'Jubal, I don't like the idea much better than you do.'
'Oh, come on! In the interest of science? and Ben Caxton.'
'But-' Jill jumped up suddenly, grabbed the box, threw it right at Jubal's head. Jubal intended to stand and take it - but instinct and habit won out; he ducked.
'Missed me,' he said. 'But where is it?' He looked around. 'Confound it, I wasn't watching. I meant to keep my eyes right on it.' He looked at Smith. 'Mike, is that the way - what's the matter, boy?'
The Man from Mars was trembling and looking unhappy. Jill hurried to him and put her arms around his shoulders. 'There, there, it's all right, dear! You did it beautifully - whatever it is. It never touched Jubal. It simply vanished.'
'I guess it did,' Jubal admitted, looking all around the room and chewing his thumb. 'Anne, were you watching?'
'Yes.'
'What did you see?'
'The box did not simply vanish. The process was not quite instantaneous but lasted some measurable fraction of a second. From where I am sitting it appeared to shrink very, very rapidly, as if it were disappearing into the far distance. But it did not go outside the room, for I could see it right up to the instant it disappeared.'
'But where did it go?'
'That is all I can report.'
'Mmm? we'll run off the films later - but I'm convinced. Mike-'
'Yes, Jubal?'
'Where is that box now?'
'The box is-' Smith paused. 'Again I have not words. I am sorry.'
'I'm not sorry, but I'm certainly confused. Look, son, can you reach in again and haul it out? Bring the box back here?'
'Beg pardon?'
'You made it go away; now make it come back.'
'How can I do that? The box is nor.'
Jubal looked very thoughtful. 'If this method ever becomes popular, we'll have to revise the rules concerning corpus delecti. 'I've got a little list they never will be missed.' Jill, let's find something else that will make a not- quite-lethal weapon; this time I'm going to keep my eyes open. Mike, how close do you have to be to do this trick?'
'Beg pardon?'
'What's your range? If you had been standing out there in the hallway and I had been clear back by the window - oh, say thirty feet - could you have stopped that box from hitting me?'
Smith appeared mildly surprised. 'Yes.'
'Hmm? come over here by the window. Now look down there at the swimming poo1. Suppose that Jill and I had been over on the far side of the pool and you had been standing right where you are. Could you have stopped the box from here?'
'Yes, Jubal.'
'Well? suppose Jill and I were clear down the road there at the gate, a quarter of a mile away. Suppose we were standing just this side of those bushes that shield the gate, where you could see us clearly. Is that too far?'
Smith hesitated a long time, then spoke slowly. 'Jubal, it is not the distance. It is not the seeing. It is the knowing.'
'Hmm? let's see if I grok it. Or grok part of it. It doesn't matter how far or how close a thing is. You don't even have to see it happening. But if you know that a bad thing is happening, you can reach out and stop it. Right?'
Smith looked slightly troubled. 'Almost it is right. But I am not long out of the nest. For knowing I must see. But an Old One does not need eyes to know. He knows. He groks. He acts. I am sorry.'
'I don't know what you are sorry about, son,' Jubal said gruffly. 'The High Minister for Peace would have declared you Top Secret ten minutes ago.'
'Beg pardon?'
'Never mind. What you do is quite good enough in this vicinity.' Jubal returned to his desk, looked around thoughtfully and picked up a ponderous metal ash tray. 'Jill, don't aim at my face this time; this thing has sharp corners. Okay, Mike, you stand clear out in the hallway.'
'Jubal? my brother? please not!'
'What's the trouble, son? You did it beautifully a few minutes ago. I want one more demonstration - and this time I won't take my eyes off it.'
'Jubal-'
'Yes, Jill?'
'I think I grok what is bothering Mike.'
'Well, tell me then, for I don't.'
'We set up an experiment where I was about to hurt you by hitting you with that box. But both of us are his water brothers - so it upset Mike that I even tried to hurt you. I think there is something very un-Martian about such a situation. It puts Mike in a dilemma. Divided loyalty.'
Harshaw frowned. 'Maybe it should be investigated by the Committee on un-Martian Activities.'
'I'm not joking, Jubal.'
'Nor was I - for we may need such a committee all too soon. I wonder how Mrs. O'Leary's cow felt as she kicked the lantern? All right, Jill, you sit down and I'll re-rig the experiment.' Harshaw handed the ash tray to Mike. 'Feel how heavy it is, son, and see those sharp corners.'
Smith examined it somewhat gingerly. Harshaw went on, 'I'm going to throw it straight up in the air, clear to the ceiling - and let it hit me in the head as it comes down.'
Mike stared at him. 'My brother? you will now discorporate?'
'Eh? No, no! It won't kill me and I don't want to die. But it will cut me and hurt me - unless you stop it. Here we go!' Harshaw tossed it straight up within inches of the high ceiling, tracking it with his eyes like a soccer player waiting to pass the ball with his head. He concentrated on watching it, while one part of his mind was considering jerking his head aside at the last instant rather than take the nasty scalp wound the heavy, ugly thing was otherwise sure to give him - and another small piece of his mind reckoned cynically that he would never miss this chattel; he had never liked it - but it had been a gift.
The ash tray topped its trajectory, and stayed there.
Harshaw looked at it, with a feeling that he was stuck in one frame of a motion picture. Presently he remembered to breathe and found that he needed to, badly. Without taking his eyes off it he croaked, 'Anne. What do you see?'
She answered in a flat voice, 'That ash tray is five inches from the ceiling. I do not see anything holding it up.' Then she added in tones less certain, 'Jubal, I think that's what I'm seeing? but if the cameras don't show the same thing, I'm going to turn in my robe and tear up my license.'
'Um. Jill?'
'It floats. It just floats.'
Jubal sighed, Went to his chair and sat down heavily, all without taking his eyes off the unruly ash tray. 'Mike,' he said, 'what went wrong? Why didn't it disappear like the box?'
'But, Jubal,' Mike said apologetically, 'you said to stop it; you did not say to make it go away. When I made the box go away, you wanted it to be again. Have I done wrongly?'
'Oh. No, you have done exactly right. I keep forgetting that you always take things literally.' Harshaw recalled certain colloquial insults common in his early years - and reminded himself forcefully never, never to use any of such to Michael Valentine Smith - for, if he told the boy to drop dead or to get lost, Harshaw now felt certain that the literal meaning of his words would at once ensue.
'I am glad,' Smith answered soberly. 'I am sorry I could not make the box be again. I am sorry twice that I wasted so much food. But I did not know how to help it. Then a necessity was. Or so I grokked.'
'Eh? What food?'
Jill said hastily, 'He's talking about those two men, Jubal. Berquist and the cop with him - if he was a cop.
