“I said get out of there. Sit up. Stand up. Walk around. You can do it. Sure, you’re weak as a kitten but you’ll never put on muscle floating in that bed.” Nelson opened a valve at the head of the bed; water drained out. Smith restrained a feeling of insecurity, knowing that Nelson cherished him. Shortly he lay on the floor of the bed with the watertight cover wrinkled around him. Nelson added, “Doctor Frame, take his other elbow. We’ll have to help him and steady him.”

With Dr. Nelson to encourage him and both of them to help him, Smith stood up and stumbled over the rim of the bed. “Steady. Now stand up on your own,” Nelson directed. “Don’t be afraid. We’ll catch you if necessary.”

He made the effort and stood alone—a slender young man with underdeveloped muscles and overdeveloped chest. His hair had been cut in the Champion and his whiskers removed and inhibited. His most marked feature was his bland, expressionless, almost babyish face—set with eyes which would have seemed more at home in a man of ninety.

He stood alone for a moment, trembling slightly, then tried to walk. He managed three shuffling steps and broke into a sunny, childlike smile. “Good boy!” Nelson applauded.

He tried another step, began to tremble violently and suddenly collapsed. They barely managed to break his fall. “Damn!” Nelson fumed. “He’s gone into another one. Here, help me lift him into the bed. No—fill it first.”

Frame did so, cutting off the flow when the cover skin floated six inches from the top. They lugged him into it, awkwardly because he had frozen into the foetal position. “Get a collar pillow under his neck,” instructed Nelson, “and call me when he comes out of it. No—let me sleep, I need it. Unless something worries you. We’ll walk him again this afternoon and tomorrow we’ll start systematic exercise. In three months I’ll have him swinging through the trees like a monkey. There’s nothing really wrong with him.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Frame answered doubtfully.

“Oh yes, when he comes out of it, teach him how to use the bathroom. Have the nurse help you; I don’t want him to fall.”

“Yes, sir. Uh, any particular method—I mean, how—”

“Eh? Show him, of course! Demonstrate. He probably won’t understand much that you say to him, but he’s bright as a whip. He’ll be bathing himself by the end of the week.”

Smith ate lunch without help. Presently a male orderly came in to remove his tray. The man glanced around, then came to the bed and leaned over him. “Listen,” he said in a low voice, “I’ve got a fat proposition for you.”

“Beg pardon?”

“A deal, a bargain, a way for you to make a lot of money fast and easy.”

“‘Money?’ What is ‘money’?”

“Never mind the philosophy; everybody needs money. Now listen. I’ll have to talk fast because I can’t stay in here long—and it’s taken a lot of fixing to get me in here at all. I represent Peerless Features. We’ll pay you sixty thousand for your exclusive story and it won’t be a bit of trouble to you—we’ve got the best ghost writers in the business. You just talk and answer questions; they put it together.” He whipped out a piece of paper. “Just read this and sign it. I’ve got the down payment with me.”

Smith accepted the paper, stared thoughtfully at it, holding it upside down. The man looked at him and muffled an exclamation. “Lordy! Don’t you read English?”

Smith understood this well enough to answer. “No.”

“Well— Here, I’ll read it to you, then you just put your thumb print in the square and I’ll witness it. ‘I, the undersigned, Valentine Michael Smith, sometimes known as the Man from Mars, do grant and assign to Peerless Features, Limited, all and exclusive rights in my true-fact story to be titled I Was a Prisoner on Mars in exchange for—”

“Orderly!”

Dr. Frame was standing in the door of the watch room; the paper disappeared into the man’s clothes. “Coming, sir. I was just getting this tray.”

“What were you reading?”

“Nothing.”

“I saw you. Never mind, come out of there quickly. This patient is not to be disturbed.” The man obeyed; Dr. Frame closed the door behind them. Smith lay motionless for the next half hour, but try as he might he could not grok it at all.



4

Gillian Boardman was considered professionally competent as a nurse; she was judged competent in wider fields by the bachelor internes and she was judged harshly by some other women. There was no harm in her and her hobby was men. When the grapevine carried the word that there was a patient in special suite K-12 who had never laid eyes on a woman in his life, she did not believe it. When detailed explanation convinced her, she resolved to remedy it. She went on duty that day as floor supervisor in the wing where Smith was housed. As soon as possible she went to pay a call on the strange patient.