Stranger in a Strange Land

anything to him, he just goes deeper into it."
                "Hmm ... go ahead. Just as long as you don't use an ax. Then we'll try my methods."
                "Yes, sir." Jill knelt beside him, Started gently trying to straighten out his limbs. Harshaw's eyebrows went up when he saw that she had succeeded. Jill took Smith's head in her lap and cradled it gently in her hands. "Please wake up," she said softly. "This is Jill ... your water brother."
                The body stirred. Very slowly the chest lifted. Then Smith let out a long bubbling sigh and his eyes opened. He looked up at Jill and smiled his baby smile. Jill smiled back. Then he looked around and the smile left him.
                "It's all right," Jill said quickly. "These are all friends."
                "All friends?"
                "That's right. All of them are your friends. Don't worry-and don't go away again. Everything is all right."
                He did not answer but lay still with his eyes open, staring at everything and everyone around him. He seemed as content as a cat in a lap.
                Twenty-five minutes later Harshaw had both of his patients in bed. Jill had managed to tell him, before the pill he gave her took hold, enough of the situation to let him know that he had a bear by the tail. Ben Caxton was missing-he'd have to try to figure out something to do about that- and young Smith was as hot as a dry bearing . . . although he had been able to guess that when he heard who he was. Oh, well, life might be amusing for a while; it would keep back that grey boredom that lay always just around the corner.
                He looked at the little utility car that Jill had arrived in. Lettered across its sides was: READING RENTALS-Permapowered Ground Equipment of All Sorts-"Deal with the Dutchman!"
                "Larry, is the fence hot?"
                "Switch it on. Then before it gets dark I want you to polish every possible fingerprint off that heap. As soon as it is dark, drive it over the other side of Reading-better go almost to Lancaster-and leave it in a ditch. Then go to Philadelphia, catch the shuttle for Scranton, come home from Scranton."
                "Sure thing, Jubal. Say-is he really the Man from Mars?"
                "You had better hope that he isn't, because if he is and they catch you before you dump that wagon and they associate you with him, they'll probably interrogate you with a blow torch. But I think he is."
                "I scan it. Should I rob a few banks on the way back?"
                "Probably the safest thing you can do."
                "Okay, Boss." Larry hesitated. "Do you mind if I stay over night in Philly?"
                "What in God's name can a man find to do at night in Philadelphia?"
                "Plenty, if you know where to look."
                "Suit yourself." Harshaw turned away. "Front!"
                Jill slept until shortly before dinner, which in that household was a comfortable eight o'clock. She awoke refreshed and feeling alert, so much so that she sniffed the air incoming from the grille over her head and surmised correctly that the doctor had offset the hypnotic she had been given with a stimulant. While she was asleep someone had removed the dirty and torn street clothes she had been wearing and had left a simple, off-white dinner dress and sandals. The clothes fit her fairly well; Jill concluded that they must belong to the one the doctor had called Miriam. She bathed and painted her face and combed her hair and went down to the big living room feeling like a new woman.
                Dorcas was curled in a big chair, doing needle point; she looked up, nodded in a friendly manner as if Jill were always part of the household, turned her attention back to her fancy work. Harshaw was standing and stirring gently a mixture in a tall and frosty pitcher. "Drink?" he said.
                'Uh, yes, thank you."
                He poured two large cocktail glasses to their brims, handed her one. "What is it?" she asked.
                "My own recipe, a comet cocktail. One third vodka, one third muriatic acid, one third battery water-two pinches of salt and add a pickled beetle."
                "Better have a highball," Dorcas advised. Jill noticed that the