Part 2

He stopped pacing. Zeke was in the lobby with him, and the picture wasn't nearly over. Zeke's whole body stood there very stiffly. Johnson felt sick.

"You have been lying to me," Zeke said. His face twisted with that odd rubber-mask plasticity that seemed to be so funny.

"No, Zeke, you've got to let me explain."

"All this time you have never told me the truth about this laughter. Everybody thinks that I am funny. They look upon me as something ridiculous."

"I--"

"They lied to me also. This picture is not what they said it would be. I heard them talking in there. They did not know I was sitting there by them in the dark. I found out why all this laughter should be always directed at me! Why at me? Why always at me? I have found out!"

"Zeke--!"

"What is this humor of yours? What is so funny that gives you satisfaction in freaks and fools? In the misfortunes of others? You think we Martians do not know what this laughter really means? Maybe we know. I guess it is just that we knew a long time back and have forgotten it. Now I know what it is and what it means."

* * * * *

Johnson was trying to say something. It didn't make any difference now. Laughter came from inside the big auditorium. Zeke's huge ungainly body loped toward the exit. He turned. "I do not want to see or talk to you or to any other human beings. I do not like to see or talk to any of you any more. I will go to your place, if you will permit me to do so, and there I will seclude myself until your next rocket goes back to Mars. I do not want any one to come out there to see or to talk with me. I do not want to be in any more television shows or radio broadcasts or moving pictures."

"All right!" Johnson yelled above the laughter. "But let me take you to my apartment. How you going to get there? You can't speak English."

The guard stood in front of the exit. He turned and grinned up at Zeke. He began to laugh as Zeke swung back and forth, wanting out. Zeke made gestures and spoke. "I wish to go outside. Would you be so kind as to step out of the doorway, please?"

The guard had no idea what Zeke was saying, nor what his movements meant. All the guard knew was that Zeke was a Martian bogey turned clown and he laughed louder. "You will step to one side, please."

Johnson started toward them.

"I wish you would step aside and stop laughing at me," Zeke said.

Johnson started to yell something but he was too late. He knew there was no malicious intent in Zeke's action, only desperation, confusion, bewilderment, humility. He pushed the guard out of the way, but his strength was much greater than Zeke was used to exerting under any such circumstances.

The guard hurtled ten feet away. Johnson heard the sickening thud of his head against the wall. Johnson ran over there, saw the open, staring eyes of the guard, and then he saw Zeke running across the rain-splattered street through the neon-shining dark. He saw a few people stop and wonder a moment, then laugh.

Johnson leaned against the wall and closed his eyes before he went to the public phone booth. He could still hear the laughter from the auditorium as he called the police.

They figured Johnson would know where Zeke was. They questioned him for what seemed hours. He had no idea where Zeke would go to hide or where he would be now. Zeke could speak only a few words of English. No, Zeke wouldn't harm anybody. Yes, I know he killed the guard, but that was an accident. A misunderstanding.

No, God no! I don't know where he would go!

Yes, yes, I'll make tape recorded messages to be broadcast to Zeke. I'll make some television kinescopes too. Maybe Zeke will hear me and give himself up without any trouble. Play the recordings and show the kinescopes on every station in the city.

Sure I will. But why don't you send out broadcasts and telecasts to the people instead of to Zeke? That would be more logical. Tell them not to be afraid of him. That he wouldn't hurt anybody. Tell them not to incite any more confusion in Zeke.

I know, I know, somebody hit Zeke with a cane, but he wasn't trying to attack the old man! You've got everyone scared of him now. A few hours ago everybody was laughing, and now you've got everyone thinking he's some kind of horrible monster.

I know ... the woman wheeling the baby. But she was hysterical when she saw Zeke there on that side street. She screamed and went crazy. But that isn't Zeke's fault. That's your fault. No! I said I don't know where he would be hiding now!

You can leave now, Johnson. But stay where we can get in touch with you at once. You're the only way we can establish any contact with Zeke--unless of course we have to kill it.

