Stranger in a Strange Land

chattering about how the maids just never dusted high in the closets.
                Removing the spool the next day and inserting a fresh one was just as easy; the patient was asleep. She woke while Jill was still perched on a chair and seemed surprised; Jill diverted her with a spicy and imaginary ward rumor.
                Jill sent the exposed wire by mail, using the hospital's post office as the impersonal blindness of the postal System seemed safer than a cloak & dagger ruse. But her attempt to insert a third fresh spool she muffed. She had waited for a time when the patient was asleep but had just mounted the chair when the patient woke up. "Oh! Hello, Miss Boardman."
                Jill froze with one hand on the wire recorder. "Hello, Mrs. Fritschlie," she managed to answer. "Have a nice nap?"
                "Fair," the woman answered peevishly. "My back aches."
                "I'll rub it."
                "Doesn't help much. Why are you always fiddling around in my closet? Is something wrong?"
                Jill tried to reswallow her stomach. The woman wasn't really suspicious, she told herself. "Mice," she said vaguely.
                "'Mice?' Oh, I can't abide mice! I'll have to have another room, right away!"
                Jill tore the little instrument off the closet wall and stuffed it into her pocket, jumped down from the chair and spoke to the patient. "Now, now, Mrs. Fritschlie-I was just looking to see if there were any mouse holes in that closet. There aren't."
                "You're sure?"
                "Quite sure. Now let's rub the back, shall we? Easy over."
                Jill decided she could not plant the bug in that room again and concluded that she would risk attempting to place it in the empty room which was part of K-12, the Suite of the Man from Mars. But it was almost time for her relief before she was free again. She got the pass key.
                Only to find that she did not need it; the door was unlocked and held two more marines; the guard had been doubled. One of them glanced up as she opened the door. "Looking for someone?"
                "No. Don't sit on the bed, boys," she said crisply. "If you need more chairs, we'll send for them." She kept her eye on the guard while he got reluctantly up; then she left, trying to conceal her trembling.
                The bug was still burning a hole in her pocket when she went off duty; she decided to return it to Caxton at once. She changed clothes, shifted it to her bag, and went to the roof. Once in the air and headed toward Ben's apartment she began to breathe easier. She phoned him in flight.
                "Caxton speaking."
                "Jill, Ben. I want to see you. Are you alone?"
                He answered slowly, "I don't think it's smart, kid. Not now."
                "Ben, I've got to see you. I'm on my way over."
                "Well, okay, if that's how it's got to be."
                "Such enthusiasm!"
                "Now look, hon, it isn't that I-"
                "'Bye!" She switched off calmed down and decided not to take it out on poor Ben-fact was they both were playing out of their league. At least she was-she should have stuck to nursing and left politics alone.
                She felt better when she saw Ben and better yet when she kissed him and snuggled into his arms. Ben was such a dear-maybe she really should marry him. But when she tried to speak he put a hand over her mouth, then whispered close against her ear, "Don't talk. No names and nothing but trivialities. I may be wired by now."
                She nodded and he led her into the living room. Without speaking she got out the wire recorder and handed it to him. His eyebrows went up when he saw that she was returning not just a spool but the whole works but he made no comment. Instead he handed her a copy of the afternoon Post.
                "Seen the paper?" he said in a natural voice. "You might like to glance at it while I wash up."
                "Thanks." As she took it he pointed to a column; he then left, taking with him the recorder. Jill saw that the column was Ben's own syndicated outlet.

    THE CROW'S NEST by Ben Caxton
                Everyone knows that jails and hospitals have one