Robert Heinlein - A Stranger in a Strange Land

Anne looked in the direction in which Jubal was pointing and answered, "It's white on this side." She did not inquire why Jubal had asked, nor make any comment.

Jubal went on to Jill in normal tones, "You see? Anne is so thoroughly indoctrinated that it doesn't even occur to her to infer that the other side is probably white, too. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't force her to commit herself as to the far side - unless she herself went around to the other side and looked - and even then she wouldn't assume that it stayed whatever color it might be after she left because they might repaint it as soon as she turned her back,"

"Anne is a Fair Witness?"

"Graduate, unlimited license, and admitted to testify before the High Court. Sometime ask her why she decided to give up public practice. But don't plan on anything else that day - the wench will recite the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that takes time. Back to Mr. Cavendish - Ben retained him for open witnessing, full disclosure, without enjoining him to privacy. So when Cavendish was questioned, he answered, in full and boring detail. I've got a tape of it upstairs. But the interesting part of his report is what he does not say. He never states that the man they were taken to see was not the Man from Mars� but not one word can be construed as indicating that Cavendish accepted the exhibit he was called to view as being in fact the Man from Mars. If you knew Cavendish - and I do - this would be conclusive. If Cavendish had seen Mike, even for a few minutes, he would have reported what he had seen with such exactness that you and I, who know Mike, would know that he had seen him. For example, Cavendish reports in precise professional jargon the shape of this exhibit's ears� and it does not match Mike's ear shape at all. Q.E.D.; he didn't see Mike. Nor did Ben. They were shown a phony. Furthermore Cavendish knows it, even though he is professionally restrained from giving opinions or conclusions."

"But I told you so. They never came near my floor."

"Yes. But it tells us something more. This occurred hours before you pulled your jail break for Mike - about eight hours earlier, as Cavendish sets their arrival in the presence of the phony 'Man from Mars' at 9.14 Thursday morning. That is to say, the government still had Mike under their thumb at that moment. In the same building. They could have exhibited him. Yet they took the really grave risk of offering a phony for inspection by the most noted Fair Witness in Washington - in the country. Why?"

He waited. Jill answered slowly, "You're asking me? I don't know. Ben told me that he intended to ask Mike if he wanted to leave the hospital - and help him to do so if he said, 'Yes.'"

"Which Ben did try, with the phony."

"So? Out, Jubal, they couldn't have known that Ben intended to do that� and, anyhow, Mike wouldn't have left with Ben."

"Why not? Later that day he left with you."

"Yes - but I was already his 'water brother,' just as you are now. He has this crazy Martian idea that he can trust utterly anyone with whom he has shared a drink of water. With a 'water brother' he is completely docile and with anybody else he is stubborn as a mule. Ben couldn't have budged him." She added, "At least that is the way he was last week - he's changing awfully fast."

"So he is. Too fast, maybe. I've never seen muscle tissue develop so rapidly - I'm sorry I didn't weigh him the day you arrived. Never mind, back to Ben - Cavendish reports that Ben dropped him and the lawyer, a chap named Frisby, at nine thirty-one, and Ben kept the cab. We don't know where Ben went then. But an hour later he - or let's say somebody who said he was Ben - phoned that message to Paoli Flat."

"You don't think it was Ben?"

"I do not. Cavendish reported the license number of the cab and my scouts tried to get a look at the daily trip tape for that cab. If Ben used his credit card, rather than feeding coins into the cab's meter, his charge number should be printed on the tape - but even if he paid cash the tape should show where the cab had been and when."

"Well?"

Harshaw shrugged. "The records show that that cab was in for repairs and was never in use Thursday morning. That gives us two choices: either a Fair Witness misread or misremembered a cab's serial number or somebody tampered with the record." He added grimly, "Maybe a jury would decide that even a Fair Witness could glance at a cab's serial number and misread it, especially if he had not been asked to remember it - but I don't believe it� not when the Witness is James Oliver Cavendish. Cavendish would either be certain of that serial number - or his report would never mention it."

Harshaw scowled and went on, "Jill, you're forcing me to rub my own nose in it - and I don't like it, I don't like it at all! Granted that Ben could have sent that message, it is most unlikely that he could have tampered with the daily record of that cab� and still less believable that he had any reason to. No, let's face it. Ben went somewhere in that cab - and somebody who could get at the records of a public carrier went to a lot of trouble to conceal where he went� and sent a phony message to keep anyone from realizing that he had disappeared."

"'Disappeared!' Kidnapped, you mean!"

"Softly, Jill. 'Kidnapped' is a dirty word."

"It's the only word for it! Jubal, how can you sit there and do nothing when you ought to be shouting it from the-"

"Stop it, Jill! There's another word. Instead of kidnapped, he might be dead."

Gillian slumped. "Yes," she agreed dully. "That's what I'm really afraid of."

"So am I. But we'll assume he is not, until we have seen his bones. But it's one or the other - so we assume that he is kidnapped. Jill, what's the greatest danger about kidnapping? No, don't bother your pretty head; I'll tell you. The greatest danger to the victim is a hue-and-cry - because if a kidnapper is frightened, he will almost always kill his victim. Had you thought of that?"

Gillian looked woeful and did not answer. Harshaw went on gently, "I am forced to say that I think it is extremely likely that Ben is dead. He has been gone too long. But we've agreed to assume that he is alive - until we know otherwise. Now you intend to look for him. Gillian, can you tell me how you will go about this? Without increasing the risk that Ben will be done away with by the unknown party or parties who kidnapped him?"

"Uh- But we know who they are!"

"Do we?"

"Of course we do! The same people who were keeping Mike a prisoner - the government!"

Harshaw shook his head. "We don't know it. That's an assumption based on what Ben was doing when last seen. But it's not a certainty. Ben has made lots of enemies with his column and by no means all of them are in the government. I can think of several who would willingly kill him if they could get away with it. However-" Harshaw frowned. "Your assumption is all we have to go on. But not 'the government' - that's too sweeping a term. 'The government' is several million people, nearly a million in Washington alone. We have to ask ourselves: Whose toes were being stepped on? What person or persons? Not 'the government' - but what individuals?"

"Why, that's plain enough, Jubal. I told you, just as Ben told it to me. It's the Secretary General himself."

"No," Harshaw denied. "While that may be true, it's not useful to us. No matter who did what, if it is anything rough or illegal, it won't be the Secretary General who did it, even if he benefits by it. Nobody would ever be able to prove that he even knew about it. It is likely that he would not know about it - not the rough stuff. No, Jill, we need to find out which lieutenant in the Secretary General's large staff' of stooges handled this operation. But that isn't as hopeless as it sounds - I think. When Ben was taken in to see that phony 'Man from Mars,' one of Mr. Douglas's executive assistants was with him - tried to talk him out of it, then went with him. It now appears that this same top-level stooge also dropped out of sight last Thursday - and I don't think it is a coincidence, not when he appears to have been in charge of the phony 'Man from Mars.' If we find him, we may find Ben, Gilbert Berquist is his name and I have reason-"