«Will it explode?» she asked nervously.

«You could bake it in a cake.»

«Ben, you've got me scared to go into his room.»

«You can go into the room next door, can't you?»

«I suppose so.»

«This thing has donkey's ears. Fasten the concave side against a wall — tape will do — and it picks up everything in the room beyond.»

«I'm bound to be noticed if I duck in and out of that room. Ben, his room has a wall in common with a room on another corridor. Will that do?»

«Perfect. You'll do it?»

«Umm… give it to me. I'll think it over.»

Caxton polished it with his handkerchief. «Put on your gloves.»

«Why?»

«Possession is good for a vacation behind bars. Use gloves and don't get caught with it.»

«You think of the nicest things!»

«Want to back out?»

Jill let out a long breath. «No.»

«Good girl!» A light blinked, he glanced up. «That must be your cab. I rang for it when I went to get this.»

«Oh. Find my shoes, will you? Don't come to the roof. The less I'm seen with you the better.»

«As you wish.»

As he straightened up from putting her shoes on, she took his head in both hands and kissed him. «Dear Ben! No good can come of this and I hadn't realized you were a criminal — but you're a good cook as long as I set the combination … I might marry you if I can trap you into proposing again.»

«The offer remains open.»

«Do gangsters marry their molls? Or is it “frails”?» She left hurriedly.

Jill placed the bug easily. The patient in the room in the next corridor was bedfast; Jill often stopped to gossip. She stuck it against the wall over a closet shelf while chattering about how the maids just never dusted the shelves.

Changing spools the next day was easy; the patient was asleep. She woke while Jill was perched on a chair; Jill diverted her with a spicy ward rumor.

Jill sent the exposed wire by mail, as the postal system seemed safer than a cloak and dagger ruse. But her attempt to insert a third spool she muffed. She waited for the patient to be asleep but had just mounted the chair when the patient woke. «Oh! Hello, Miss Boardman.»

Jill froze. «Hello, Mrs. Fritschlie,» she managed to answer. «Have a nice nap?»

«Fair,» the woman answered peevishly. «My back aches.»

«I'll rub it.»

«Doesn't help. Why are you always fiddling in my closet? Is something wrong?»

Jill tried to reswallow her stomach. «Mice,» she answered.

«“Mice”? Oh I'll have to have another room!»

Jill tore the instrument loose and stuffed it into her pocket, jumped down. «Now, now, Mrs. Fritschlie — I was just looking to see if there were mouse holes. There aren't.»

«You're sure?»

«Quite sure. Now let's rub the back. Easy over.»

Jill decided to risk the empty room which was part of K- 12, the suite of the Man from Mars. She got the pass key.

Only to find the room unlocked and holding two more marines; the guard had been doubled. One looked around as she opened the door. «Looking for someone?»

«No. Don't sit on the bed, boys,» she said crisply. «If you need chairs, we'll send for them.» The guard got reluctantly up; she left, trying to conceal her trembling.

The bug was still in her pocket when she went off duty; she decided to return it to Caxton. Once in the air and headed toward Ben's apartment she breathed easier. She phoned him in flight.

«Caxton speaking.»

«Jill, Ben. I want to see you.»

He answered slowly,«I don't think it's smart.»

«Ben, I've got to. I'm on my way.»

«Well, okay, if that's how it's got to be.»

«Such enthusiasm!»

«Now look, hon, it isn't that I — »

«'Bye!» She switched off, calmed down and decided not to take it out on Ben — they were playing out of their league. At least she was — she should have left politics alone.

She felt better when she snuggled into his arms. Ben was such a dear — maybe she should marry him. When she tried to speak he put a hand over her mouth, whispered, «Don't talk. I may be wired.»

She nodded, got out the recorder, handed it to him. His eyebrows went up but he made no comment. Instead he handed her a copy of the afternoon Post.

«Seen the paper?» he said in a natural voice. «You might glance at it while I wash up.»

«Thanks.» As she took it he pointed to a column, then left, taking with him the recorder. The column was Ben's own:

THE CROW'S NEST

by Ben Caxton

Everyone knows that jails and hospitals have one thing in common: they can be very hard to get out of. In some ways a prisoner is less cut off than a patient; a prisoner can send for his lawyer, demand a Fair Witness, invoke habeas corpus and require the jailor to show cause in open court.

But it takes only a NO VISITORS sign, ordered by one of the medicine men of our peculiar tribe, to consign a hospital patient to oblivion more thoroughly than ever was the Man in the Iron Mask.

To be sure, the patient's next of kin cannot be kept out — but the Man from Mars seems to have no next of kin. The crew of the ill-fated Envoy had few ties on Earth; if the Man in the Iron Mask — pardon me; I mean the «Man from Mars» — has any relative guarding his interests, a few thousand reporters have been unable to verify it.

Who speaks for the Man from Mars? Who ordered an armed guard placed around him? What is his dread disease that no one may glimpse him, nor ask him a question? I address you, Mr. Secretary General; the explanation about «physical weakness» and «gee-fatigue» won't wash; if that were the answer, a ninety-pound nurse would do as well as an armed guard.

Could this disease be financial in nature? Or (let's say it softly) is it political?

There was more of the same; Jill could see that Ben was baiting the administration, trying to force them into the open. She felt that Caxton was taking serious risk in challenging the authorities, but she had no notion of the size of the danger, nor what form it might take.

She thumbed through the paper. It was loaded with stories on the Champion, pictures of Secretary General Douglas pinning medals, interviews with Captain van Tromp and his brave company, pictures of Martians and Martian cities. There was little about Smith, merely a bulletin that he was improving slowly from the effects of his trip.

Ben came out and dropped sheets of onionskin in her lap. «Here's another newspaper.» He left again.

Jill saw that the «newspaper» was a transcription of what her first wire had picked up. It was marked «First Voice,» «Second Voice,» and so on, but Ben had written in names wherever he had been able to make attributions. He had written across the top: «All voices are masculine.»

Most items merely showed that Smith had been fed, washed, massaged and that he had exercised under supervision of a voice identified as «Doctor Nelson» and one marked «second doctor.»

One passage had nothing to do with care of the patient. Jill reread it:

Doctor Nelson: How are you feeling, boy? Strong enough to talk?

Smith: Yes.

Doctor Nelson: A man wants to talk to you.

Smith: (pause) Who? (Caxton had written: All of Smith's speeches are preceded by pauses.)

Nelson: This man is our great (untranscribable guttural word — Martian?). He is our oldest Old One. Will you talk with him?

Smith: (very long pause) I am great happy. The Old One will talk and I will listen and grow.

Nelson: No, no! He wants to ask you questions.

Smith: I cannot teach an Old One.

Nelson: The Old One wishes it. Will you let him ask you questions?

Smith: Yes.

(Background noises)

Nelson: This way, sir. I have Doctor Mahmoud standing by to translate.

Jill read «New Voice.» Caxton had scratched this out and written in: «Secretary General Douglas! ! !»