Stranger in a Strange Land (48 page)

“No. It's . . . it's ‘water' I'm sharing with you. For growing closer.”

“Oh—” Jill jumped up. “We'll share it. It's ours now—all of us.” She kissed her.

Mike tapped her shoulder. “Greedy little brother. My turn.”

“I'll always be greedy, that way.”

The Man from Mars kissed his new brother first on her mouth, then kissed the spot Foster had kissed. He pondered, briefly by Earth time, picked a corresponding spot on the other side where George's design could be matched—kissed her there while he thought by stretched-out time and in great detail. It was necessary to grok the capillaries—

To the other two, he briefly pressed his lips to skin. But Jill caught a hint of his effort. “Patty!
See!”

Mrs. Paiwonski looked down. Marked on her, paired stigmata in blood red, were his lips. She started to faint—then showed her staunch faith. “Yes.
Yes!
Michael—”

Shortly the tattooed lady was replaced by a mousy housewife in high neck, long sleeves, and gloves. “I won't cry,” she said soberly, “and there are no good-bys in eternity. I will be waiting.” She kissed them, left without looking back.

Foster looked up. “Something bite you, Junior?” This annex had been run up in a hurry and Things did get in—swarms of almost invisible imps usually . . . harmless, but a bite from one left an itch on the ego.

“Uh . . . you'd have to see it to believe it—here, I'll run the omniscio back a touch.”

“You'd be surprised at what I can believe, Junior.” Nevertheless Digby's supervisor shifted part of his attention. Three temporals—humans, he saw they were; a man and two women—speculating about the eternal. Nothing odd about that. “Yes?”

“You heard what she said! ‘Archangel Michael' indeed!”

“What about it?”

“‘What about it?' Oh, for God's sake!”

“Very possibly.”

Digby's halo quivered. “Foster, you must not have taken a good look! She meant that over-age juvenile delinquent that sent me to the showers. Scan it again.”

Foster let the gain increase, noted that the angel-in-training had spoken rightly—and noticed something else and smiled his angelic smile. “How do you know he isn't, Junior?”

“huh?”

“I haven't seen Mike around the Club lately and his name has been scratched on the Millennial Solipsist Tournament—that's a Sign that he's likely away on detached duty; Mike is one of the most eager Solipsism players in this sector.”

“But the notion's obscene!”

“You'd be surprised how many of the Boss's best ideas have been called ‘obscene' in some quarters—or, rather,
you
should not be surprised, in view of your field work. But ‘obscene' is a null concept; it has no theological meaning. ‘To the pure all things are pure.' ”

“But—”

“I'm still Witnessing, Junior. In addition to the fact that our brother Michael seems to be away at this micro-instant—I don't keep track of him; we're not on the same Watch list—that tattooed lady who made that oracular pronouncement is not likely to be mistaken; she's a very holy temporal herself.”

“Who says?”

“I say. I know.” Foster smiled again with angelic sweetness. Dear little Patricia! Getting a little long in the tooth but still Earthily desirable—and shining with an inner light that made her look like a stained glass window. He noted without temporal pride that George had finished his great dedication since he had last looked at Patricia—that picture of his being called up to Heaven wasn't bad, not bad at all, in the Higher sense. He must remember to look up George and compliment him on it, and tell him he had seen Patricia—hmm, where was George? A creative artist in the universe design section, working right under the Architect, as he recalled—no matter, the master file would dig him out in a split millennium.

What a delicious little butterball Patricia had been and such holy frenzy! If she had had just a touch more assertiveness and a touch less humility he could have made her a priestess. But such as Patricia's need to accept God according to her own nature that she could have qualified only among the Lingayats . . . where she wasn't needed. Foster considered scanning back and seeing her as she had been, decided against it with angelic restraint; there was work to be done—

“Forget the omniscio, Junior. I want a Word with you.” Digby did so and waited. Foster twanged his halo, an annoying habit he had when he was meditating. “Junior, you aren't shaping up too angelically.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sorrow is not for eternity. But the Truth is you've been preoccupied with that young fellow who may or may not be our brother Michael. Now wait—In the first place it is not for you to Judge the instrument used to call you from the pasture. In the second place it is not he who vexes you—you hardly knew him—what's bothering you is that little brunette secretary you had. She had earned my Kiss quite some temporal period before you were called. Hadn't she?”

