Stranger in a Strange Land (34 page)

To his relief both had duties elsewhere. Jubal found himself promising not only to fetch Mike to that obscene Fosterite service but also to bring him to the White House—well, the boy could get sick, if necessary. “Please, girls!”

Mike was convoyed to the roof, Anne creating a bow wave with her height, her Valkyrie beauty, her impressive cloak. Jubal, Ben, and the officers from the
Champion
covered the rear. Larry and the bus were waiting; minutes later the driver left them on the roof of the New
Mayflower.
Newsmen caught up with them there, but the girls guarded Mike on down to a suite Duke had taken. They were enjoying it; Miriam and Dorcas displayed ferocity that reminded Jubal of a cat defending her young. A reporter that closed within three feet courted a spiked instep.

They found their corridor patrolled by S.S. troopers and an officer outside their suite.

Jubal's back hair rose, but he realized that their presence meant that Douglas was carrying out the bargain. The letter Jubal had sent before the conference had included a plea to Douglas to use his power to protect Mike's privacy—so that the unfortunate lad could lead a normal life.

So Jubal called out, “Jill! Keep Mike under control. It's okay.”

“Right, Boss.”

The officer at the door saluted, Jubal glanced at him. “Well! Howdy, Major. Busted down any doors lately?”

Major Bloch turned red and did not answer. Jubal wondered if the assignment was punishment? Duke was waiting inside. Jubal said, “Sit down, gentlemen. How about it, Duke?”

Duke shrugged. “Nobody has bugged this suite since I took it. But, Boss,
any
dump can be bugged so you can't find it.”

“Yes, yes—I didn't mean that. I mean, ‘How about our supplies?' I'm hungry, boy, and thirsty—and we've got three more for lunch.”

“Oh, that. The stuff was unloaded under my eyes; I put it in the pantry. You've got a suspicious nature, Boss.”

“You'd better acquire one if you want to live as long as I have.”

“I don't hanker to.”

“Matter of taste. I've had a good time, on the whole. Get crackin', girls. First one back with a drink for me skips her next turn at ‘Front.' After our guests, I mean. Do sit down, gentlemen. Sven, what's your favorite poison? Akvavit? Larry, duck out and buy a couple of bottles. And Bols gin for the Captain.”

“Hold it, Jubal,” Nelson said. “I'd rather have Scotch.”

“Me, too,” agreed van Tromp.

“Got enough to drown a horse. Dr. Mahmoud? If you prefer soft drinks, I'm sure the girls tucked some in.”

Mahmoud looked wistful. “I should not be tempted by strong drink.”

“Allow me.” Jubal looked him over. “Son, you've been under nervous strain. Having no meprobamate, I'm forced to substitute two ounces of ninety-proof ethanol, repeat as needed. Any particular flavor?”

Mahmoud smiled. “Thank you, Doctor—but I'll sin my own sins. Gin, please, with water on the side. Or vodka. Or whatever is available.”

“Or medicinal alcohol,” Nelson added. “Don't let him kid you, Jubal. Stinky drinks anything—and regrets it.”

“I do regret it,” Mahmoud said earnestly. “It is sinful.”

“Don't needle him, Sven,” Jubal said brusquely. “If Stinky gets more mileage out of his sins by regretting, that's his business. To each his own. How about victuals, Stinky? Anne stuffed a ham into one of those hampers—and there may be other unclean items. Shall I check?”

Mahmoud shook his head. “I'm not a traditionalist, Jubal. That legislation was given long ago, for the needs of the time. The times are different now.”

Jubal suddenly looked sad. “Yes. But for the better? Never mind, this too shall pass. Eat what you will, my brother—God forgives necessity.”

“Thank you. But I often do not eat in the middle of the day.”

“Better eat or ethanol will do more than relax you. Besides, these kids who work for me may sometimes misspell words . . . but they are all superb cooks.”

Miriam was entering with a tray of drinks, orders filled while Jubal ranted. “Boss,” she broke in, “will you put that in writing?”

