Stranger in a Strange Land (22 page)

“That's beside the point.”

“That's exactly the point. As a police officer, you know better. I shall explain, to some person known to me to be cleared for sensitive material and in Mr. Douglas's confidence, just enough to make sure that the Secretary General speaks to me. Are you sure Mr. Berquist can't be reached?”

“Quite sure.”

“Then it will have to be someone else—of his rank.”

“If it's that secret, you shouldn't be calling over a phone.”

“My good Captain! Since you had this call traced, you know that my phone is equipped to receive a maximum-security return call.”

The S.S. officer ignored this. Instead he answered, “Doctor, I'll be blunt. Until you explain your business, you aren't going to get anywhere. If you call again, your call will be routed to this office. Call a hundred times—or a month from now. Same thing. Until you cooperate.”

Jubal smiled happily. “It won't be necessary now, as you have let slip—unwittingly, or was it intentional?—the one datum needed before we act. If we must. I can hold them off the rest of the day . . . but the code word is no longer ‘Berquist.' ”

“What the devil do you mean?”

“My dear Captain, please! Not over an unscrambled circuit—But you know, or should know, that I am a senior philosophunculist on active duty.”

“Repeat?”

“Haven't you studied amphigory? Gad, what they teach in schools these days! Back to your pinochle game; I don't need you.” Jubal switched off, set the phone for ten minutes' refusal, said, “Come along, kids,” and returned to his loafing spot near the pool. He cautioned Anne to keep her Witness robe at hand, told Mike to stay in earshot, and gave Miriam instructions concerning the telephone. Then he relaxed.

He was not displeased. He had not expected to reach the Secretary General at once. His reconnaissance had uncovered one weak spot in the wall surrounding the Secretary and he expected that his bout with Captain Heinrich would bring a return call from a higher level.

If not, the exchange of compliments with the S.S. cop had been rewarding in itself and had left him in a warm glow. Harshaw held that certain feet were made for stepping on, in order to improve the breed, promote the general welfare, and minimize the ancient insolence of office; he had seen at once that Heinrich had such feet.

But he wondered how long he could wait? In addition to the pending collapse of his “bomb” and the fact that he had promised Jill to take steps on behalf of Caxton, something new was crowding him: Duke was gone.

Gone for the day, gone for good (or for bad), Jubal did not know. Duke had been at dinner, had not shown up for breakfast. Neither was noteworthy in Harshaw's household and no one else seemed to miss Duke.

Jubal looked across the pool, watched Mike attempt to perform a dive exactly as Dorcas had just performed it, and admitted to himself that he had not asked about Duke this morning, on purpose. The truth was that he did not want to ask the Bear what had happened to Algy. The Bear might answer.

Well, there was only one way to cope with weakness. “Mike! Come here.”

“Yes, Jubal.” The Man from Mars got out of the pool and trotted over like an eager puppy. Harshaw looked him over, decided that he must weigh twenty pounds more than he had on arrival . . . all of it muscle. “Mike, do you know where Duke is?”

“No, Jubal.”

Well, that settled it; the boy didn't know how to lie—wait, hold it! Jubal remembered Mike's computer-like habit of answering only the question asked . . . and Mike had not appeared to know where that pesky box was, once it was gone. “Mike, when did you see him last?”

“I saw Duke go upstairs when Jill and I came downstairs, this morning when time to cook breakfast.” Mike added proudly, “I helped cooking.”

“That was the last time you saw Duke?”

“I am not see Duke since, Jubal. I proudly burned toast.”

“I'll bet you did. You'll make some woman a fine husband, if you aren't careful.”

“Oh, I burned it most carefully.”

“Jubal—”

“Huh? Yes, Anne?”

“Duke grabbed an early breakfast and lit out for town. I thought you knew.”

“Well,” Jubal temporized, “I thought he intended to leave after lunch.” Jubal suddenly felt a load lifted. Not that Duke meant anything to him—of course not! For years he had avoided letting any human being be important to him—but it would have troubled him. A little, anyhow.

What statute was violated in turning a man ninety degrees from everything else?

