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But just at present Smith was simply enjoying himself with a lightheartedness he had not experienced in many years. He had won a new water brother in Jubal, he had acquired many new friends, he was enjoying delightful new experiences in such kaleidoscopic quantity that he had no time to grok them; he could only file them away to be relived at leisure.
His brother Jubal had assured him that be would grok this strange and beautiful place more quickly if he would learn to read, so he had taken a full day off to learn to read really well and quickly, with Jill pointing to words and pronouncing them for him. It had meant staying out of the swimming pool all that day, which had been a great sacrifice, as swimming (once he got it through his head that it was actually permitted) was not merely an exuberant, sensuous delight but almost unbearable religious ecstasy. If Jill and Jubal had not told him to do otherwise, he would never have come out of the pool at all.
Since he was not permitted to swim at night he read all night long. He was zipping through the Encyclopedia Brita
But he preferred the pool to the books, especially when Jill and Miriam and Larry and A
Later that day he had demonstrated the matter to Jubal, remaining on the bottom for a delicious time, and he had tried to teach it to his brother Jill� but she had become disturbed and he had desisted. It was his first clear realization that there were things that he could do that these new friends could not. He thought about it a long time, trying to grok its fullness.
Smith was happy; Harshaw was not. He continued his usual routine of aimless loafing, varied only by casual and unpla
However, Gillian Boardman did little more than coach Valentine Smith in the rudiments of human social behavior - and he needed very little coaching. He ate at the table with the others now, dressed himself (at least Jubal thought he did; he made a mental note to ask Jill if she still had to assist him); he conformed acceptably to the household's very informal customs and appeared able to cope with most new experiences on a "monkey-see-monkey" basis. Smith started his first meal at the table using only a spoon and Jill had cut up his meat for him. By the end of the meal he was attempting to eat as the others ate. At the next meal his table ma
Even the twin discovery that Smith had taught himself to read with the speed of electronic sca
But, while Harshaw enjoyed watching this unique animal develop into a mimicry copy of a human being, his pleasure afforded him no happiness.
Like Secretary General Douglas, Harshaw was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Waiting with increasing tenseness. Having found himself coerced into action by the expectation of action against him on the part of the government, it a
And they might be doing that too, he reminded himself morosely. Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling - oh, he conceded that man, a social animal, could not avoid having government, any more than an individual man could escape his lifelong bondage to his bowels. But Harshaw did not have to like it. Simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it a "good." He wished that government would wander off and get lost?
But it was certainly possible, or even probable, that the administration knew exactly where the Man from Mars was hiding� and for reasons of their own preferred to leave it that way, while they prepared - what?
If so, how long would it go on? And how long could he keep his defensive "time bomb" armed and ready?
And where the devil was that reckless young idiot Ben Caxton?
Jill Boardman forced him out of his spiritual thumb-twiddling. "Jubal?"
"Eh? Oh, it's you, bright eyes. Sorry, I was preoccupied. Sit down. Have a drink?"
"Uh, no, thank you. Jubal, I'm worried."
"Normal. Who isn't? That was a mighty pretty swan dive you did. Let's see another one just like it."
Jill bit her lip and looked about twelve years old. "Jubal? Please listen! I'm terribly worried."
He sighed. "In that case, dry yourself off. The breeze is getting chilly."
"I'm warm enough. Uh, Jubal? Would it be all right if I left Mike here? Would you take care of him?"
Harshaw blinked. "Of course he can stay here. You know that. The girls will look out for him - and I'll keep an eye on him from time to time. He's no trouble. I take it you're leaving?"
She didn't meet his eye. "Yes."
"Mmmm� you're welcome here. But you're welcome to leave, too, if that's what you want."
"Huh? But, Jubal - I don't want to leave!"
"Then don't."
"But I must!"
"Better play that back. I didn't scan it."
"Don't you see, Jubal? I like it here - you've been wonderful to us! But I can't stay any longer. Not with Ben missing. I've got to go look for him."
Harshaw said one word, emotive, earthy, and vulgar, then added, "How do you propose to look for him?"
She frowned. "I don't know. But I can't just lie around here any longer, loafing and swimming - with Ben missing."
"Gillian, as I pointed out to you before, Ben is a big boy now. You're not his mother - and you're not his wife. And I'm not his keeper. Neither of us is responsible for him� and you haven't any call to go looking for him. Have you?"
Jill looked down and twisted one toe in the grass. "No," she admitted. "I haven't any claim on Ben. I just know� that if I turned up missing Ben would look for me - until he found me. So I've got to look for him!"