“What?”
He whirled around.
“Snooping!
Stay after school and write one thousand times: ‘I will not flap my ears at private conversations.' ”

“Yes, Boss. This is for you, Captain . . . and you, Dr. Nelson . . . and yours, Dr. Mahmoud. Water on the side, you said?”

“Yes, Miriam. Thank you.”

“Usual Harshaw service—sloppy but fast. Here's yours, Boss.”

“You put water in it!”

“Anne's orders. You're too tired to have it on the rocks.”

Jubal looked long-suffering. “See what I put up with, gentlemen? We should never have put shoes on 'em. Miriam, make that ‘one thousand times' in Sanskrit.”

“Yes, Boss.” She patted him on the head. “Go ahead and have your tizzy, dear; you've earned it. We're proud of you.”

“Back to the kitchen, woman. Has everybody got a drink? Where's Ben?”

“They have by now. Ben is phoning in his column, his drink is at his elbow.”

“Very well. You may back out quietly—and send Mike in. Gentlemen! Me ke aloha pau ole!” He drank, they joined him.

“Mike's helping. I think he's going to be a butler when he grows up.”

“I thought you had left. Send him in anyhow; Dr. Nelson wants to examine him.”

“No hurry,” put in the ship's surgeon. “Jubal, this is excellent Scotch—but what was the toast?”

“Sorry. Polynesian. ‘May our friendship be everlasting.' Call it a footnote to the water ceremony. By the way, gentlemen, Larry and Duke are water brothers to Mike, too, but don't let it fret you. They can't cook . . . but they're the sort to have at your back in a dark alley.”

“If you vouch for them, Jubal,” van Tromp assured him, “admit them and tyle the door. But let's drink to the girls. Sven, what's that toast to the flickas?”

“The one to pretty girls everywhere? Let's drink to the four who are here.
Skaal!”
They drank to their female water brothers and Nelson continued, “Jubal, where do you
find
them?”

“Raise 'em in my own cellar. Then when I've got 'em trained, some city slicker comes along and marries them. It's a losing game.”

“I see how you suffer,” Nelson said sympathetically.

“I do. I trust all you gentlemen are married?”

Two were, Mahmoud was not. Jubal looked at him bleakly. “Would you have the grace to discorporate? After lunch—I wouldn't want you to do it on an empty stomach.”

“I'm no threat, I'm a permanent bachelor.”

“Come, sir! I saw Dorcas making eyes at you . . . and you were purring.”

“I'm safe, I assure you.” Mahmoud thought of telling Jubal that he would never marry out of his faith, decided that a gentile would take it amiss. “But, Jubal, don't make a suggestion like that to Mike. He wouldn't grok that you were joking—and you might have a corpse on your hands. I don't
know
that Mike can think himself dead. But he would try.”

“I'm sure he can,” Nelson said firmly. “Doctor—‘Jubal' I mean—have you noticed anything odd about Mike's metabolism?”

“Uh, let me put it this way. I haven't noticed anything about his metabolism that is
not
odd.”

“Exactly.”

Jubal turned to Mahmoud. “Don't worry that I might invite Mike to suicide. I grok that he doesn't grok joking.” Jubal blinked. “But
I
don't grok ‘grok.' Stinky, you speak Martian.”

“A little.”

“You speak it fluently, I heard you. Do
you
grok ‘grok'?”

Mahmoud looked thoughtful. “No. ‘Grok' is the most important word in the language—and I expect to spend years trying to understand it. But I don't expect to be successful. You need to
think
in Martian to grok the word ‘grok.' Perhaps you have noticed that Mike takes a veering approach to some ideas?”

“Have I! My throbbing head!”

“Mine, too.”

 

“Food,” announced Jubal. “Lunch, and about time! Girls, put it where we can reach it and maintain a respectful silence. Go on, Doctor. Or does Mike's presence make it better to postpone it?”

“Not at all.” Mahmoud spoke in Martian to Mike. Mike answered, smiled sunnily; his expression became blank again and he applied himself to food. “I told him what I was trying to do and he told me that I would speak rightly; this was not opinion but a fact, a necessity. I hope that if I fail to, he will notice and tell me. But I doubt if he will. Mike thinks in Martian—and this gives him a different ‘map.' You follow me?”

