leave.
'Hold it, Jill.'
'Sir?'
'Sit back down - and for God's sake quit trying to be as nasty as I am; you don't have my years of practice. Now let me get something straight: you are not in my debt. You can't be. Impossible - because I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it. So please don't invent a debt that does not exist, or before you know it you will be trying to feel gratitude - and that is the treacherous first step downward to complete moral degradation. You grok that? Or don't you?'
Jill bit her lip, then grinned. 'I'm not sure I know what 'grok' means.'
'Nor do I. But I intend to go on taking lessons from Mike until I do. But I was speaking dead seriously. Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment. Resentment from most people I do not mind - but from pretty little girls it is distasteful to me.'
'Why, Jubal, I don't resent you - that's silly.'
'I hope you don't? but you certainly will if you don't root out of your mind this delusion that you are indebted to me. The Japanese have five different ways to say 'thank you' - and every one of them translates literally as resentment, in various degrees. Would that English had the same built-in honesty on this point! Instead, English is capable of defining sentiments that the human nervous system is quite incapable of experiencing. 'Gratitude,' for example.'
'Jubal, you're a cynical old man. I do feel grateful to you and I shall go on feeling grateful.'
'And you are a sentimental young girl. That makes us a perfect complementary pair. Hmm - let's run over to Atlantic City for a weekend of illicit debauchery, just us two.'
'Why, Jubal!'
'You see how deep your gratitude goes when I attempt to draw on it?'
'Oh. I'm ready. How soon do we leave?'
'Hmmmphtt. We should have left forty years ago. Shut up. The second point I want to make is that you are right; the boy does indeed have to learn human customs. He must be taught to take off his shoes in a mosque and to wear his hat in a synagogue and to cover his nakedness when taboo requires it, or our tribal shamans will burn him for deviationism. But, child, by the myriad deceptive aspects of Ahrilflafl, don't brainwash him in the process. Make sure he is cynical about each part of it.'
'Uh, I'm not sure how to go about that, Jubal. Well, Mike just doesn't seem to have any cynicism in him.'
'So? Yes. Well, I'll take a hand in it. What's keeping him? Shouldn't he be dressed by now?'
'I'll go see.'
'In a moment. Jill, I explained to you why I had not been anxious to accuse anyone of kidnapping Ben? and the reports I have had since serve to support the probability that that was a tactically correct decision. If Ben is being unlawfully detained (to put it at its sweetest), at least we have not crowded the opposition into getting rid of the evidence by getting rid of Ben. If he is alive he stands a chance of staying alive. But I took other steps the first night you were here. Do you know your Bible?'
'Uh, not very well.'
'It merits study, it contains very practical advice for most emergencies. '-every one that doeth evil hateth the light-' John something or other, Jesus speaking to Nicodeus. I have been expecting at any moment an attempt to get Mike away from us, for it didn't seem likely that you had managed to cover your tracks perfectly. And if they do try? Well, this is a lonely place and we haven't any heavy artillery. But there is one weapon that might balk them. Light. The glaring spotlight of publicity. So I made some phone calls and arranged for any ruckus here to have publicity. Not just a little publicity that the administration might be able to hush up, but great gobs of publicity worldwide and all at once. The details do not matter - where and how the cameras are mounted and what line of sight linkages have been rigged, I mean. But if a fight breaks out here, it will be picked up by three networks and, at the same time, a number of hold for release messages will be delivered to a wide spread of V.I.P.s, all of whom would like very much to catch our Honorable Secretary General with his pants down.'
Harshaw frowned. 'The weakness in this defense is that I can't maintain it indefinitely. Truthfully, when I set it up, my worry was to set up fast enough - I expected whatever popped' to pop inside of twenty four hours. Now my worry is reversed and I think we are going to have to force some action quickly while I can still keep a spotlight on us.'
'What sort of action, Jubal?'
'I don't know. I've been fretting about it the past three days, to the point where I can't enjoy my food. But you gave me a glimmer of a new approach when you told me that remarkable story about what happened when they tried to grab you two in Ben's apartment.'
'I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, Jubal. But I didn't think anybody would believe me and I must say that it makes me feel good that you do believe me.'
'I didn't say I believed you.'
'What? But you-'
'I think you were telling the truth, Jill. But a dream IS a true experience of a sort and so is a hypnotic delusion. But what happens in this room during the next half hour will be seen by a Fair Witness and by cameras which are' he leaned forward and pressed a button. 'rolling right now. I don't think Anne can be hypnotized when she's on duty and I'll lay long odds that cameras can't be. We should be able to find out what kind of truth we're dealing with - after which we should be able to decide how to go about forcing the powers-that-be to drop the other shoe? and maybe figure a way that will help Ben at the same time. Go get Mike.'
Mike's delay was not mysterious, merely worrisome to him. He had managed to tie his left shoestring to his right - then had stood up, tripped himself, fallen flat, and, in so doing, jerked the knots almost hopelessly tight. He had spent the rest of the time analysing his predicament, concluding correctly why he had failed, and slowly, slowly, slowly getting the snarl untied and the strings correctly tied, one bow to each shoe, unlinked. He had not been aware that his dressing had taken long; he had simply been troubled that he had failed to repeat correctly something which Jill had already taught him. He confessed his failure abjectly to her even though he had repaired it by the time she came to fetch him.
She soothed and reassured him, combed his hair, and herded him in to see Jubal. Harshaw looked up. 'Hi, son. Sit down.'
'Hi, Jubal,' Valentine Michael Smith answered gravely, sat down - waited. Jill had to rid herself of the impression that Smith had bowed deeply, when in fact he had not even nodded.
Harshaw put aside a hush-mike and said, 'Well, boy what have you learned today?'
Smith smiled happily, then answered - as always with a slight pause. 'I have today learned to do a one-and-a- half gainer. That is a jumping, a dive, for entering our water by-'
'I know, I saw you doing it. But you splashed. Keep your toes pointed, your knees straight, and your feet together.'
Smith looked unhappy. 'I rightly did not it do?'
'You did it very rightly, for a first time. Watch how Dorcas does it. Hardly a ripple in the water.'
Smith considered this slowly. 'The water groks Dorcas. It cherishes him.'
''Her.' Dorcas is a 'her,' not a 'him.''
''Her,' ' Smith corrected. 'Then my speaking was false? I have read in Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, published in Springfield, Massachusetts, that the masculine gender includes the feminine gender in speaking. In Hagworth's Law of Contracts, Fifth Edition, Chicago, Illinois, 1978, on page 1012, it says-'
'Hold it,' Harshaw said hastily. 'The trouble is with the English language, not with you. Masculine speech forms do include the feminine, when you are speaking in general - but not when you are talking about a particular person. Dorcas is always 'she' or 'her' - never 'he' or 'him.' Remember it.'
'I will remember it.'
'You had better remember it - or you may provoke Dorcas into proving just how female she is.' Harshaw blinked thoughtfully. 'Jill, is the lad sleeping with you? Or with one of you?'
She barely hesitated, then answered flatly, 'So far as I know, Mike doesn't sleep.'
'You evaded my question.'
'Then perhaps you had better assume that I intended to evade it. However, he is not sleeping with me.'