* * * * *

So Johnson made the tape recordings and the television kinescopes, and he sat in a kind of daze in the semi-darkness of the apartment of Hatcher, a friend of his, looking at his own image speaking Martian to millions of people, and listened to his voice.

No one knew what he had said on those lengths of tape and on those kinescopes. He hadn't said what he was supposed to say--not for Zeke to give himself up. Zeke might not understand that, and he might get shot. He told Zeke to meet him just outside the UN grounds at the West end of a public park that had been built to replace a former slum area--to beautify the area surrounding the UN territory. A high wall flanked the West end of the park and thick brush and trees were there affording a good hiding place.

And Johnson would meet Zeke there as soon as he could. Don't do anything else, if possible, until I can talk with you, Zeke.

The newscasts came on frequently, mostly about Zeke. He was seen first here and then there.

The city was supposedly gripped in a reign of terror. Kids playing in a vacant lot near the UN grounds had dug a small cave and had found Zeke hiding in it. The Martian had made horrible sounds and leaped at them, the kids said. The kids had thrown rocks at him. They said he looked funny at first, all covered with dirt, and stumbling around like he was drunk or something.

The police had thrown up nets and blockades everywhere. The number of cars in surrounding precincts were tripled. Walls went up everywhere. State, county, sheriff deputies' cars formed wall after wall that were tightening. Information about the crime and a description of Zeke had been spread over such a wide area from the crime scene that five states away the police had thrown up blockades. The description was a formality.

Everyone knew what the Martian looked like.

Johnson waited there in Hatcher's apartment.

He tried to get in touch with the lawyer, but that seemed impossible. No one knew where Hatcher was. But Johnson knew the police were shadowing him, hoping he would lead them to where Zeke was hiding.

He had to get over there to that park where Zeke might be hiding, waiting for him, without being trailed there. That wouldn't be easy. It was out of Johnson's line.

The newscast said that Zeke had blundered into someone's estate near the UN grounds and had had a couple of big dogs sent after him. In protecting himself, Zeke had killed the dogs. It would seem that killing the two dogs was worse in some ways than if Zeke had killed two more human beings.

No one, of course, even remembered ever having laughed at Zeke. He had become the typical alien Martian menace, a Welles and Wells character. A monster from another world, a bogey Martian, a menace, a stalking terror, an inhuman monster.

"They'll kill him," Johnson whispered. He got up and got Hatcher's topcoat out of the closet and put on Hatcher's hat. "They'll kill him and he won't have any idea what's happened or why." That's the worst part of it, he thought. Somewhere in the rainy dark was Zeke, feeling terribly the hostility of his human surroundings. Confused, desperate, panic-stricken. Not understanding any of it.

Johnson went out into the hall of the apartment-hotel. Empty. The police would be guarding the front entrance certainly, maybe the back. But there was another exit out of the basement into the vacant lot, and maybe they wouldn't know about that.

He went down into the basement, went out that entrance and into the vacant lot among the dripping trees. He stood there, listening, watching. He put his hands in Hatcher's topcoat pocket and felt the small snub-nosed revolver there. He jerked his hand out.

He heard nothing but the rain on the palm fronds and the tires humming on wet pavement. Above him, the gray night's hand cupped over the city, reflecting its neon life through misty rain.

He went cautiously through the trees, through a pit being excavated for building, and emerged onto the street a block and a half away. And still no one.

He walked faster, signaled a cab. He sat there stiffly and numb with tension as the cab took him with casual speed to the park.

* * * * *

He walked slowly along past the high dense brush of the park next to the wall, his shoes squeeshing on the wet turf. Beyond the wall he could see a tall bulky building with little yellow window eyes that blinked in the rain. Absently, he remembered it was the big Community Hospital.

"Zeke," he called as he walked past the high dense brush. "Zeke."

He went the length of the park's West end, started back, continuing to call Zeke's name. The strange alien whisper sent a chill down his arms.