“I was still testing her.”

“Then no doubt you have been angelically pleased to note that Supreme Bishop Short, after giving her a thorough examination himself—oh, most thorough; I told you he would measure up—has passed her and she now enjoys the wider Happiness she deserves. Mmmm, a Shepherd should take joy in his work . . . but when he's promoted, he should joy in that, too. Now it happens there is a spot open for a Guardian-in-Training in a new sector being opened up—a job under your nominal rank, I concede, but good angelic experience. This planet—well, you think of it as a planet; you'll see—is occupied by a race of tripolarity instead of bipolarity and I have it on High Authority that Don Juan himself could not manage to take Earthly interest in
any
of their three polarities . . . that's not opinion; he was borrowed as a test. He screamed and prayed to be returned to the solitary hell he has created for himself.”

“Going to send me to Flatbush, huh? So I won't interfere!”

“Tut, tut! You
can't
interfere—the one Impossibility that permits all else to be possible; I tried to tell you that when you arrived. But don't let it fret you; you are eternally permitted to try. Your orders will include a loop so that you will check back here-now without loss of temporality. Now fly away and get cracking; I have work to do.” Foster turned back to where he had been interrupted. Oh, yes, a poor soul temporally designated as “Alice Douglas”—to be a goad was a hard assignment and she had met it unflaggingly. But her job was complete and now she would need rest and rehabilitation from the inescapable battle fatigue . . . she'd be kicking and screaming and foaming ectoplasm at all orifices.

Oh, she would need exorcism after a job that rough! But they were all rough; they couldn't be anything else. And “Alice Douglas” was an utterly reliable field operative; she could take any left-hand assignment as long as it was essentially virginal—bum her at the stake or put her in a nunnery; she always delivered.

Not that he cared much for virgins, other than with professional respect for any job well done. Foster sneaked a last look at Mrs. Paiwonski.
There
was a fellow worker he could appreciate. Darling little Patricia! What a blessed, lusty benison—

As THE door closed behind Patricia, Jill said, “What now, Mike?”

“We're leaving. Jill, you've read some abnormal psychology.”

“Yes. Not as much as you have.”

“You know the symbolism of tattooing? And snakes?”

“Of course. I knew that about Patty as soon as I met her. I had been hoping that you would find a way.”

“I couldn't, until we were water brothers. Sex is a helpful goodness—but only if it is sharing and growing closer. I grok that if I did it without growing closer—well, I'm not sure.”

“I grok you couldn't, Mike. That is one reason—one of many reasons—I love you.”

“I still don't grok ‘love.' Jill, I don't grok ‘people.' But I didn't want Pat to leave.”

“Stop her. Keep her with us.”

(“
Waiting is, Jill.”
)

(“I know.”
)

He added, “I doubt if we could give her all she needs. She wants to give herself all the time, to everybody. Happiness meetings and snakes and marks aren't enough for Pat. She wants to offer herself on an altar to everybody in the world, always—and make them happy. This New Revelation . . . I grok it is other things to other people. But that is what it is to Pat.”

“Yes, Mike. Dear Mike.”

“Time to leave. Pick a dress and get your purse. I'll dispose of the trash.”

Jill thought wistfully that she would like to take one or two things. Mike always moved on with just the clothes on his back—and seemed to grok that she preferred it that way. “I'll wear that pretty blue one.”

It floated out, posed over her, wriggled onto her as she held up her hands; the zipper closed. Shoes walked toward her, she stepped into them. “I'm ready.”

