Stranger in a Strange Land

give him a chance to get well and strong and used to this madhouse planet. Just go ahead and squeeze him like an orange. It's no skin off me; I've done my job!"
                The ensuing silence was broken smoothly by Secretary General Douglas himself. "And a good job, too, Captain. Your advice will be weighed, and be assured that we will not do anything hastily. If this man, or manMartian, Smith, needs a few days to get adjusted, I'm sure that science can wait-so take it easy, Pete. Let's table this part of the discussion, gentlemen, and get on to other matters. Captain van Tromp is tired."
                "One thing won't wait," said the Minister for Public Information.
                "Eh, Jock?"
                "If we don't show the Man from Mars in the stereo tanks pretty shortly, you'll have riots on your hands, Mr. Secretary."
                "Hmm- You exaggerate, Jock. Mars stuff in the news, of course. Me decorating the captain and his brave crew-tomorrow, that had better be. Captain van Tromp telling of his experiences-after a night's rest of course, Captain."
                The minister shook his head.
                "No good, Jock?"
                "The public expected the expedition to bring back at least one real live Martian for them to gawk at. Since they didn't, we need Smith and need him badly."
                "'Live Martians?'" Secretary General Douglas turned to Captain van Tromp. "You have movies of Martians, haven't you?"
                "Thousands of feet."
                "There's your answer, Jock. When the live stuff gets thin, trot on the movies of Martians. The people will love it. Now, Captain, about this possibility of extraterritoriality: you say the Martians were not opposed to it?"
                "Well, no, sir-but they were not for it, either."
                "I don't follow you?"
                Captain van Tromp chewed his lip. "Sir, I don't know just how to explain it. Talking with a Martian is something like talking with an echo. You don't get any argument but you don't get results either."
                "Semantic difficulty? Perhaps you should have brought what's-hisname, your semantician, with you today. Or is he waiting outside?"
                "Mahmoud, sir. No, Doctor Mahmoud is not well. A-a slight nervous breakdown, sir." Van Tromp reflected that being dead drunk was the moral equivalent thereof.
                "Space happy?"
                "A little, perhaps." These damned groundhogs!
                "Well, fetch him around when he's feeling himself. young man Smith should be of help as an interpreter."
                "Perhaps," van Tromp said doubtfully.

                This young man Smith was busy at that moment just staying alive. His body, unbearably compressed and weakened by the strange shape of space in this unbelievable place, was at last somewhat relieved by the softness of the nest in which these others had placed him. He dropped the effort of sustaining it, and turned his third level to his respiration and heart beat.
                He saw at once that he was about to consume himself. His lungs were beating almost as hard as they did at home, his heart was racing to distribute the influx, ail in an attempt to cope with the squeezing of space-and this in a situation in which he was smothered by a poisonously rich and dangerously hot atmosphere. He took immediate steps.
                When his heart rate was down to twenty per minute and his respiration almost imperceptible, he set them at that and watched himself long enough to assure himself that he would not inadvertently discorporate while his attention was elsewhere. When he was satisfied that they were running properly, he set a tiny portion of his second level on guard and withdrew the rest of himself. It was necessary to review the configurations of these many new events in order to fit them to himself, then cherish and praise them-lest they swallow him up.
                Where should he start? When he had left home, enfolding these others who were now his own nestlings? Or simply at his arrival in this crushed space? He was suddenly assaulted by the lights and sounds of that arrival, feeling it again with mind-shaking pain. No, he was not yet ready to cherish and embrace that configuration-back!