He shook hands with the newcomer, a bald middle-aged man who looked vaguely familiar to Luke—although Luke couldn’t place the name or where he’d seen him—and introduced him around to the other class members. Gresham saw the pile of bills on the desk and added his, then took the vacant seat next to Luke’s. While Forbes was arranging some notes in front of him Gresham leaned over toward Luke. “Haven’t we met somewhere?” he whispered.
“We must have met,” Luke said. “I had the same feeling. But let’s compare notes afterwards. Wait, I think I—”
“Quiet, please!”
Luke stopped and leaned back abruptly. Then flushed a little when he realized that it was the Martian who had spoken, not Forbes. The Martian grinned at him.
Forbes smiled. “Let me start by saying that you will find it impossible to ignore Martians—especially when they say or do something unexpectedly. I hadn’t meant to bring up that point right away, but since it is obvious that I am going to have ‘help’ in this class tonight, perhaps it is best that I start with a statement which I had intended to lead up to gradually.
“It is this: your life, your thoughts, your sanity—as well as the lives, thoughts and sanity of those whom I hope you will advise and teach—will be least affected by them if you choose the middle way between trying to ignore them completely and letting yourself take them too seriously.
“To ignore them completely—rather, to try to ignore them completely, to pretend that they aren’t there when so obviously they are, is a form of rejection of reality that can lead straight to schizophrenia and paranoia. Conversely, to pay full attention to them, to let yourself become seriously angry with them can lead straight to nervous breakdown—or apoplexy. ”
It made sense, Luke thought. In almost anything, the middle way is the best way.
The Martian on the corner of Forbes’ desk yawned mightily.
A second Martian suddenly kwimmed into the room, right in the middle of Forbes’ desk. So close to Forbes’ nose that he let out an involuntary yip. Then smiled at the class over the Martian’s head.
Then he glanced down to look at his notes; the new Martian was sitting on them. He reached a hand through the Martian and slid them to one side; the Martian moved with them.
Forbes sighed and then looked up at the class. “Well, it looks as though I’ll have to talk without notes. Their sense of humor is very childlike.”
He leaned to one side to see better around the head of the Martian sitting in front of him. The Martian leaned that way, too. Forbes straightened, and so did the Martian.
“Their sense of humor is very childlike,” Forbes repeated. “Which reminds me to tell you that it was through the study of children and their reaction to Martians that I have formulated most of my theories. You have all no doubt observed that, after the first few hours, after the novelty wore off, children became used to the presence of Martians much more easily and readily than adults. Especially children under five. I have two children of my own and—”
“Three, Mack,” said the Martian on the corner of the desk. “I saw that agreement you gave the dame in Gardena two thousand bucks for; so she wouldn’t file a paternity suit.”
Forbes flushed. “I have two children at home,” he said firmly, “and—”
“And an alcoholic wife,” said the Martian. “Don’t forget her.”
Forbes waited a few moments with his eyes closed, as though silently counting.
“The nervous systems of children,” he said, “as I explained in You and Your Nerves, my popular book on—”
“Not so damned popular, Mack. That royalty statement shows less than a thousand copies.”
“I meant that it was written in popular style.”
“Then why didn’t it sell?”
“Because people didn’t buy it,” snapped Forbes. He smiled at the class. “Forgive me. I should not have permitted myself to be drawn into pointless argument. If they ask ridiculous questions, do not answer.”
The Martian who had been sitting on his notes suddenly kwimmed into a sitting position atop his head, dangling legs in front of his face and swinging them so his vision was alternately clear and blocked.
He glanced down at his notes, now again visible to him—part of the time. He said, “Ah—I see I have a notation here to remind you, and I had better do so while I can read the notation, that in dealing with the people whom you are to help, you must be completely truthful—”
“Why weren’t you, Mack?” asked the Martian on the corner of the desk.
“—and make no unjustified claims about yourself or—”
“Like you did in that circular, Mack? Forgetting to say those several monographs you mention weren’t ever published?”
Forbes’ face was turning beet red behind its pendulum of green-clad legs. He rose slowly to a standing position, his hands gripping the desk’s edge. He said, “I—ah—”
“Or why didn’t you tell them, Mack, that you were only an assistant psychologist at Convair, and why they fired you?” And the corner-of-the-desk Martian put his thumbs in his ears, waggled his other fingers and emitted a very loud and juicy Bronx cheer.
Forbes swung at him, hard. And then screamed in pain as his fist, passing through the Martian, struck and knocked off the desk the heavy metal desk lamp which the Martian had been sitting over and concealing.
He pulled back his injured hand and stared at it blankly through the pendulum of the second Martian’s legs. Suddenly, both Martians were gone.
Forbes, his face now white instead of red, sat down slowly and stared blankly at the six people seated in his office, as though wondering why they were there. He brushed his hand across his face as though pushing away something that was no longer there, and which couldn’t have been pushed away while it was.
He said, “In dealing with Martians, it is important to remember—”
Then he dropped his head into his arms on the desk in front of him and started sobbing quietly.
The woman who had been introduced as Mrs. Johnston had been seated nearest the desk. She stood up and leaned forward, put her hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Forbes,” she said. “Mr. Forbes, are you all right?”
There was no answer except that the sobbing stopped slowly.
All the others were standing now too. Mrs. Johnston turned to them. “I think we’d better leave him,” she said. “And—” she picked up the six five-dollar bills. “—I guess we’ve got these coming back.” She kept one and passed the others around. They left, very quietly, some of them walling on tiptoe.
Except for Luke Devereaux and the Mr. Gresham who had sat next to him. “Let’s stay,” Gresham had said. “He may need help.” And Luke had nodded.
Now, with the others gone, they lifted Forbes’ head from the desk and held him straight in the chair. His eyes were open but stared at them blankly.
“Shock,” Gresham said. “He may come out of it and be all right. But—” His voice sounded doubtful. “Think we’d better send for the men in the white coats?”
Luke had been examining Forbes’ injured hand. “It’s broken,” he said. “He’ll need attention for that, anyway. Let’s phone for a doctor. If he hasn’t come out of it by then, let the doc take the responsibility for having them come and get him.”
“Good idea. But maybe we won’t have to phone. There’s a doctor’s office next door. I noticed when I came here, and the light was on. He must either have evening hours or be working late.”
The doctor had been working late, and was just leaving when they caught him. They brought him into Forbes’ office, explained what had happened, told him it was his responsibility now, and then left.