Robert Heinlein - The Puppet Masters

"Sam, Sam!"

I looked up; I knew that voice. Mary hurried up and was standing before me, looking at me with great sorrowful eyes. "I've been waiting," she said. "Oh, Sam! What have they done to you?" Her voice was so choked that I could hardly understand her.

"You should know," I answered, and found I had strength enough left to slap her.

"Bitch," I added.

The room I had had was still empty, but I did not find Doris. I was aware that I had been followed, probably by the doctor, but I wanted no part of him nor any of them just then; I closed the door. Then I lay face down on the bed and tried to stop thinking or feeling anything.

Presently I heard a gasp, and opened one eye; there was Doris. "What in the world?" she exclaimed and came over to me. I felt her gentle hands on me. "Why, you poor, poor baby!" Then she added, "Just stay there, don't try to move. I'll get the doctor."

"No!"

"But you've got to have the doctor."

"No. I won't see him. You help me."

She did not answer. Presently I heard her go out. She came back shortly-I think it was shortly-and started to bathe my wounds. The doctor was not with her.

She was not more than half my size but she lifted me and turned me when she needed to as if I had been the baby she had called me. I was not surprised by it; I knew she could take care of me.

I wanted to scream when she touched my back. But she dressed it quickly and said, "Over easy, now."

"I'll stay face down."

"No," she denied, "I want you to drink something, that's a good boy."

I turned over, with her doing most of the work, and drank what she gave me. After a bit I went to sleep.

I seem to remember being awakened later, seeing the Old Man and cursing him out. The doctor was there too-or it could just as well have been a dream.

Miss Briggs woke me up and Doris brought me breakfast; it was as if I had never been off the sick list. Doris wanted to feed me but I was well able to do it myself. Actually I was not in too bad shape. I was stiff and sore and felt as if I had gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel; there were dressings on both arms and both legs where I had cut myself on the clamps, but no bones were broken. Where I was sick was in my soul.

Don't misunderstand me. The Old Man could send me into a dangerous spot-and had done so, more than once-and I would not hold it against him. That I had signed up for. But I had not signed up for what he had done to me. He knew what made me tick and he had deliberately used it to force me into something I would never have agreed to, had I not been jockeyed into it. Then after he had gotten me where he wanted me, he had used me unmercifully.

Oh, I've slapped men around to make them talk. Sometimes you have to. But this was different. Believe me.

It was the Old Man that really hurt. Mary? After all, what was she? Just another babe. True, I was disgusted with her to the bottom of my soul for letting the Old Man talk her into being used as bait. It was all right for her to use her femaleness as an agent; the Section had to have female operatives; they could do things men could not do. There have always been female spies and the young and pretty ones had always used the same tools.

But she should not have agreed to use them against another agent, inside her own Section-at least, she should not have used them against me.

Not very logical, is it? It was logical to me. Mary shouldn't have done it.

I was through, I was finished. They could go ahead with Operation Parasite without me; I'd had it. I owned a cabin up in the Adirondacks; I had enough stuff there in deep freeze to carry me for years-well, a year, anyhow. I had plenty of tempus pills and could get more; I would go up there and use them-and the world could save itself, or go to hell, without me.

If anyone came within a hundred yards of me, he would either show a bare back or be burned down.

I had to tell somebody about it and Doris was the goat. It may have been classified information but I did not give a hoot. It turned out that Doris knew all about Operation Parasite; there was no reason to try to keep any part of it secret. The trouble was to make it not a secret-but I am ahead of myself.

Doris was indignant-shucks, she was sore as a boiled owl. She had dressed what they had done to me. Of course, as a nurse, she had dressed a lot worse, but this had been done by our own people. I blurted out how I felt about Mary's part in it. "You know that old slaughterhouse trick," I asked her, "where they train one animal to lead the others in? That's what they got Mary to do to me."

She had not heard of it, but she understood me. "Do I understand you that you had wanted to marry this girl?"

"Correct. Stupid, ain't I?"

"All men are, about women-but that's not the point. It does not make any difference whether she wanted to marry you or not; her knowing that you wanted to marry her makes what she did about eight thousand times worse. She knew what she could do to you. It wasn't fair." She stopped massaging me, her eyes snapping. "I've never met your redhead, not yet-but if I ever do, I'll scratch her face!"

I smiled at her. "You're a good kid, Doris. I believe you would play fair with a man."

"Oh, I'm no angel, and I've pulled some fast ones in my time. But if I did anything halfway like that. I'd have to break every mirror I own. Turn a bit, and I'll get the other leg."

Mary showed up. The first I knew about it was hearing Doris say angrily, "You can't come in."

Mary's voice answered, "I'm going in. Try to stop me."

Doris squealed, "Stay where you are-or I'll pull that hennaed hair out by the roots!"

There was a short silence, sounds of a scuffle-and the smack! of someone getting slapped, hard. I yelled out, "Hey! What goes on?"

They appeared in the doorway together. Doris was breathing hard and her hair was mussed. Mary managed to look dignified and composed, but there was a bright red patch on her left cheek the size and shape of Doris's hand. She looked at me and ignored the nurse.

Doris caught her breath and said, "You get out of here. He doesn't want to see you."

Mary said, "I'll hear that from him."

I looked at them both, then said, "Oh, what the hell-Doris, she's here; I'll talk to her. I've got some things to tell her, in any case. Thanks for trying."

Doris waited a moment, then said, "You're a fool!" and flounced out.

Mary came over to the bed. "Sam," she said. "Sam."

"My name isn't 'Sam'."

"I've never known your right name."

I hesitated. It was no time to explain to her that my parents had been silly enough to burden me with 'Elihu'. I answered, "What of it? 'Sam' will do."

"Sam," she repeated. "Oh Sam, my dear."

"I am not your 'dear'."

She inclined her head. "Yes, I know that. I don't know why. Sam, I came here to find out why you hate me. Perhaps I can't change it, but I must know why."

I made some sound of disgust. "After what you did, you don't know why? Mary, you may be a cold fish, but you aren't stupid. I know; I've worked with you."

She shook her head. "Just backwards, Sam. I'm not cold, but I'm frequently stupid. Look at me, please-I know what they did to you. I know that you let it be done to save me from the same thing. I know that and I'm deeply grateful. But I don't know why you hate me. You did not have to do it, I did not ask you to do it, and I did not want you to do it."

I didn't answer; presently she said, "You don't believe me?"

I reared up on one elbow. "I believe you. I believe you have yourself convinced that that is how it was. Now I'll tell you how it was."

"Do, please."

"You sat down in that trick chair knowing that I would never let you go through with it. You knew that, whether that devious female mind of yours admitted it to itself or not. The Old Man could not have forced me into that chair, not with a gun, not even with drugs. But you could. You did. You were the one who forced me to go through with something which I would rather have been dead than touched... a thing that now leaves me dirty and spoiled. You did it."