But it was not. It was the NWNW mobile stereovision unit landing—and again rose bushes were damaged—Larry returning from phoning Mackenzie from the village, and Duke, returning. Mackenzie decided to finish the flat black & white interview quickly, since he was now assured of depth and color through his mobile unit, and in the meantime its technical crew could check the trouble with the equipment on loan to Jubal. Larry and Duke went with them.

The interview was finished with inanities, Jubal fielding any questions Mike failed to understand; Mackenzie signed off with a promise to the public that a color & depth special interview with the Man from Mars would follow in thirty minutes. “Stay synched with this station!” He stayed on the phone and waited for his technicians to report.

Which the crew boss did, almost at once: “Nothing wrong with that transceiver, Mr. Mackenzie, nor with any part of this field setup.”

“Then what was wrong with it before?”

The technician glanced at Larry and Duke, then grinned. “Nothing. But it helps quite a bit to put power through it. The breaker was open at the board.”

Harshaw intervened to stop a wrangle between Larry and Duke, one which seemed concerned with the relative merits of various sorts of idiocy more than with the question of whether Duke had, or had not, told Larry that a certain tripped circuit breaker must be reset if it was anticipated that the borrowed equipment was going to be used. The showman’s aspect of Jubal’s personality regretted that the “finest unrehearsed spectacular since Elijah bested the Priests of Baal” had been missed by the cameras. But the political finagler in him was relieved that mischance had kept Mike’s curious talents still a close secret—Jubal anticipated that he still might need them, as a secret weapon . . . not to mention the undesirability of trying to explain to skeptical strangers the present whereabouts of certain policemen plus two squad cars.

As for the rest, it merely confirmed his own conviction that science and invention had reached its peak with the Model-T Ford and had been growing steadily more decadent ever since.

And besides, Mackenzie wanted to get on with the depth & color interview—

They got through that with a minimum of rehearsing, Jubal simply making sure that no question would be asked which could upset the public fiction that the Man from Mars had just returned from South America. Mike sent greetings to his friends and brothers of the Champion, including one to Dr. Mahmoud delivered in croaking, throat-rasping Martian—Jubal decided that Mackenzie had his money’s worth.

At last the household could quiet down. Jubal set the telephone for two hours refusal, stood up, stretched, sighed, and felt a great weariness, wondered if he were getting old. “Where’s dinner? Which one of you wenches was supposed to get dinner tonight? And why didn’t you? Gad, this household is falling to wrack and ruin!”

“It was my turn to get dinner tonight,” Jill answered, “but—”

“Excuses, always excuses!”

“Boss,” Anne interrupted sharply, “how do you expect anyone to cook when you’ve kept every single one of us penned up here in your study all afternoon?”

“That’s the moose’s problem,” Jubal said dourly. “I want it clearly understood that, even if Armageddon is held on these premises I expect meals to be hot and on time right up to the ultimate trump. Furthermore—”

“Furthermore,” Anne completed, “it is now only seven-forty and plenty of time to have dinner by eight. So quit yelping, Boss, until you have something to yelp about. Cry-baby.”

“Is it really only twenty minutes of eight? Seems like a week since lunch. Anyhow you haven’t left me a civilized amount of time to have a pre-dinner drink.”

“Poor you!”

“Somebody get me a drink. Get everybody a drink. On second thought let’s skip a formal dinner tonight and drink our dinners; I feel like getting as tight as a tent rope on a rainy day. Anne, how are we fixed for smörgasbord?”

“Plenty.”

“Then why not thaw out eighteen or nineteen kinds and spread ’em around and let anybody eat what he feels like when he feels like it? What’s all the argument about?”

“Right away,” agreed Jill.

Anne stopped to kiss him on his bald spot. “Boss, you’ve done nobly. We’ll feed you and get you drunk and put you to bed. Wait, Jill, I’m going to help.”

“I may to help, too?” Smith said eagerly.

“Sure, Mike. You can carry trays. Boss, dinner will be by the pool. It’s a hot night.”

“How else?” When they had left, Jubal said to Duke, “Where the hell have you been all day?”