Not murder, as long as the lad used it only in self-defense, or in the proper defense of another, such as Jill. Pennsylvania laws against witchcraft might apply . . . but it would be interesting to see how an indictment would be worded.

A civil action might lie—Could harboring the Man from Mars be construed as “maintaining an attractive nuisance?” It was likely that new rules of law must evolve. Mike had already kicked the bottom out of medicine and physics, even though the practitioners of such were aware of the chaos. Harshaw recalled the tragedy that relativity had been for many scientists. Unable to digest it, they had taken refuge in anger at Einstein. Their refuge had been a dead end; all that inflexible old guard could do was die and let younger minds take over.

His grandfather had told him of the same thing in medicine when germ theory came along; physicians had gone to their graves calling Pasteur a liar, a fool, or worse—without examining evidence which their “common sense” told them was impossible.

Well, he could see that Mike was going to cause more hoorah than Pasteur and Einstein combined. Which reminded him—“Larry! Where's Larry?”

“Here, Boss,” the loudspeaker behind him announced. “Down in the shop.”

“Got the panic button?”

“Sure. You said to sleep with it. I do.”

“Bounce up here and give it to Anne. Anne, keep it with your robe.”

She nodded. Larry answered, “Right away, Boss. Count down coming up?”

“Just do it,” Jubal found that the Man from Mars was still in front of him, quiet as a sculptured figure. Sculpture? Uh—Jubal searched his memory. Michelangelo's “David”! Yes, even the puppyish hands and feet, the serenely sensual face, the tousled, too-long hair. “That was all, Mike.”

“Yes, Jubal.”

But Mike waited, Jubal said, “Something on your mind, son?”

“About what I was seeing in that goddamn-noisy-box. You said, ‘But talk to me later.' ”

“Oh.” Harshaw recalled the Fosterite broadcast and winced. “Yes, but don't call that thing a ‘goddam noisy box.' It is a stereovision receiver.”

Mike looked puzzled. “It is not a goddam-noisy-box? I heard you not rightly?”

“It is indeed a goddam noisy box. But
you
must call it a stereovision receiver.”

“I will call it a ‘stereovision-receiver.' Why, Jubal? I do not grok.”

Harshaw sighed; he had climbed these stairs too many times. Any conversation with Smith turned up human behavior which could not be justified logically, and attempts to do so were endlessly time-consuming. “I do not grok it myself, Mike,” he admitted, “but Jill wants you to say it that way.”

“I will do it, Jubal. Jill wants it.”

“Now tell me what you saw and heard—and what you grok of it.”

Mike recalled every word and action in the babble tank, including all commercials. Since he had almost finished the encyclopedia, he had read articles on “Religion,” “Christianity,” “Islam,” “Judaism,” “Confucianism,” “Buddhism,” and related subjects. He had grokked none of this.

Jubal learned that: (a) Mike did not know that the Fosterite service was religious; (b) Mike remembered what he had read about religions but had filed such for future meditation, not having understood them; (c) Mike had a most confused notion of what “religion” meant, although he could quote nine dictionary definitions; (d) the Martian language contained no word which Mike could equate with
any
of these definitions; (e) the customs which Jubal had described to Duke as Martian “religious ceremonies” were not; to Mike such matters were as matter-of-fact as grocery markets were to Jubal; (f) it was not possible to separate in the Martian tongue the human concepts: “religion,” “philosophy,” and “science”—and, since Mike thought in Martian, it was not possible for him to tell them apart. All such matters were “learnings” from the “Old Ones.” Doubt he had ever heard of, nor of research (no Martian word for either); the answers to any questions were available from the Old Ones, who were omniscient and infallible, whether on tomorrow's weather or cosmic teleology. Mike had seen a weather forecast and had assumed that this was a message from human “Old Ones” for those still corporate. He held a similar assumption concerning the authors of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

But last, and worst to Jubal, Mike had grokked the Fosterite service as announcing impending discorporation of two humans to join the human “Old Ones”—and Mike was tremendously excited. Had he grokked it rightly? Mike knew that his English was imperfect; he made mistakes through ignorance, being “only an egg.” But had he grokked
this
correctly? He had been waiting to meet the human “Old Ones,” he had many questions to ask. Was this an opportunity? Or did he require more learnings before he was ready?

