Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

He pointed this out. Their spokesman said, “We know. But you’ll have plenty of backing this time. Supreme Bishop Short is determined that this Antichrist shall flourish no longer.”

The prosecutor was not interested in antichrists—but there was a primary coming up. “Well, just remember I can’t do much without backing.”

“You’ll have it.”

Farther north, Dr. Jubal Harshaw was not immediately aware of this incident and its consequences, but he did know of too many others for peace of mind. Against his own rules he had succumbed to that most insidious drug, the news. Thus far, he had contained his vice; he merely subscribed to a clipping service instructed for “Man from Mars,” “V. M. Smith,” “Church of All Worlds,” and “Ben Caxton.” But the monkey was crawling up his back—twice lately he had had to fight off an impulse to order Larry to set up the babble box in his study—Damn it, why couldn’t those kids tape him an occasional letter?—instead of letting him wonder and worry. “Front!”

He heard Anne come in but he still continued to stare out a window at snow and an empty swimming pool. “Anne,” he said without turning around, “rent us a small tropical atoll and put this mausoleum up for sale.”

“Yes, Boss. Anything else?”

“But get that atoll tied down on a long-term lease before you hand this wilderness back to the Indians; I will not put up with hotels. How long has it been since I wrote any pay copy?”

“Forty-three days.”

“You see? Let that be a lesson to you. Begin. ‘Death Song of a Wood’s Colt’:

“There,” he added briskly, “sign it ‘Louisa M. Alcott’ and have the agency send it to Togetherness magazine.”

“Boss, is that your idea of ‘pay copy’?”

“Huh? Of course it isn’t. Not now. But it will be worth something later, so put it in file and my literary executor can use it to help settle the death duties. That’s the catch in all artistic pursuits; the best work is always worth most after the workman can’t be paid. The literary life—dreck! It consists in scratching the cat till it purrs.”

“Poor Jubal! Nobody ever feels sorry for him, so he has to feel sorry for himself.”

“Sarcasm yet. No wonder I don’t get any work done.”

“Not sarcasm, Boss. Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.”

“My apologies. All right, here’s pay copy. Begin. Title: ‘One for the Road,’

“Jubal,” Anne said worriedly, “is your stomach upset?”

“Always.”

“That one’s for file, too?”

“Huh? That’s for the New Yorker. Their usual pen name.”

“They’ll bounce it.”

“They’ll buy it. It’s morbid, they’ll buy it.”

“And besides, there’s something wrong with the scansion.”

“Of course there is! You have to give an editor something to change, or he gets frustrated. After he pees in it himself, he likes the flavor much better, so he buys it. Look, my dear, I was successfully avoiding honest work long before you were born—so don’t try to teach Granpaw how to suck eggs. Or would you rather I nursed Abby while you turn out copy? Hey! It’s Abigail’s feeding time, isn’t it? And you weren’t ‘Front,’ Dorcas is ‘Front.’ I remember.”

“It won’t hurt Abby to wait a few minutes. Dorcas is lying down. Morning sickness.”

“Nonsense. If she’s pregnant, why won’t she let me run a test? Anne, I can spot pregnancy two weeks before a rabbit can—and you know it. I’m going to have to be firm with that girl.”

“Jubal, you let her be! She’s scared she didn’t catch… and she wants to think she did, as long as possible. Don’t you know anything about women?”

“Mmm… come to think about it—no. Not anything. All right, I won’t heckle her. But why didn’t you bring our baby angel in and nurse her here? You have both hands free when you take dictation.”

“In the first place, I’m glad I didn’t—she might have understood what you were saying—”

“So I’m a bad influence, am I?”

“She’s too young to see the marshmallow syrup underneath, Boss. But the real reason is that you don’t do any work at all if I bring her in with me; you just play with her.”

“Can you think of any better way of enriching the empty hours?”

“Jubal, I appreciate the fact that you are dotty over my daughter; I think she’s pretty nice myself. But you’ve been spending all your time either playing with Abby… or moping. That’s not good.”

“How soon do we go on relief?”

“That’s beside the point. If you don’t crank out stories, you get spiritually constipated. It’s reached the point where Dorcas and Larry and I are biting our nails—and when you do yell ‘Front!’ we jitter with relief. Only it’s always a false alarm.”

“If there’s money in the bank to meet the bills, what are you worried about?”

“What are you worried about, Boss?”

Jubal considered it. Should he tell her? Any possible doubt as to the paternity of Abigail had been settled, in his mind, in her naming; Anne had wavered between “Abigail” and “Zenobia”—and had settled it by loading the infant with both names. Anne had never mentioned the meanings of those names; presumably she did not know that he knew them.

Anne went on firmly, “You’re not fooling anyone but yourself, Jubal. Dorcas and Larry and I all know that Mike can take care of himself, and you ought to know it. But because you’ve been so frenetic about it—”

“‘Frenetic!’ Me?”

“—Larry very quietly set up the stereo tank in his room and some one of us three had been catching the news, every broadcast. Not because we are worried, for we aren’t—except about you. But when Mike gets into the news—and of course he does get into the news; he’s still the Man from Mars—we know about it before those silly clippings ever reach you. I wish you would quit reading them.”

“How do you know anything about any clippings? I went to a lot of trouble to see that you didn’t. I thought.”