Read Stranger in a Strange Land for Free Online

reached over, patted her knee, and said gently, "Reasons, little one, reasons-I can't afford to be seen picking you up-"
                "Welll"
                "-and you can't afford to be seen being picked up by me. So simmer down. I apologize. I bow in the dust. I kiss your little foot. But it was necessary."
                "Hmm ... which one of us has leprosy?"
                "Both of us, in different ways. Jill, I'm a newspaperman."
                "I was begimiing to think you were something else."
                "And you are a nurse at the hospital where they are holding the Man from Mars." He spread his hands and shrugged.
                "Keep talking. Does that make me unfit to meet your mother?"
                "Do you need a map, Jill? There are more than a thousand reporters in this area, not counting press agents, ax grinders, winchells, lippmanns, and the stampede that headed this way when the Champion landed. Every one of them has been trying to interview the Man from Mars, including me. So far as I know, none has succeeded. Do you think it would be Smart for us to be seen leaving the hospital together?"
                "Umm, maybe not. But I don't really see that it matters. I'm not the Man from Mars."
                He looked her over. "You certainly aren't. But maybe you are going to help me see him-which is why I didn't want to be seen picking you

                "Huh? Ben, you've been out in the sun without your hat. They've got a marine guard around him." She thought about the fact that she herself had not found the guard too hard to circumvent, decided not to mention it.
                "So they have. So we talk it over."
                "I don't see what there is to talk about."
                "Later. I didn't intend to let the subject come up until I had softened you with animal proteins and ethanol. Let's eat first."
                "Now you sound rational. Where? Would your expense account run to the New Mayflower? You are on an expense account, aren't you?"
                Caxton frowned. "Jill, if we eat in a restaurant, I wouldn't want to risk one closer than Louisville. It would take this hack more than two hours to get us that far. How about dinner in my apartment?"
                "'-Said the Spider to the Fly.' Ben, I remember the last time. I'm too tired to wrestle."
                "Nobody asked you to. Strictly business. King's X, cross my heart and hope to die."
                "I don't know as I like that much better. If I'm safe alone with you, I must be slipping. Well, all right, King's X."
                Caxton leaned forward and punched buttons; the taxi, which had been circling under a "hold" instruction, woke up, looked around, and headed for the apartment hotel where Ben lived. He then dialed a phone number and said to Jill, "How much time do you want to get liquored up, sugar foot? I'll tell the kitchen when to have the steaks ready."
                Jill considered it. "Ben, your mousetrap has a private kitchen."
                "Of sorts. I can grill a steak, if that is what you mean."
                "I'll grill the steak. Hand me the phone." She gave orders, stopping to make sure that Ben liked endive.
                The taxi dropped them on the roof and they went down to his flat. It was unstylish and old-fashioned; its one luxury was a live grass lawn in the living room. Jill stopped in the entrance hail, slipped off her shoes, then stepped bare-footed into the living room and wiggled her toes among the cool green blades. She sighed. "My, that feels good. My feet have hurt ever since I entered training."
                "Sit down."
                "No, I want my feet to remember this tomorrow, when I'm on duty."
                "Suit yourself." He went