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_WHAT'S HE DOING IN THERE?_
By FRITZ LEIBER
_He went where no Martian ever went before--but would he come out--or had he gone for good?_
Illustrated By BOWMAN
The Professor was congratulating Earth's first visitor from anotherplanet on his wisdom in getting in touch with a cultural anthropologistbefore contacting any other scientists (or governments, God forbid!),and in learning English from radio and TV before landing from hisorbit-parked rocket, when the Martian stood up and said hesitantly,"Excuse me, please, but where is it?"
That baffled the Professor and the Martian seemed to grow anxious--atleast his long mouth curved upward, and he had earlier explained that itcurling downward was his smile--and he repeated, "Please, where is it?"
He was surprisingly humanoid in most respects, but his complexion wastextured so like the rich dark armchair he'd just been occupying thatthe Professor's pin-striped gray suit, which he had eagerly consentedto wear, seemed an arbitrary interruption between him and the chair--asort of Mother Hubbard dress on a phantom conjured from its leather.
The Professor's Wife, always a perceptive hostess, came to her husband'srescue by saying with equal rapidity, "Top of the stairs, end of thehall, last door."
The Martian's mouth curled happily downward and he said, "Thank you verymuch," and was off.
Comprehension burst on the Professor. He caught up with his guest at thefoot of the stairs.
"Here, I'll show you the way," he said.
"No, I can find it myself, thank you," the Martian assured him.
* * * * *
Something rather final in the Martian's tone made the Professor desist,and after watching his visitor sway up the stairs with an almosthypnotic softly jogging movement, he rejoined his wife in the study,saying wonderingly, "Who'd have thought it, by George! Function taboosas strict as our own!"
"I'm glad some of your professional visitors maintain 'em," his wifesaid darkly.
"But this one's from Mars, darling, and to find out he's--well, similarin an aspect of his life is as thrilling as the discovery that water isburned hydrogen. When I think of the day not far distant when I'll puthis entries in the cross-cultural index ..."
He was still rhapsodizing when the Professor's Little Son raced in.
"Pop, the Martian's gone to the bathroom!"
"Hush, dear. Manners."
"Now it's perfectly natural, darling, that the boy should notice and beexcited. Yes, Son, the Martian's not so very different from us."
"Oh, certainly," the Professor's Wife said with a trace of bitterness."I don't imagine his turquoise complexion will cause any comment at allwhen you bring him to a faculty reception. They'll just figure he's hada hard night--and that he got that baby-elephant nose sniffing aroundfor assistant professorships."
"Really, darling! He probably thinks of our noses as disagreeablyamputated and paralyzed."
"Well, anyway, Pop, he's in the bathroom. I followed him when hesquiggled upstairs."
"Now, Son, you shouldn't have done that. He's on a strange planet and itmight make him nervous if he thought he was being spied on. We must showhim every courtesy. By George, I can't wait to discuss these things withAckerly-Ramsbottom! When I think of how much more this encounter has togive the anthropologist than even the physicist or astronomer ..."
He was still going strong on his second rhapsody when he was interruptedby another high-speed entrance. It was the Professor's Coltish Daughter.
"Mom, Pop, the Martian's--"
"Hush, dear. We know."
The Professor's Coltish Daughter regained her adolescent poise, whichwas considerable. "Well, he's still in there," she said. "I just triedthe door and it was locked."
"I'm glad it was!" the Professor said while his wife added, "Yes, youcan't be sure what--" and caught herself. "Really, dear, that was verybad manners."
"I thought he'd come downstairs long ago," her daughter explained. "He'sbeen in there an awfully long time. It must have been a half hour agothat I saw him gyre and gimbal upstairs in that real gone way he has,with Nosy here following him." The Professor's Coltish Daughter wascurrently soaking up both jive and _Alice_.
* * * * *
When the Professor checked his wristwatch, his expression grew troubled."By George, he is taking his time! Though, of course, we don't know howmuch time Martians ... I wonder."
"I listened for a while, Pop," his son volunteered. "He was running thewater a lot."
"Running the water, eh? We know Mars is a water-starved planet. Isuppose that in the presence of unlimited water, he might be seized by akind of madness and ... But he seemed so well adjusted."
Then his wife spoke, voicing all their thoughts. Her outlook on lifegave her a naturally sepulchral voice.
"_What's he doing in there?_"
Twenty minutes and at least as many fantastic suggestions later, theProfessor glanced again at his watch and nerved himself for action.Motioning his family aside, he mounted the stairs and tiptoed down thehall.
He paused only once to shake his head and mutter under his breath, "ByGeorge, I wish I had Fenchurch or von Gottschalk here. They're a shadebetter than I am on intercultural contracts, especially taboo-breakingsand affronts ..."
His family followed him at a short distance.
The Professor stopped in front of the bathroom door. Everything wasquiet as death.
He listened for a minute and then rapped measuredly, steadying his handby clutching its wrist with the other. There was a faint splashing, butno other sound.
Another minute passed. The Professor rapped again. Now there was noresponse at all. He very gingerly tried the knob. The door was stilllocked.
