Stranger in a Strange Land

three despatches were of more than scientific interest. The first was:
                "Rocket Ship Envoy located. No survivors."
                The second worldshaker was: "Mars is inhabited."
                The third was: "Correction to despatch 23-105: One survivor of Envoy located."

    III

                CAPTAIN WILLEM VAN TROMP was a man of humanity and good sense. He radioed ahead: "My passenger must not, repeat, must not be subjected to the strain of a public reception. Provide low-gee shuttle, stretcher and ambulance service, and anned guard."
                He sent his ship's surgeon Dr. Nelson along to make sure that Valentine Michael Smith was installed in a suite in Bethesda Medical Center, transferred gently into a hydraulic bed, and protected from outside contact by marine guards. Van Tromp himself went to an extraordinary session of the Federation High Council.
                At the moment when Valentine Michael Smith was being lifted into bed, the High Minister for Science was saying testily, "Granted, Captain, that your authority as military commander of what was nevertheless primarily a scientific expedition gives you the right to order unusual medical service to protect a person temporarily in your charge, I do not see why you now presume to interfere with the proper functions of my department. Why, Smith is a veritable treasure trove of scientific information!"
                "Yes. I suppose he is, sir."
                "Then why-" The science minister broke off and turned to the High Minister for Peace and Military Security. "David? This matter is obviously now in my jurisdiction. Will you issue the necessary instructions to your people? After all, one can't keep persons of the caliber of Professor Kennedy and Doctor Okajima, to mention just two, cooling their heels indefinitely. They won't stand for it."
                The peace minister did not answer but glanced inquiringly at Captain van Tromp. The captain shook his head. "No, sir."
                "Why not?" demanded the science minister. "You have admitted that he isn't sick."
                "Give the captain a chance to explain, Pierre," the peace minister advised. "Well, Captain?"
                "Smith isn't sick, sir," Captain van Tromp said to the peace minister, "but he isn't well, either. He has never before been in a one-gravity field. He now weighs more than two and one half times what he is used to and his muscles aren't up to it. He's not used to Earth-normal air pressure. He's not used to anything and the strain is likely to be too much for him. Hell's bells, gentlemen, I'm dog tired myself just from being at one-gee again-and I was born on this planet."
                The science minister looked contemptuous. "If acceleration fatigue is all that is worrying you, let me assure you, my dear Captain, that we had anticipated that. His respiration and heart action will be watched carefully. We are not entirely without imagination and forethought. After all, I've been out myself. I know how it feels. This man Smith must-"
                Captain van Tromp decided that it was time to throw a tantrum. He could excuse it by his own fatigue-very real fatigue, he felt as if he had just landed on Jupiter-and he was smugly aware that even a high councilor could not afford to take too stiff a line with the commander of the first successful Martian expedition.
                So he interrupted with a snort of disgust. "link! 'This man Smith-' This 'man!' Can't you see that that is just what he is not?"
                "Eh?"
                "Smith ... is . . . not . . . a . . . man."
                "Huh? Explain yourself, Captain."
                "Smith is not a man. He is an intelligent creature with the genes and ancestry of a man, but he is not a man. He's more a Martian than a man. Until we came along he had never laid eyes on a human being. He thinks like a Martian, he feels like a Martian. He's been brought up by a race which has nothing in common with us. Why, they don't even have sex. Smith has never laid eyes on a woman-still hasn't if my orders have been carried out. He's a man by ancestry, a Martian by environment. Now, if you want to drive him crazy and waste that 'treasure trove of scientific information,' call in your fat-headed professors and let them badger him. Don't