Mike had caught the flavor of her thought but not the concept; it was too alien to Martian ideas. “Jill? Do you want to stop and get married?”

She thought about it. “It's Sunday, we couldn't get a license.”

“Tomorrow, then. I grok you would like it.”

“No, Mike.”

“Why not, Jill?”

“We wouldn't be any closer, we already share water. That's true both in English and Martian.”

“Yes.”

“And a reason just in English. I wouldn't have Dorcas and Anne and Miriam—and Patty—think that I was trying to crowd them out.”

“Jill, none of them would think so.”

“I won't chance it, because I don't need it. Because you married me in a hospital room ages and ages ago.” She hesitated. “But there is something you might do for me.”

“What, Jill?”

“Well, you might call me pet names! The way
I
do
you.”

“Yes, Jill. What pet names?”

“Oh!”
She kissed him quickly. “Mike, you're the sweetest, most lovable man I've ever met—and the most infuriating creature on two planets! Don't bother. Just call me ‘little brother' occasionally . . . it makes me all quivery inside.”

“Yes, Little Brother.”

“Oh, my! Let's get out of here—before I take you back to bed. Meet me downstairs; I'll be paying the bill.” She left suddenly.

They caught the first Greyhound going anywhere. A week later they stopped at home, shared water for a few days, left without saying good-by-good-by was one human custom Mike resisted; he used it only with strangers.

Shortly they were in Las Vegas, stopping in a hotel off the Strip. Mike tried the games while Jill killed time as a show girl. She couldn't sing or dance; parading in a tall improbable hat, a smile, and a scrap of tinsel was the job suited to her in the Babylon of the West. She preferred to work if Mike was busy and, somehow, Mike always got her the job she picked. Since casinos never closed, Mike was busy almost all the time.

Mike was careful not to win much, keeping to limits Jill set. After he had milked each casino for a few thousand he put it all back, never letting himself be the big-money player. Then he took a job as a croupier, letting the little ball roll without interference and studying people, trying to grok why they gambled. He grokked a drive that felt intensely sexual—but he seemed to grok wrongness in this.

Jill assumed that the customers in the palatial theater-restaurant where she worked were just marks—and, as such, did not count. But to her surprise she actively enjoyed displaying herself in front of them. With increasing Martian honesty she examined this feeling. She had always enjoyed being looked at with admiration by men whom she found attractive enough to want to touch—she had been irked that the sight of her body meant nothing to Mike even though he was as devoted to her body as a woman could dream of—

—if he wasn't preoccupied. But he was generous even then; he would let her call him out of trance, shift gears without complaint and be smiling and eager and loving.

Nevertheless, there it was—one of his strangenesses, like his inability to laugh. Jill decided, after her initiation as a show girl, that she enjoyed being visually admired by strangers because this was the one thing Mike did not give her.

Her perfecting self-honesty soon washed out that theory. The men in the audience were mostly too old, too fat, too bald for Jill to find them attractive—and Jill had always been scornful of “lecherous old wolves”—although not of old men, she reminded herself; Jubal could look at her, even use crude language, and not give her any feeling that he wanted to get her alone and grope her.

But now she found that these “lecherous old wolves” did not set her teeth on edge. When she felt their admiring stares or outright lust—and she did feel it, could identify the sources—she did not resent it; it warmed her and made her smugly pleased.

“Exhibitionism” had been to her just a technical term—a weakness she held in contempt. Now, in digging out her own and looking at it, she decided that either this form of narcissism was normal, or she was abnormal. But she didn't
feel
abnormal; she felt healthier than ever. She had always been of rugged health—nurses need to be—but she hadn't had a sniffle or an upset stomach in she couldn't remember when . . . why, not even cramps.

Okay, if a healthy woman liked to be looked at, then it follows as the night the day that healthy men should like to look, else there was just no darn sense to it! At which point she finally understood, intellectually, Duke and his pictures.