to Jubal? and he wasn't trying to catch Jubal's eye now.
Damn it, the only thing to do was to keep quiet and go on trying to impress on the boy that he simply must not go around making unpleasant strangers disappear!
Jubal was saved from further soul-searching (and the stag conversation was broken up) by Anne's arrival. 'Boss, that Mr. Bradley is at the door. The one who called himself 'senior executive assistant to the Secretary General.'
'You didn't let him in?'
'No. I looked at him through the one-way and talked to him through the speakie. He says he has papers to deliver to you, personally, and that he will wait for an answer.'
'Have him pass them through the flap. And you tell him that you are my 'senior executive assistant' and that you will fetch my receipt acknowledging personal delivery if that is what he wants. This is still the Martian Embassy - until I check what's in those papers.'
'Just let him stand in the corridor?'
'I've no doubt that Major Bloch can find him a chair. Anne, I am aware that you were gently reared - but this is a situation in which rudeness pays off. We don't give an inch, nor a kind word, until we get exactly what we want.'
'Yes, Boss.'
The package was bulky because there were many copies; there was one document only. Jubal called in everyone and passed them around. 'Girls, I am offering one lollipop for each loophole, boobytrap, or ambiguity - prizes of similar value to males. Now everybody keep quiet.'
Presently Jubal broke the silence. 'He's an honest politician - he stays bought.'
'Looks that way,' admitted Caxton.
'Anybody?' No one claimed a prize; Douglas had kept it simple and straightforward, merely implementing the agreement reached earlier. 'Okay,' said Jubal, 'everybody is to witness every copy, after Mike signs it - especially you, Skipper, and Sven and Stinky. Get your seal, Miriam. Hell, let Bradley in now and have him witness, too - then give the poor guy a drink. Duke, call the desk and tell 'em to send up the bill; we're checking out. Then call Greyhound and tell 'em we want our go-buggy. Sven, Skipper, Stinky - we're getting out of here the way Lot left Sodom?why don't you three come up in the country with us, take off your shoes, and relax? Plenty of beds, home cooking, and no worries.'
The two married men asked for, and received, rain checks; Dr. Mahmoud accepted. The signing took rather long, mostly because Mike enjoyed signing his name, drawing each letter with great care and artistic satisfaction. The salvageable remains of the picnic (mostly unopened bottles) had been sent up and loaded by the time all copies were signed and sealed, and the hotel bill had arrived.
Jubal glanced at the fat total and did not bother to add it. Instead he wrote on it: 'Approved for payment - J. Harshaw for V. M. Smith,' and handed it to Bradley.
'This is your boss's worry now,' he told Bradley.
Bradley blinked. 'Sir?'
'Oh, just to keep it 'via channels.' Mr. Douglas will doubtless turn it over to the Chief of Protocol. Isn't that the usual procedure? I'm rather green about these things.'
Bradley accepted the bill. 'Yes,' he said slowly. 'Yes, that's right. LaRue will voucher it - I'll give it to him.'
'Thank you, Mr. Bradley. Thanks for everything!'
PART THREE: HIS ECCENTRIC EDUCATION
XXII
IN ONE LIMB OF A SPIRAL GALAXY, close to a star known as 'Sol' to some of its dependents, another star of the same type underwent catastrophic readjustment and became nova. Its glory would be seen on Mars in another three-replenished (729) years, or 1370 Terran years. The Old Ones noted the coming event as being useful, shortly, for instruction of the young, while never ceasing the exciting and crucial discussion of esthetic problems concerning the new epic woven around the death of the Fifth Planet.
The departure of the spaceship Champion for its home planet was noted without comment and a watch was kept on the strange nestling sent back in it, but nothing more, since it would be some time yet before it would be fruitful to grok the outcome. The twenty-three humans left behind on Mars coped, successfully in most ways, with an environment lethal to naked humans but less difficult, on the whole, than that in the Free State of Antarctica. One of them discorporated through an undiagnosed illness sometimes called 'heartbreak' and at other times 'homesickness.' The Old Ones cherished the wounded spirit and sent it back where it belonged for further healing; aside from that the Martians left the Terrans alone.
On Earth the exploding neighbor star was not noticed at all, human astronomers still being limited by speed of light. The Man from Mars, having been briefly back in the news, had dropped out of the news again. The minority leader in the Federation Senate called for 'a bold, new approach' to the twin problems of population and malnutrition in southeast Asia, starting with increased emergency grants-in-aid to families with more than five children. Mrs. Percy B. S. Souchek sued the supervisors of Los Angeles City-County over the death of her pet poodle Piddle which had taken place during a five-day period of stationary inversion layer. Cynthia Duchess announced that she was going to have the Perfect Baby by a scientifically selected anonymous donor and an equally perfect host mother just as soon as a battery of experts completed calculating the exact instant for conception to insure that the wonder child would be equally a genius in music, art, and statesmanship - and that she would (with the aid of hormonal treatments) nurse her child herself. She gave out a statement to the press on the psychological benefits of natural feeding and permitted, or insisted, that the press take pictures of her to prove that she was physically endowed for this happy duty - a fact that her usual publicity pictures had never really left undecided-
Supreme Bishop Digby denounced her as the Harlot of Babylon and forbade any Fosterite to accept the commission, either as donor or hostmother. Alice Douglas was quoted as saying: 'While I do not know Miss Duchess personally, one cannot help but admire her. Her brave example should be an inspiration to mothers everywhere.'
By accident, Jubal Harshaw saw one of the pictures and the accompanying story in a magazine some visitor had left in his house. He chuckled over it and posted it on the bulletin board in the kitchen? then noted (as he had expected) that it did not stay up long, which made him chuckle again.
He did not have too many chuckles that week; the world had been too much with him. The working press soon ceased bothering Mike and the Harshaw household when it was clear that the story was over and that Harshaw did not intend to let any fresh news happen - but a great many thousands of other people, not in the news business, did not forget Mike. Douglas honestly tried to insure Mike's privacy; S. S. troopers now patrolled Harshaw's fence and an S.S. car circled over the grounds and challenged any car that tried to land. But Harshaw resented the necessity of having guards.
Guards kept people out; the mail and the telephone came through. The telephone Jubal coped with by changing his call number and having all calls routed through an answering service to which was given a very limited list of persons from whom Harshaw would accept calls - and, at that, he kept the instrument in the house set on 'refuse amp; record' most of the time.
But the mail always comes through.
At first, Harshaw told Jill that the problem was Mike's. The boy had to grow up someday; he could start by handling his own mail and she could help and advise him. 'But don't bother me with it; I have enough trouble with screwball mail of my own!'
Jubal could not make his decision stick; there was too much of it and Jill simply did not know how.
Just sorting the mail into categories was a headache. Jubal solved that by first making a phone call to the local postmaster (which got no results), then by a phone call to Bradley, which did get results after a 'suggestion' from on high trickled back down to local level; thereafter mail for Mike arrived sacked as first class, second class, third class, and fourth class, with mail for everyone else in the household in still another sack.
Second and third class mail was used to insulate a new root cellar north of the house, the old root cellar having been dug by the former owner as a fallout shelter and never having been satisfactory as root cellar. Once the new root cellar was heavily over-insulated and could use no more, Jubal told Duke to dump such mail as fill to check erosion in gullies; combined with a small amount of brush such mail compacted very nicely.
