Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

“No!”

“Huh? Look, baby girl, be reasonable. I’ll bet you four to one that half the hospital staffers around him are ringers, stuck in there by one news service or another. This is the greatest human-interest story since Colombo conned Isabella into hocking her jewels. The only thing that worries me is that I may find another phony electrician—”

“The only thing that worries me is me,” Jill interrupted. “To you it’s just a story; to me it’s my career. They’d take away my cap, my pin, and ride me out of town on a rail. I’d be finished as a nurse.”

“Mmm… there’s that.”

“There sure is that.”

“Lady, you are about to be offered a bribe.”

“How big a bribe? It’ll take quite a chunk to keep me in style the rest of my life in Rio.”

“Well… the story is worth money, of course, but you can’t expect me to outbid Associated Press, or Reuters. How about a hundred?”

“What do you think I am?”

“We settled that, we’re dickering over the price. A hundred and fifty?”

“Pour me another drink and look up the phone number of Associated Press for me, that’s a lamb.”

“It’s Capitol 10-9000. Jill, will you marry me? That’s as high as I can—”

She looked up at him, startled. “What did you say?”

“Will you marry me? Then, when they ride you out of town on a rail, I’ll be waiting at the city line and take you away from your sordid existence. You’ll come back here and cool your toes in my grass—our grass—and forget your ignominy. But you’ve durn well got to sneak me into that hospital room first.”

“Ben, you almost sound serious. If I phone for a Fair Witness, will you repeat the offer?”

Caxton sighed. “Jill, you’re a hard woman. Send for a Witness.”

She stood up. “Ben,” she said softly, “I won’t hold you to it.” She rumpled his hair and kissed him. “But don’t ever joke about marriage to a spinster.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

“I wonder. Wipe off the lipstick and I’ll tell you everything I know, then we’ll consider how you can use it without getting me ridden on that rail. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.”

She gave him a detailed account. “I’m sure he wasn’t drugged. I’m equally sure that he was rational—although why I’m sure I don’t know, for he talked in the oddest fashion and asked the darnedest questions. But I’m sure. He isn’t psychotic.”

“It would be odder still if he hadn’t talked in an odd fashion.”

“Huh?”

“Use your head, Jill. We don’t know much about Mars but we do know that Mars is very unlike Earth and that Martians, whatever they are, certainly are not human. Suppose you were suddenly popped into a tribe so far back in the jungle that they had never laid eyes on a white woman. Would you know all the sophisticated small talk that comes from a lifetime in a culture? Or would your conversation sound odd? That’s a very mild analogy; the truth in this case is at least forty million miles stranger.”

Jill nodded. “I figured that out… and that is why I discounted his odd remarks. I’m not dumb.”

“No, you’re real bright, for a female.”

“Would you like this martini poured in your thinning hair?”

“I apologize. Women are lots smarter than men; that is proved by our whole cultural setup. Gimme, I’ll fill it.”

She accepted the peace offerings and went on, “Ben, that order about not letting him see women, it’s silly. He’s no sex fiend.”

“No doubt they don’t want to hand him too many shocks at once.”

“He wasn’t shocked. He was just… interested. It wasn’t like having a man look at me at all.”

“If you had humored him on that request for a private viewing, you might have had your hands full. He probably has all the instincts and no inhibitions.”

“Huh? I don’t think so. I suppose they’ve told him about male and female; he just wanted to see how women are different.”

“‘Vive la difference!’” Caxton answered enthusiastically.

“Don’t be more vulgar than you have to be.”

“Me? I wasn’t being vulgar, I was being reverent. I was giving thanks to all the gods that I was born human and not Martian.”

“Be serious.”

“I was never more serious.”

“Then be quiet. He wouldn’t have given me any trouble. He would probably have thanked me gravely. You didn’t see his face—I did.”

“What about his face?”

Jill looked puzzled. “I don’t know how to express it. Yes, I do!—Ben, have you ever seen an angel?”

“You, cherub. Otherwise not.”

“Well, neither have I—but that is what he looked like. He had old, wise eyes in a completely placid face, a face of unearthly innocence.” She shivered.

“‘Unearthly’ is surely the right word,” Ben answered slowly. “I’d like to see him.”

“I wish you had. Ben, why are they making such a thing out of keeping him shut up? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. I’m sure of it.”

Caxton fitted his fingertips together. “Well, in the first place they want to protect him. He grew up in Mars gravity; he’s probably weak as a cat.”

“Yes, of course. You could see it, just looking at him. But muscular weakness isn’t dangerous; myasthenia gravis is much worse and we manage all right with such cases.”

“They would want to keep him from catching things, too. He’s like those experimental animals at Notre Dame; he’s never been exposed.”

“Sure, sure—no antibodies. But from what I hear around the mess hail, Doctor Nelson—the surgeon in the Champion, I mean—Doctor Nelson took care of that on the trip back. Repeated mutual transfusion until he had replaced about half of his blood tissue.”

“Really? Can I use that, Jill? That’s news.”

“All right, just don’t quote me. They gave him shots for everything but housemaid’s knee, too. But, Ben, even if they want to protect him from infection, that doesn’t take armed guards outside his door.”

“Mmmm… Jill, I’ve picked up a few tidbits you may not know. I haven’t been able to use them because I’ve got to protect my sources, just as with you. But I’ll tell you; you’ve earned it—just don’t talk.”

“Oh, I won’t.”

“It’s a long story. Want a refill?”

“No, let’s start the steak. Where’s the button?”

“Right here.”

“Well, push it.”

“Me? You offered to cook dinner. Where’s that Girl Scout spirit you were boasting about?”

“Ben Caxton, I will lie right here in the grass and starve before I will get up to push a button that is six inches from your right forefinger.”

“As you wish.” He pressed the button to tell the stove to carry out its pre-set orders. “But don’t forget who cooked dinner. Now about Valentine Michael Smith. In the first place there is grave doubt as to his right to the name ‘Smith.’”

“Repeat, please?”

“Honey, your pal appears to be the first interplanetary bastard of record. I mean ‘love child.’”

“The hell you say!”

“Please be more ladylike in your speech. Do you remember anything about the crew of the Envoy? Never mind, I’ll hit the high points. Eight people, four married couples. Two couples were Captain and Mrs. Brant, Doctor and Mrs. Smith. Your friend with the face of an angel appears to be the son of Mrs. Smith by Captain Brant.”

“How do they know? And, anyhow, who cares?” Jill sat up and said indignantly, “It’s a pretty snivelin’ thing to dig up a scandal after all this time. They’re all dead—let ’em alone, I say!”

“As to how they know, you can figure that out. Blood typing, Rh factor, hair and eye color, all those genetic things—you probably know more about them than I do. Anyhow it is a mathematical certainty that Mary Jane Lyle Smith was his mother and Captain Michael Brant was his father. All the factors are matters of record for the entire crew of the Envoy; there probably never were eight people more thoroughly measured and typed. Also it gives Valentine Michael Smith a wonderfully fine heredity; his father had an I.Q. of 163, his mother 170, and both were tops in their fields.