“How do you have a name, then?”

“My father gave it to me. He was an official Hero of the Frontier Worlds who came home and died a shortie. The Instrumentality let people like that have names before they gave the privilege to everybody.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Working.” The doctor started to resume their walk. Rod did not feel much awe of him. He was such a shamelessly talkative person, the way most Earth men seemed to be, that it was hard not to be at ease with him.

Rod took Vomact’s arm, gently. “There’s more to it—”

“You know it,” said Vomact. “You have good perceptions. Should I tell you?’

“Why not?” said Rod.

“You’re my patient. It might not be fair to you.”

“Go ahead,” said Rod, “you ought to know I’m tough.”

“I’m a criminal,” said the doctor.

“But you’re alive,” said Rod. “In my world we kill criminals or we send them off planet.”

“I’m off planet,” said Vomact. “This isn’t my world. For most of us here on Mars, this is a prison, not a home.”

“What did you do?”

“It’s too awful…” said the doctor. “I’m ashamed of it myself. They have sentenced me to conditional conditional.”

Rod looked at him quickly. Momentarily he wondered whether he might be the victim of some outrageous bewilderment and grief.

“I revolted,” said the doctor, “without knowing it. People can say anything they want on Earth, and they can print up to twenty copies of anything they need to print, but beyond that it’s mass communications. Against the law. When the Rediscovery of Man came, they gave me the Spanish language to work on. I used a lot of research to get out La Prensa. Jokes, dialogues, imaginary advertisements, reports of what had happened in the ancient world. But then I got a bright idea. I went down to Earthport and got the news from incoming ships. What was happening here. What was happening there. You have no idea, Rod, how interesting mankind is! And the things we do… so strange, so comical, so pitiable. The news even comes in on machines, all marked ‘official use only.’ I disregarded that and I printed up one issue with nothing but truth in it — a real issue, all facts.”

“I printed real news.”

“Rod, the roof fell in. All persons who had been reconditioned for Spanish were given stability tests. I was asked, did I know the law? Certainly, said I, I knew the law. No mass communications except within government. News is the mother of opinion, opinion the cause of mass delusion, delusion the source of war. The law was plain and I thought it did not matter. I thought it was just an old law.

“I was wrong, Rod, wrong. They did not charge me with violating the news laws. They charged me with revolt — against the Instrumentality. They sentenced me to death, immediately. Then they made it conditional, conditional on my going off planet and behaving well. When I got here, they made it double conditional. If my act has no bad results. But I can’t find out. I can go back to Earth any time. That part is no trouble. If they think my misdeed still has effect, they will give me the dream punishments or send me off to that awful planet somewhere. If they think it doesn’t matter, they will restore my citizenship with a laugh. But they don’t know the worst of it. My underman learned Spanish and the underpeople are keeping the newspaper going very secretly. I can’t even imagine what they will do to me if they ever find out what has gone wrong and know that it was me who started it all. Do you think I’m wrong, Rod?”

Rod stared at him. He was not used to judging adults, particularly not at their own request. In Old North Australia, people kept their distance. There were fitting ways for doing everything, and one of the most fitting things was to deal only with people of your own age group.

He tried to be fair, to think in an adult way, and he said, “Of course I think you’re wrong, Mister and Doctor Vomact. But you’re not very wrong. None of us should trifle with war.”

Vomact seized Rod’s arm. The gesture was hysterical, almost ugly. “Rod,” he whispered, very urgently, “you’re rich. You come from an important family. Could you get me into Old North Australia?”

“Why not?” said Rod. “I can pay for all the visitors I want.”

“No, Rod, I don’t mean that. As an immigrant.”

It was Rod’s turn to become tense. “Immigrant?” he said. “The penalty for immigration is death. We’re killing our own people right now, just to keep the population down. How do you think we could let outsiders settle with us? And the stroon. What about that?”

“Never mind, Rod,” said Vomact. “I won’t bother you again. I won’t mention it again. It’s a weary thing, to live many years with death ready to open the next door, ring the next bell, be on the next page of the message file. I haven’t married. How could I?” With a whimsical turn of his vivacious mind and face, he was off on a cheerful track. “I have a medicine, Rod, a medicine for doctors, even for rebels. Do you know what it is?”

“A tranquilizer?” Rod was still shocked at the indecency of anyone mentioning immigration to a Norstrilian. He could not think straight.

“Work,” said the little doctor, “that’s my medicine.”

“Work is always good,” said Rod, feeling pompous at the generalization. The magic had gone out of the afternoon.

The doctor felt it too. He sighed. “I’ll show you the old sheds which men from Earth first built. And then I’ll go to work. Do you know what my main work is?”

“No,” said Rod, politely.

“You,” said Doctor Vomact, with one of his sad gay mischievous smiles. “You’re well but I’ve got to make you more than well. I’ve got to make you kill-proof.”

They had reached the sheds.

The ruins might be old but they were not very impressive. They looked something like the homes on the more modest stations back on Norstrilia.

On their way back Rod said, very casually,

“What are you going to do to me, Sir and Doctor?”

“Anything you want,” said Vomact lightly.

“Really, now. What?”

“Well,” said Vomact, “the Lord Redlady sent along a whole cube of suggestions. Keep your personality. Keep your retinal and brain images. Change your appearance. Change your workwoman into a young man who looks just like your description.”

“You can’t do that to Eleanor. She’s a citizen.”

“Not here, not on Mars, she isn’t. She’s your baggage.”

“But her legal rights!”

“This is Mars, Rod, but it’s Earth territory. Under Earth law. Under the direct control of the Instrumentality. We can do these things all right. The hard thing is this. Would you consent to passing for a underman?”

“I never saw one. How would I know?” said Rod.

“Could you stand the shame of it?”

Rod laughed, by way of an answer.

Vomact sighed. “You’re funny people, you Norstrilians. I’d rather die than be mistaken for an underman. The disgrace of it, the contempt! But the Lord Redlady said that you could walk into Earth as free as a breeze if we made you pass for a cat-man. I might as well tell you, Rod. Your wife is already here.”

Rod stopped walking. “My wife? I have no wife.”

“Your cat-wife,” said the doctor. “Of course it isn’t real marriage. Underpeople aren’t allowed to have it. But they have a companionship which looks something like marriage and we sometimes slip and call them husband and wife. The Instrumentality has already sent a cat-girl out to be your ‘wife.’ She’ll travel back to Earth with you from Mars. You’ll just be a pair of lucky cats who’s been doing dances and acrobatics for the bored station personnel here.”

“And Eleanor?”

“I suppose somebody will kill her, thinking it’s you. That’s what you brought her for, isn’t it? Aren’t you rich enough?”

“No, no, no” said Rod, “nobody is that rich. We have to think of something else.”

They spent the entire walk making new plans which would protect Eleanor and Rod both.