn't that I — »
«'Bye!» She switched off, calmed down and decided not to take it out on Ben — they were playing out of their league. At least she was — she should have left politics alone.
She felt better when she snuggled into his arms. Ben was such a dear — maybe she should marry him. When she tried to speak he put a hand over her mouth, whispered, «Don't talk. I may be wired.»
She nodded, got out the recorder, handed it to him. His eyebrows went up but he made no comment. Instead he handed her a copy of the afternoon
«Seen the paper?» he said in a natural voice. «You might glance at it while I wash up.»
«Thanks.» As she took it he pointed to a column, then left, taking with him the recorder. The column was Ben's own:
THE CROW'S NEST
by Ben Caxton
Everyone knows that jails and hospitals have one thing in common: they can be very hard to get out of. In some ways a prisoner is less cut off than a patient; a prisoner can send for his lawyer, demand a Fair Witness, invoke
But it takes only a NO VISITORS sign, ordered by one of the medicine men of our peculiar tribe, to consign a hospital patient to oblivion more thoroughly than ever was the Man in the Iron Mask.
To be sure, the patient's next of kin cannot be kept out — but the Man from Mars seems to have no next of kin. The crew of the ill-fated Envoy had few ties on Earth; if the Man in the Iron Mask — pardon me; I mean the «Man from Mars» — has any relative guarding his interests, a few thousand reporters have been unable to verify it.
Who speaks for the Man from Mars? Who ordered an armed guard placed around him? What is his dread disease that no one may glimpse him, nor ask him a question? I address
Could this disease be financial in nature? Or (let's say it softly) is it political?
There was more of the same; Jill could see that Ben was baiting the administration, trying to force them into the open. She felt that Caxton was taking serious risk in challenging the authorities, but she had no notion of the size of the danger, nor what form it might take.
She thumbed through the paper. It was loaded with stories on the
Ben came out and dropped sheets of onionskin in her lap. «Here's another newspaper.» He left again.
Jill saw that the «newspaper» was a transcription of what her first wire had picked up. It was marked «First Voice,» «Second Voice,» and so on, but Ben had written in names wherever he had been able to make attributions. He had written across the top: «All voices are masculine.»
Most items merely showed that Smith had been fed, washed, massaged and that he had exercised under supervision of a voice identified as «Doctor Nelson» and one marked «second doctor.»
One passage had nothing to do with care of the patient. Jill reread it:
Doctor Nelson: How are you feeling, boy? Strong enough to talk?
Smith: Yes.
Doctor Nelson: A man wants to talk to you.
Smith: (pause) Who? (Caxton had written: All of Smith's speeches are preceded by pauses.)
Nelson: This man is our great (untranscribable guttural word — Martian?). He is our oldest Old One. Will you talk with him?
Smith: (very long pause) I am great happy. The Old One will talk and I will listen and grow.
Nelson: No, no! He wants to ask you questions.
Smith: I cannot teach an Old One.
Nelson: The Old One wishes it. Will you let him ask you questions?
Smith: Yes.
(Background noises)
Nelson: This way, sir. I have Doctor Mahmoud standing by to translate.
Jill read «New Voice.» Caxton had scratched this out and written in: «Secretary General Douglas! ! !»
Secretary General: I won't need him. You say Smith understands English.
Nelson: Well, yes and no, Your Excellency. He knows a number of words, but, as Mahmoud says, he doesn't have any cultural context to hang them on. It can be confusing.
Secretary General: Oh, we'll get along, I'm sure. When I was a youngster I hitchhiked all through Brazil, without a word of Portuguese when I started. Now, if you will introduce us — then leave us alone.
Nelson: Sir? I had better stay with my patient.
Secretary General: Really, Doctor? I'm afraid I must insist. Sorry.
Nelson: And I am afraid that
Secretary General: (interrupting) As a lawyer, I know something of medical jurisprudence — so don't give me that «medical ethics» mumbo-jumbo. Did this patient select you?
Nelson: Not exactly, but —
Secretary General: Has he had opportunity to choose physicians? I doubt it. His status is ward of the state. I am acting as next of kin, de
Nelson: (long pause, then very stiffly) If you put it that way, Your Excellency, I withdraw from the case.