“I grok it,” agreed Jubal. “Language itself shapes a man's basic ideas.”

“Yes, but—Doctor, you speak Arabic?”

“Eh? Badly,” admitted Jubal. “Put in a while as an army surgeon in North Africa. I still read it because I prefer the words of the Prophet in the original.”

“Proper. The Koran cannot be translated—the ‘map' changes no matter how one tries. You understand, then, how difficult
I
found English. It was not alone that my native language has simpler inflections; the ‘map' changed. English is the largest human tongue; its variety, subtlety, and irrational idiomatic complexity make it possible to say things in English which cannot be said in any other language. It almost drove me crazy . . . until I learned to think in it—and that put a new ‘map' of the world on top of the one I grew up with. A better one, perhaps—certainly a more detailed one.

“But there are things which can be said in Arabic that
cannot
be said in English.”

Jubal nodded. “That's why I've kept up my reading.”

“Yes. But Martian is so much
more
complex than is English—and so wildly different in how it abstracts its picture of the universe—that English and Arabic might as well be one language. An Englishman and an Arab can learn to think each other's language. But I'm not certain that it will ever be possible for us to
think
in Martian (other than the way Mike learned it)—oh, we can learn ‘pidgin' Martian—that is what I speak.

“Take this word: ‘grok.' Its literal meaning, one which I suspect goes back to the origin of the Martian race as thinking creatures—and which throws light on their whole ‘map'—is easy. ‘Grok' means ‘to drink.' ”

“Huh?” said Jubal. “Mike never says ‘grok' when he's just talking about drinking. He—”

“Just a moment.” Mahmoud spoke to Mike in Martian.

Mike looked faintly surprised. “ ‘Grok' is drink.”

“But Mike would have agreed,” Mahmoud went on, “if I had named a hundred other English words, words which we think of as different concepts, even antithetical concepts. ‘Grok' means
all
of these. It means ‘fear,' it means ‘love,' it means ‘hate'—proper hate, for by the Martian ‘map' you cannot hate anything unless you grok it, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you—then can you hate. By hating yourself. But this implies that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can
hate
—and (I think) Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste.”

Mahmoud screwed up his face. “ ‘Grok' means ‘identically equal.' The human cliché. ‘This hurts me worse than it does you' has a Martian flavor. The Martians seem to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer interacts with observed through the process of observation. ‘Grok' means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us as color means to a blind man.” Mahmoud paused. “Jubal, if I chopped you up and made a stew, you and the stew, whatever was in it, would grok—and when I ate you, we would grok together and nothing would be lost and it would not matter which one of us did the eating.”

“It would to me!” Jubal said firmly.

“You aren't a Martian.” Mahmoud stopped to talk to Mike in Martian.

Mike nodded. “You spoke rightly, my brother. Dr. Mahmoud. I am been saying so. Thou art God.”

Mahmoud shrugged helplessly. “You see how hopeless it is? All I got was a blasphemy. We don't think in Martian. We
can't.”

“Thou are God,” Mike said agreeably. “God groks.”

“Let's change the subject! Jubal, could I impose on brotherhood for more gin?”

“I'll get it!” said Dorcas.

 

It was a family picnic, made easy by Jubal's informality, plus the fact that the newcomers were the same sort—each learned, acclaimed, and with no need to strive. Even Dr. Mahmoud, rarely off guard with those who did not share the one true faith in submission to the Will of God, always beneficent, merciful, found himself relaxed. It had pleased him greatly that Jubal read the words of the Prophet . . . and, now that he stopped to notice, the women of Jubal's household were plumper than he had thought. That dark one—He put the thought out of his mind; he was a guest.

But it pleased him that these women did not chatter, did not intrude into sober talk of men, but were quick with food and drink in warm hospitality. He had been shocked at Miriam's disrespect toward her master—then recognized it: a liberty permitted cats and favorite children in the privacy of the home.