"Mr. Johnson--"

The brush shivered. Zeke had heard the message all right. "Mr. Johnson. I am ill. I am cold and I am tired. I do not have any idea what to do."

Johnson said. "Come out here, Zeke. You have to turn yourself in to the proper authorities here that maintain law and order. I've explained something about that. I promise you it will be all right. You've got to trust me, Zeke."

"People are afraid of me. They throw stones at me and run away when I approach them. I cannot understand--"

Johnson explained quickly that the guard Zeke had shoved was dead. "It has to be straightened out, that's all, Zeke. Then things will be all right."

Johnson saw the shape back there in the dim wet shadows under the wall, crouching, hardly distinguishable. He saw Zeke for what he was, a lost stranger, helpless, incomprehensible. Too bewildered now to understand, too weary to see anything, too anxious perhaps to care. Alien, sick, abominably unhappy, taken out of his knowledge, bitter in utter loneliness, his home so far away--so very far away.

It moved toward him, rising up, rising taller, its undulating hugeness bending and swaying above the brush. It stood unsteady on its legs, its rubberoid flesh dripping and shining. Surrounded by the wet night, Johnson saw him as something cast out mysteriously by the sea on some alien shore to perish in the supreme disaster of loneliness. Zeke's body shivered all over suddenly. Johnson sucked in his breath, felt the quick sick emptiness. He turned. Shapes running, footsteps slipping and scrambling toward them out of the brush. The glint and shine of uniforms and guns. They had trailed him after all--

"Stop, don't move! We'll shoot!"

"Don't!" Johnson yelled frantically. "For God's sake, listen." Zeke's grotesque body crashed backward and Johnson saw the bursts of orange flame flowering to horror in his brain. Shots blared flatly. Zeke went up, over the wall and was gone on the other side.

Johnson scrambled into the brush. He felt the gun in his hand and he felt himself squeeze the trigger once, twice. He was screaming. "Stay back, you crazy fools! I'll shoot anyone I see moving in here!"

"What's the matter with you--hey--that you, Johnson?"

"He's flipped," someone shouted.

"Johnson! You'll get yourself in a lot of trouble. You might kill somebody."

"He's crazy," someone said.

"You guys crawl back and go round into the hospital and round up the Martian."

Johnson crawled along the wall on his hands and knees. He kept crawling and then, wedging himself between a tree trunk and the wall, edged up the wall, over it, and dropped to the other side. He ran across the grounds desperately looking for Zeke.

He saw nothing on the grounds, no sign of anything or anybody. Then he saw Zeke up there in the gray drizzle, three stories up on the fire-escape platform. He didn't yell. He ran and then he felt the harsh wet cold of the metal as he climbed.

He followed wet tracks down the floor of the hall, found a door. As he started to open it he saw the police come around the corner at the other end of the hall. They stopped when they saw him. Johnson heard laughter coming from beyond the door. The laughter got louder. The shrill, high, spontaneous and abandoned laughter of children.

The police moved cautiously toward him. Johnson opened the door and went in, shut it quickly behind him.

A nurse came over to Johnson, smiled at him.

She stood with her arms folded and stood beside him and the both of them watched Zeke in the middle of the big hospital ward.

"We're so glad Zeke came back," the nurse said. "And surprising us this way makes it so much more delightful for the children."

Yes, thought Johnson dully, Zeke was here before, once. A benefit performance. For crippled children. And neither the kids nor the two nurses in here had heard about Zeke's sudden status as a criminal. No radios in here--only recording machines playing pleasant things for the kids. Too much unpleasantness on the regular programs.

An isolated world in which they still saw Zeke only as a clown.

The kids on the beds lining the walls, many of whom would never leave this room except in wheeled chairs, were screaming and hollering and shrieking with laughter at Zeke's antics. Their laughter bubbled higher and louder. Zeke twisted round and round, his arms swinging, as he did a shambling jig, danced this way and that. "The clown's back!" "Dance, dance, dance some more!" "Stand on your head, Zeke!"