Jubal was saved by the bell; Dorcas arrived with sandwiches and coffee. Jubal ate silently, which suited Smith as his rearing had taught him that eating was a time of meditation. Jubal stretched his meal while he pondered—and cursed himself for letting Mike watch stereo. Oh, the boy had to come up against religions—couldn't be helped if he was going to spend his life on this dizzy planet. But, damn it, it would have been better to wait until Mike was used to the cockeyed pattern of human behavior . . . and not
Fosterites
as his first experience!

A devout agnostic, Jubal rated all religions, from the animism of Kalahari Bushmen to the most intellectualized faith, as equal. But emotionally he disliked some more than others and the Church of the New Revelation set his teeth on edge. The Fosterites' flat-footed claim to gnosis through a direct line to Heaven, their arrogant intolerance, their football-rally and sales-convention services—these depressed him. If people must go to church, why the devil couldn't they be dignified, like Catholics, Christian Scientists, or Quakers?

If God existed (concerning which Jubal maintained neutrality) and if He wanted to be worshipped (a proposition which Jubal found improbable but nevertheless possible in the light of his own ignorance), then it seemed wildly unlikely that a God potent to shape galaxies would be swayed by the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered as “worship.”

But with bleak honesty Jubal admitted that the Fosterites might own the Truth, the exact Truth, nothing but the Truth. The Universe was a silly place at best . . . but the least likely explanation for it was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that abstract somethings “just happened” to be atoms that “just happened” to get together in ways which “just happened” to look like consistent laws and some configurations “just happened” to possess self-awareness and that two “just happened” to be the Man from Mars and a bald-headed old coot with Jubal inside.

No, he could not swallow the “just-happened” theory, popular as it was with men who called themselves scientists. Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe—random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.

What then? “Least hypothesis” deserved no preference; Occam's Razor could not slice the prime problem, the Nature of the Mind of God (might as well call it that, you old scoundrel; it's an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable not banned by four letters—and as good a tag for what you don't understand as any).

Was there any basis for preferring any sufficient hypothesis over another? When you did not understand a thing: No! Jubal admitted that a long life had left him not understanding the basic problems of the Universe.

The Fosterites might be right.

But, he reminded himself savagely, two things remained: his taste and his pride. If the Fosterites held a monopoly on Truth, if Heaven were open only to Fosterites, then he, Jubal Harshaw, gentleman, preferred that eternity of painfilled damnation promised to “sinners” who refused the New Revelation. He could not see the naked Face of God . . . but his eyesight was good enough to pick out his social equals—and those Fosterites did not measure up!

But he could see how Mike had been misled; the Fosterite “going to Heaven” at a selected time did sound like the voluntary “discorporation” which, Jubal did not doubt, was the practice on Mars. Jubal suspected that a better term for the Fosterite practice was “murder”—but such had never been proved and rarely hinted. Foster had been the first to “go to Heaven” on schedule, dying at a prophesied instant; since then, it had been a Fosterite mark of special grace . . . it had been years since any coroner had had the temerity to pry into such deaths.

Not that Jubal cared—a good Fosterite was a dead Fosterite.

But it was going to be hard to explain.

No use stalling, another cup of coffee wouldn't make it easier—“Mike, who made the world?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Look around you. All this. Mars, too. The stars. Everything. You and me and everybody. Did the Old Ones tell you who made it?”

Mike looked puzzled. “No, Jubal.”

“Well, have you wondered? Where did the Sun come from? Who put the stars in the sky? Who started it? All, everything, the whole world, the Universe . . . so that you and I are here talking.” Jubal paused, surprised at himself. He had intended to take the usual agnostic approach . . . and found himself compulsively following his legal training, being an honest advocate in spite of himself, attempting to support a religious belief he did not hold but which was believed by most human beings. He found that, willy-nilly, he was attorney for the orthodoxies of his own race against—he wasn't sure what. An unhuman viewpoint. “How do your Old Ones answer such questions?”