At seven o'clock, I considered going down for breakfast, but it occurred to me that it would be another black mark against Maxwell if I should be seen without him. Forgetting about the defense mech was enough for one case.
So I ordered breakfast brought up to the room. While I was waiting, and since I was sitting near it anyway, I flicked the TV switch and tuned in on the morning's news. Nothing earthshaking: a factory explosion in St. Louis; political unrest in India; death of a Vegan millionaire; speech in The World Council by Delegate Machavowski of Eurasia in support of the Bagley-Dalton bill to establish a yearly immigration quota of ten thousand from all planets, one thousand from Mars; protest reply by a Martian sociologist at Yale; spacecruiser crashed on Calypso, twenty killed. And so on and so on.
My attention was held momentarily by the Martian question, since I was freshly informed on it.
While the two views of the issue did nothing to settle it in my mind, they did serve to remind me of my Martian friend, Zan Matl Blekeke, and the fact that I was supposed to be digging up a feature story on Suns-Rays Incorporated.
"What's on the agenda for today?" my pseudo-brother-in-law asked as I was finishing my coffee a half-hour later. He rolled out of bed, yawned and scratched his head vigorously. His hair was rumpled, but he looked rested, and I envied him to beat hell.
"You mean it's up to me?" I asked.
"Sure. You just go on with your normal everyday existence and ignore me, like I'm nothing but a shadow." He was still stretching lazily.
"Well, for the first thing, I'm going to see that we get a cot in here. There isn't room in that bed for both of us."
Maxwell grinned as he buttoned his shirt. "D'I kick you out of bed? Sorry. Should have warned you."
"Do you eat breakfast?" I asked him.