«Please examine this warrant,» Captain Heinrich said with careful patience. «Then — »
«Get your go-cart out of my flower beds or I'll make a civil-rights case that will cost you your pension!»
Heinrich hesitated.«Now!» Jubal screamed. «And tell those yokels getting out to pick up their feet! That idiot with the buck teeth is standing on a prize Elizabeth M. Hewitt!»
Heinrich turned his head. «You men — careful of those flowers. Paskin, you're standing on one.Rogers! Raise the car and move back clear of the garden.» He turned to Harshaw. «Does that satisfy you?»
«Once he moves it — but you'll still pay damages. Let's see your credentials … and show them to the Fair Witness and state loud and clear your name, rank, organization, and pay number.»
«You know who I am. I have a warrant to — »
«I have a warrant to part your hair with a shotgun unless you do things legally and in order!I don't know who you are. You look like a stuffed shirt I saw over the telephone — but I don't identify you.You must identify yourself, in specified fashion. World Code paragraph 1602, part II, before you may serve a warrant. And that goes for those other apes, too, and that pithecan parasite piloting for you.»
«They are police officers, acting under my orders.»
«Idon't know that they are. They might have hired those ill-fitting clown suits at a costumer's. The letter of the law, sir! You've come barging into my castle. You say you are a police officer — and you allege that you have a warrant for this intrusion. But I say you are trespassers until you prove otherwise … which invokes my sovereign right to use force to eject you — which I shall start to do in about three seconds.»
«I wouldn't advise it.»
«Why are you to advise? If I am hurt in attempting to enforce this my right, your action becomes constructive assault — with deadly weapons, if the things those mules are toting are guns, as they appear to be. Civil and criminal, both — why, my man, I'll have your hide for a door mat!» Jubal drew back a skinny arm and clenched a fist.«Off my property!»
«Hold it, Doctor. We'll do it your way.» Heinrich had turned red, but he kept his voice under tight control. He offered his identification, which Jubal glanced at, then handed back for Heinrich to show to Anne. He then stated his full name, said that he was a captain of police, Federation Special Service Bureau, and recited his pay number. One by one, the other troopers and the driver went through the rigmarole at Heinrich's frozen-faced orders.
When they were done, Jubal said sweetly, «And now, Captain, how may I help you?»
«I have a warrant for Gilbert Berquist, which warrant names this property, its buildings and grounds.»
«Show it to me, then show it to the Witness.»
«I will do so. I have another warrant, similar to the first, for Gillian Boardman.»
«Who?»
«Gillian Boardman. The charge is kidnapping.»
«My goodness!»
«And another for Hector C. Johnson . . . and one for Valentine Michael Smith… and one for you, Jubal Harshaw.»
«Me? Taxes again?»
«No. Accessory to this and that… and material witness on other things… and I'd take you in on my own for obstructing justice if the warrant didn't make it unnecessary.»
«Oh, come, Captain! I've been most cooperative since you identified yourself and started behaving in a legal manner. And I shall continue to be. Of course, I shall still sue you — and your immediate superior and the government — for your illegal acts before that time… and I am not waiving any rights or recourses with respect to anything any of you may do hereafter. Mmm… quite a list of victims. I see why you brought an extra wagon. But — dear me! — something odd here. This, uh, Mrs. Barkmann? — I see that she is charged with kidnapping this Smith fellow… but in this other warrant he seems to be charged with fleeing custody. I'm confused.»
«It's both. He escaped — and she kidnapped him.»
«Isn't that difficult to manage? Both, I mean? And on what charge was he being held? The warrant does not seem to state?»
«How the devil do I know? He escaped, that's all. He's a fugitive.»
«Gracious me! I think I shall have to offer my services as counsel to each of them. Interesting case. If a mistake has been made — or mistakes — it could lead to other matters.»
Heinrich grinned coldly. «You won't find it easy. You'll be in the pokey, too.»
«Oh, not for long, I trust.» Jubal raised his voice and turned his head toward the house. «I think, if Judge Holland were listening, habeas corpus proceedings — for all of us — might be rather prompt. And, if the Associated Press happened to have a courier car nearby, there would be no time lost in knowing where to serve such writs.»
«Always the shyster, eh, Harshaw?»
«Slander, my dear sir. I take notice.»
«A fat lot of good it will do you. We're alone.»
«Are we?»
XV
VALENTINE MICHAEL SMITH swam through murky water to the deepest part, under the diving board, and settled on the bottom. He did not know why his water brother had told him to hide; he did not know he was hiding. Jubal had told him to do this and remain until Jill came for him; that was sufficient.
He curled up, let air out of his lungs, swallowed his tongue, rolled his eyes up, slowed his heart, and became effectively «dead» save that he was not discorporate. He elected to stretch his time sense until seconds flowed past like hours, as he had much to meditate.
He had failed again to achieve the perfect understanding, the mutually merging rapport — the grokking — that should exist between water brothers. He knew the failure was his, caused by his using wrongly the oddly variable human language, because Jubal had become upset.
He knew that his human brothers could suffer intense emotion without damage, nevertheless Smith was wistfully sorry to have caused upset in Jubal. It had seemed that he had at last grokked a most difficult human word. He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words rarely changed their meanings but short words were slippery, changing without pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife.
This had been a very short word.
Smith still felt that he grokked rightly the human word «God» — confusion had come from his failure in selecting other words. The concept was so simple, so basic, so necessary, that a nestling could explain it — in Martian. The problem was to find human words that would let him speak rightly, make sure that he patterned them to match in fullness how it would be said in his own people's language.
He puzzled over the fact that there should be any difficulty in saying it, even in English, since it was a thing everyone knew… else they could not grok alive. Possibly he should ask the human Old Ones how to say it, rather than struggle with shifting meanings. If so, he must wait until Jubal arranged it, for he was only an egg.
He felt brief regret that he was not privileged to attend discorporation of brother Art and brother Dottie.
Then he settled down to review Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, published in Springfield, Massachusetts.
From a long way off Smith was roused by uneasy awareness that his water brothers were in trouble. He paused between «sherbacha» and «sherbet» to ponder this. Should he leave the water of life and join them to grok and share their trouble? At home there could have been no question; trouble is shared, in joyful closeness.
But Jubal had told him to wait.
He reviewed Jubal's words, trying them against other human words, making sure that he grokked. No, he had grokked rightly; he must wait until Jill came.