Gillian glanced fearfully around her - at a scene almost unbearably peaceful, bucolic, and beautiful - then covered her face with her hands. 'Jubal? I don't know what to do!'
'Snap out of it,' he said gruffly. 'Don't bawl over Ben - not in my presence. The worst that can possibly have happened to him is death and that we are all in for - if not this morning, then in days, or weeks, or years at most. Talk to your protg Mike about it. He regards 'discorporation' as less to be feared than a scolding - and he may be right. Why, if I told Mike we were going to roast him and serve him for dinner tonight, he would thank me for the honor with his voice choked with gratitude.'
'I know he would,' Jill agreed in a small voice, 'but I don't have his philosophical attitude about such things.'
'Nor do I,' Harshaw agreed cheerfully, 'but I'm beginning to grasp it - and I must say that it is a consoling one to a man of my age. A capacity for enjoying the inevitable - why, I've been cultivating that all my life? but this infant from Mars, barely old enough to vote and too unsophisticated to stand clear of the horse cars, has me convinced that I've just reached the kindergarten class in this all-important subject. Jill, you asked if Mike was welcome to stay on. Child, he's the most welcome guest I've ever had. I want to keep that boy around until I've found out what it is that he knows and I don't! This 'discorporation' thing in particular it's not the Freudian 'death- wish' clich, I'm sure of that. It has nothing to do with life being unbearable. None of that 'Even the weariest river' stuff - it's more like Stevenson's 'Glad did I live and gladly die and I lay me down with a will!' Only I've always suspected that Stevenson was either whistling in the dark, or, more likely, enjoying the compensating euphoria of consumption. But Mike has me halfway convinced that he really knows what he is talking about.'
'I don't know,' Jill answered dully. 'I'm just worried about Ben.'
'So am I,' agreed Jubal. 'So let's discuss Mike another time. Jill, I don't think that Ben is simply hiding any more than you do.'
'But you said-'
'Sorry. I didn't finish. My hired men didn't limit themselves to Ben's office and Paoli Flat. On Thursday morning Ben called at Bethesda Medical Center in company with the lawyer he uses and a Fair Witness - the famous James Oliver Cavendish, in case you follow such things.'
'I don't, I'm afraid.'
'No matter. The fact that Ben retained Cavendish shows how seriously he took the matter; you don't hunt rabbits with an elephant gun. The three were taken to see the 'Man from Mars'-'
Gillian gaped, then said explosively, 'That's impossible! They couldn't have come on that floor without my knowing it!'
'Take it easy, Jill. You're disputing a report by a Fair Witness and not just any Fair Witness. Cavendish himself. If he says it, it's gospel.'
'I don't care if he's the Twelve Apostles! He wasn't on my floor last Thursday morning!'
'You didn't listen closely. I didn't say that they were taken to see our friend Mike - I said they were taken to see 'The Man from Mars.' The phony one, obviously - that actor fellow they stereovised.'
'Oh. Of course, And Ben caught them out!'
Jubal looked pained. 'Little girl, count to ten thousand by twos while I finish this. Ben did not catch them out. In fact, even the Honorable Mr. Cavendish did not catch them out - at least he won't say so. You know how Fair Witnesses behave.'
'Well? no, I don't. I've never had any dealings with Fair Witnesses.'
'So? Perhaps you weren't aware of it. Anne!'
Anne was seated on the springboard; she turned her head. Jubal called out, 'That new house on the far hilltop - can you see what color they've painted it?'
Anne looked in the direction in which Jubal was pointing and answered, 'It's white on this side.' She did not inquire why Jubal had asked, nor make any comment.
Jubal went on to Jill in normal tones, 'You see? Anne is so thoroughly indoctrinated that it doesn't even occur to her to infer that the other side is probably white, too. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't force her to commit herself as to the far side - unless she herself went around to the other side and looked - and even then she wouldn't assume that it stayed whatever color it might be after she left because they might repaint it as soon as she turned her back,'
'Anne is a Fair Witness?'
'Graduate, unlimited license, and admitted to testify before the High Court. Sometime ask her why she decided to give up public practice. But don't plan on anything else that day - the wench will recite the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that takes time. Back to Mr. Cavendish - Ben retained him for open witnessing, full disclosure, without enjoining him to privacy. So when Cavendish was questioned, he answered, in full and boring detail. I've got a tape of it upstairs. But the interesting part of his report is what he does not say. He never states that the man they were taken to see was not the Man from Mars? but not one word can be construed as indicating that Cavendish accepted the exhibit he was called to view as being in fact the Man from Mars. If you knew Cavendish - and I do - this would be conclusive. If Cavendish had seen Mike, even for a few minutes, he would have reported what he had seen with such exactness that you and I, who know Mike, would know that he had seen him. For example, Cavendish reports in precise professional jargon the shape of this exhibit's ears? and it does not match Mike's ear shape at all. Q.E.D.; he didn't see Mike. Nor did Ben. They were shown a phony. Furthermore Cavendish knows it, even though he is professionally restrained from giving opinions or conclusions.'
'But I told you so. They never came near my floor.'
'Yes. But it tells us something more. This occurred hours before you pulled your jail break for Mike - about eight hours earlier, as Cavendish sets their arrival in the presence of the phony 'Man from Mars' at 9.14 Thursday morning. That is to say, the government still had Mike under their thumb at that moment. In the same building. They could have exhibited him. Yet they took the really grave risk of offering a phony for inspection by the most noted Fair Witness in Washington - in the country. Why?'
He waited. Jill answered slowly, 'You're asking me? I don't know. Ben told me that he intended to ask Mike if he wanted to leave the hospital - and help him to do so if he said, 'Yes.''
'Which Ben did try, with the phony.'
'So? Out, Jubal, they couldn't have known that Ben intended to do that? and, anyhow, Mike wouldn't have left with Ben.'
'Why not? Later that day he left with you.'
'Yes - but I was already his 'water brother,' just as you are now. He has this crazy Martian idea that he can trust utterly anyone with whom he has shared a drink of water. With a 'water brother' he is completely docile and with anybody else he is stubborn as a mule. Ben couldn't have budged him.' She added, 'At least that is the way he was last week - he's changing awfully fast.'
'So he is. Too fast, maybe. I've never seen muscle tissue develop so rapidly - I'm sorry I didn't weigh him the day you arrived. Never mind, back to Ben - Cavendish reports that Ben dropped him and the lawyer, a chap named Frisby, at nine thirty-one, and Ben kept the cab. We don't know where Ben went then. But an hour later he - or let's say somebody who said he was Ben - phoned that message to Paoli Flat.'
'You don't think it was Ben?'
'I do not. Cavendish reported the license number of the cab and my scouts tried to get a look at the daily trip tape for that cab. If Ben used his credit card, rather than feeding coins into the cab's meter, his charge number should be printed on the tape - but even if he paid cash the tape should show where the cab had been and when.'
'Well?'
Harshaw shrugged. 'The records show that that cab was in for repairs and was never in use Thursday morning. That gives us two choices: either a Fair Witness misread or misremembered a cab's serial number or somebody tampered with the record.' He added grimly, 'Maybe a jury would decide that even a Fair Witness could glance at a cab's serial number and misread it, especially if he had not been asked to remember it - but I don't believe it? not when the Witness is James Oliver Cavendish. Cavendish would either be certain of that serial number - or his report would never mention it.'
Harshaw scowled and went on, 'Jill, you're forcing me to rub my own nose in it - and I don't like it, I don't like it at all! Granted that Ben could have sent that message, it is most unlikely that he could have tampered with the daily record of that cab? and still less believable that he had any reason to. No, let's face it. Ben went somewhere