"They have so little real happiness," the nurse said. "I've hoped Zeke would come back. Nothing here has ever made them happier and laugh more loudly than Zeke."

Johnson walked through the waves of free wild laughter to Zeke's side. He whispered.

"Stay right here, Zeke. Don't leave this room until I give you the word. These kids really appreciate you, Zeke. Believe me, I'm not lying this time. These kids are happy now, because of you, and they don't have much happiness. Life's worth living right now for them, Zeke. And it's because of you. Stay right here."

"I am very sick," Zeke said. "I will do as you say. I cannot go further."

* * * * *

Johnson backed to the door, managed to smile to the nurse, and went into the hall.

Quickly he shut the door as the police rushed in. Captain Maxson, in charge of some detail or other, a short heavy blond young man, eager to do his duty, grabbed at Johnson.

"You go blundering in there to get Zeke," Johnson said, "and you'll not only take a chance of injuring or killing some of those kids, but what's worse, you may frighten them, disillusion them for the rest of their lives!"

"But that monster's liable to start killing in there," whispered Maxson hoarsely.

"If you go charging in there anything can happen. Let me do it my way and there won't be any trouble."

"What's your way?" Maxson obviously was in a bad predicament.

"Let me make a phone-call first, then I'll take Zeke out and there'll be no trouble. I can handle him. That's your only chance. You don't want to hurt those kids, shock them! They don't know what's happened. They still think Zeke's funny."

Maxson touched his lips. "All right. Make the call. I'll give you ten minutes--"

This time he found Hatcher in. He quickly explained the situation. "Hatcher! You said you'd have the dope from Humphreys at the UN."

"And I have," Hatcher said. "It's all right now. I'll rush a couple of UN Deputies over there with special orders right now!"

"Well hurry!" Johnson yelled. Then he stepped out of the booth practically into Maxson's arms.

"Now, go in there and get him out here, Johnson!"

"We're waiting for two United Nations Deputies. They'll be here in a minute. They're going to take charge of Zeke from now on."

"What--well, okay, let them arrest him. That's a load off my back--"

"They're not coming here to arrest him. But to protect him from being arrested or otherwise annoyed until he goes back to Mars."

"I don't get it at all. I got orders--"

"Here's how it is," Johnson said. "Now that we've established relations with another planet, Mars, the UN has jurisdiction over all such relationships and transactions. UN City is extra-territorial. It belongs to no nation, including the United States, and therefore the United States has no jurisdiction over Zeke, or anything having to do with inter-world relations.

"That's a UN problem. Furthermore, Zeke is here in the capacity of Martian Ambassador, and the UN has been officially declared the site of the official future Martian Embassy, and therefore Zeke has diplomatic immunity. That guard's death was accidental, caused by a misunderstanding. But regardless, he can't be tried by any nation on Earth because the accident occurred on Martian Embassy grounds officially.

"If Zeke's ever tried for any crime it will have to be on Mars. That's the rule."

And that was the way it was.

After seeking Zeke off in the second Mars-bound rocket, he went to Billington's and sat in his study, relaxed for the first time in six months.

"How was Zeke?" Billington asked. "Seem to feel any better about his visit to Earth?"

"Much better," Johnson said. "In fact, he seemed to feel better about the whole thing than at any time during his stay here. He said he understood a great deal more about us than he might otherwise have learned.

"And he said he understood our laughter too. A safety-valve, he said, and that he was glad if he allowed us to let off a little steam. He said there was a lot of steam here that needs to be let off."

Billington smiled. "That's a concise and astute analysis," he said.

"It seems to be the laughter of those crippled kids that did it," Johnson added. "Zeke got an idea there how beneficial laughter is."

Billington nodded. "However, maybe Zeke's analysis is overly-simplified." His mouth set in a serious line. "The laughter of kids is hardly comparable to the laughter of adults. The kids were laughing _with_ Zeke. Does he realize the difference there?"

Johnson said, "Maybe he doesn't. The Martians have a lot to learn about human beings."

"So do we," Billington sighed.