When they had retreated to the stairs, it was the Professor's Wife whoonce more voiced their thoughts. This time her voice carried overtonesof supernatural horror.
"_What's he doing in there?_"
"He may be dead or dying," the Professor's Coltish Daughter suggestedbriskly. "Maybe we ought to call the Fire Department, like they did forold Mrs. Frisbee."
The Professor winced. "I'm afraid you haven't visualized thecomplications, dear," he said gently. "No one but ourselves knows thatthe Martian is on Earth, or has even the slightest inkling thatinterplanetary travel has been achieved. Whatever we do, it will have tobe on our own. But to break in on a creature engaged in--well, we don'tknow what primal private activity--is against all anthropologicalpractice. Still--"
"Dying's a primal activity," his daughter said crisply.
"So's ritual bathing before mass murder," his wife added.
"Please! Still, as I was about to say, we do have the moral duty tosuccor him if, as you all too reasonably suggest, he has beenincapacitated by a germ or virus or, more likely, by some simpleenvironmental factor such as Earth's greater gravity."
"Tell you what, Pop--I can look in the bathroom window and see what he'sdoing. All I have to do is crawl out my bedroom window and along thegutter a little ways. It's safe as houses."
* * * * *
The Professor's question beginning with, "Son, how do you know--" diedunuttered and he refused to notice the words his daughter was voicingsilently at her brother. He glanced at his wife's sardonically composedface, thought once more of the Fire Department and of other and largerand even more jealous--or would it be skeptical?--government agencies,and clutched at the straw offered him.
Ten minutes later, he was quite unnecessarily assisting his son backthrough the bedroom window.
"Gee, Pop, I couldn't see a sign of h
im. That's why I took so long. Hey,Pop, don't look so scared. He's in there, sure enough. It's just thatthe bathtub's under the window and you have to get real close up to seeinto it."
"The Martian's taking a bath?"
"Yep. Got it full up and just the end of his little old schnozzlesticking out. Your suit, Pop, was hanging on the door."
The one word the Professor's Wife spoke was like a death knell.
"_Drowned!_"
"No, Ma, I don't think so. His schnozzle was opening and closing regularlike."
"Maybe he's a shape-changer," the Professor's Coltish Daughter said in aburst of evil fantasy. "Maybe he softens in water and thins out after awhile until he's like an eel and then he'll go exploring through thesewer pipes. Wouldn't it be funny if he went under the street andknocked on the stopper from underneath and crawled into the bathtub withPresident Rexford, or Mrs. President Rexford, or maybe right into themiddle of one of Janey Rexford's Oh-I'm-so-sexy bubble baths?"
"Please!" The Professor put his hand to his eyebrows and kept it there,cuddling the elbow in his other hand.
"Well, have you thought of something?" the Professor's Wife asked himafter a bit. "What are you going to do?"
The Professor dropped his hand and blinked his eyes hard and took a deepbreath.
"Telegraph Fenchurch and Ackerly-Ramsbottom and then break in," he saidin a resigned voice, into which, nevertheless, a note of hope seemedalso to have come. "First, however, I'm going to wait until morning."
And he sat down cross-legged in the hall a few yards from the bathroomdoor and folded his arms.
* * * * *
So the long vigil commenced.
The Professor's family shared it and he offered no objection. Other andsterner men, he told himself, might claim to be able successfully toorder their children to go to bed when there was a Martian locked in thebathroom, but he would like to see them faced with the situation.
Finally dawn began to seep from the bedrooms. When the bulb in the hallhad grown quite dim, the Professor unfolded his arms.
Just then, there was a loud splashing in the bathroom. The Professor'sfamily looked toward the door. The splashing stopped and they heard theMartian moving around. Then the door opened and the Martian appeared inthe Professor's gray pin-stripe suit. His mouth curled sharply downwardin a broad alien smile as he saw the Professor.
"Good morning!" the Martian said happily. "I never slept better in mylife, even in my own little wet bed back on Mars."
He looked around more closely and his mouth straightened. "But where didyou all sleep?" he asked. "Don't tell me you stayed dry all night! You_didn't_ give up your only bed to me?"
His mouth curled upward in misery. "Oh, dear," he said, "I'm afraid I'vemade a mistake somehow. Yet I don't understand how. Before I studiedyou, I didn't know what your sleeping habits would be, but that questionwas answered for me--in fact, it looked so reassuringly homelike--when Isaw those brief TV scenes of your females ready for sleep in theirlittle tubs. Of course, on Mars, only the fortunate can always be sureof sleeping wet, but here, with your abundance of water, I thought therewould be wet beds for all."
He paused. "It's true I had some doubts last night, wondering if I'dused the right words and all, but then when you rapped 'Good night' tome, I splashed the sentiment back at you and went to sleep in a wink.But I'm afraid that somewhere I've blundered and--"
"No, no, dear chap," the Professor managed to say. He had been wavinghis hand in a gentle circle for some time in token that he wanted tointerrupt. "Everything is quite all right. It's true we stayed up allnight, but please consider that as a watch--an honor guard, byGeorge!--which we kept to indicate our esteem."
--FRITZ LEIBER
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ December 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.