Stranger in a Strange Land

eternity were part of Martian mathematics, but not of Martian emotion, Contrariwise, the unceasing rush and turmoil of human existence came not from mathematical necessities of time but from the frantic urgency implicit in human sexual bipolarity.
                Dr. Jubal Harshaw, professional clown, amateur subversive, and parasite by choice, had long attempted to eliminate "hurry" and all related emotions from his pattern. Being aware that he had but a short time left to live and having neither Martian nor Kansan faith in his own immortality, it was his purpose to live each golden moment as if it were eternity- without fear, without hope, but with sybaritic gusto. To this end he found that he required something larger than Diogenes' tub but smaller than Kubla's pleasure dome and its twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers girdled round; his was a simple little place, a few acres kept private with an electrified fence, a house of fourteen rooms or so, with running secretaries laid on and all other modern conveniences. To support his austerely upholstered nest and its rabble staff he put forth minimum effort for maximum return simply because it was easier to be rich than to be poor-Harshaw merely wished to live exactly as he liked, doing whatever he thought was best for him.
                In consequence he felt honestly aggrieved that circumstances had forced on him a necessity for hurry and would not admit that he was enjoying himself more than he had in years.
                This morning he found it needful to speak to the third planet's chief executive. He was fully aware of the flapper system that made such contact with the head of government all but impossible for the ordinary citizen, even though Harshaw himself disdained to surround himself with buffers suitable to his own rank-Harshaw answered his telephone himself if he happened to be at hand when it signalled because each call offered good odds that he would be justified in being gratifyingly rude to some stranger for daring to invade his privacy without cause-"cause" by Harshaw's definition, not by the stranger's.
                Jubal knew that he could not hope to find the same conditions obtaining at the Executive Palace; Mr. Secretary General would not answer his own phone. But Harshaw had many years of practice in the art of outwitting human customs; he tackled the matter cheerfully, right after breakfast.
                Much later he was tired and very frustrated. His name alone had carried him past three layers of the official flapper defense, and he was sufficiently a narrow-gauge V.I.P. that he was never quite switched off. Instead he was referred from secretary to secretary and wound up speaking voice-&-vision to a personable, urbane young man who seemed willing to discuss the matter endlessly and without visible irritation no matter what Harshaw said-but would not agree to connect him with the Honorable Mr. Douglas.
                Harshaw knew that he would get action if he mentioned the Man from Mars and that he certainly would get very quick action if he claimed to have the Man from Mars with him, but he was far from certain that the resultant action would be a face-to-face hookup with Douglas. On the Contrary, he calculated that any mention of Smith would kill any chance of reaching Douglas but would at once produce violent reaction from subordinates-which was not what he wanted. He knew from a lifetime of experience that it was always easier to dicker with the top man. With Ben Caxton's life very possibly at stake Harshaw could not risk failure through a subordinate's lack of authority or excess of ambition.
                But this soft brush-off was trying his patience. Finally he snarled, "Young man, if you have no authority yourself, let me speak to someone who has! Put me through to Mr. Berquist."
                The face of the staff stooge suddenly lost its smile and Jubal thought gleefully that he had at last pinked him in the quick. So he pushed his advantage. "Well? Don't just sit there! Get Gil on your inside line and tell him you've been keeping Jubal Harshaw waiting. Tell him how long you've kept me waiting." Jubal reviewed in his own excellent memory all that Witness Cavendish had reported concerning the missing Berquist, plus the report on him from the detective service. Yup, he thought happily, this lad is at least three rungs down the