Stranger in a Strange Land

indoors and take care of it before I change my mind."
                "Yes, boss."
                She kissed his bald spot as she passed behind his chair. Harshaw yelled, "Front!" again and Miriam started toward him. But a loudspeaker mounted on the house behind him came to life:
                "Boss!"
                Harshaw uttered one word and Miriam clucked at him reprovingly. He added, "Yes, Larry?"
                The speaker answered, "There's a dame down here at the gate who wants to see you-and she's got a corpse with her."
                Harshaw considered this for a moment. "Is she pretty?" he said to the microphone.
                "Uh ... yes."
                "Then why are you sucking your thumb? Let her in." Harshaw sat back. "Start," he said. "City montage dissolving into a medium two-shot, interior. A cop is seated in a straight chair, no cap, collar open, face covered with sweat. We see only the back of the other figure, which is depthed between us and the cop. The figure raises a hand, bringing it back and almost out of the tank. He slaps the cop with a heavy, meaty sound, dubbed." Harshaw glanced up and said, "We'll pick up from there." A ground car was rolling up the hill toward the house.
                Jill was driving the car; a young man was seated beside her. As the car stopped near Harshaw the man jumped out at once, as if happy to divorce himself from car and contents. "There she is, Jubal."
                "So I see. Good morning, little girl. Larry, where is this corpse?"
                "In the back seat, Boss. Under a blanket."
                "But it's not a corpse," Jill protested. "It's ... Ben said that you... I mean-" She put her head down on the controls and started to cry.
                "There, my dear," Harshaw said gently. "Very few corpses are worth it. Dorcas-Miriam-take care of her. Give her a drink . . . and wash her face."
                He turned his attention to the back seat, started to lift the blanket. Jill shrugged off Miriam's proffered arm and said shrilly, "You've got to listen! He's not dead. At least I hope not. He's . . . oh dear!" She started to cry again. "I'm so dirty ... and so scared!"
                "Seems to be a corpse," Harshaw said meditatively. "Body temperature is down to air temperature, I should judge. The rigor is not typical. How long has he been dead?"
                "But he's not dead! Can't we get him out of there? I had an awful time getting him in."
                "Surely. Larry, give me a hand. And quit looking so green, Larry. If you puke, you'll clean it up." Between them they got Valentine Michael Smith out of the back seat and laid him on the grass by the pool; his body remained stiff, still huddled together. Without being told Dorcas had gone in and fetched Dr. Harshaw's stethoscope; she set it on the ground by Smith, switched it on and stepped up the gain.
                Harshaw stuck the headpiece in his ears, started sounding for heart beat. "I'm afraid you're mistaken," he said gently to Jill. "This one is beyond my help. Who was he?"
                Jill sighed. Her face was drained of expression and she answered in a fiat voice, "He was the Man from Mars. I tried so hard."
                "I'm sure you did-the Man from Mars?"
                "Yes. Ben ... Ben Caxton said you were the one to come to."
                "Ben Caxton, eh? I appreciate the confid-hush/" Harshaw emphasized the demand for silence with a hand upheld while he continued to frown and listen. He looked puzzled, then surprise burst over his face. "Heart action! I'll be a babbling baboon. Dorcas-upstairs, the clinic- third drawer down in the locked part of the cooler; the code is 'sweet dreams.' Bring the whole drawer and pick up a 1 cc. hypo from the sterilizer."
                "Right away!"
                "Doctor, no stimulants!"
                Harshaw turned to Jill. "Eh?"
                "I'm sorry, sir. I'm just a nurse ... but this case is different. I know."
                "Mmm ... he's my patient now, nurse. But about forty years ago I found Out I wasn't God, and about ten years thereafter I discovered I wasn't even Aesculapius. What do you want to try?"
                "I just want to try to wake him up. If you do