Stranger in a Strange Land (53 page)

“Then you think it's Mike.”

Jubal scowled. “Yes. That's all right—I told you the girls were smugly happy . . . and I'm not broke plus the fact that I could bleed Mike for any amount. Their babies won't lack. But, Ben, I'm troubled about Mike himself.”

“So am I, Jubal.”

“And about Jill.”

“Uh . . . Jubal, Jill isn't the problem. It's Mike.”

“Damn it, why can't the boy come home and quit this obscene pulpit pounding?”

“Mmm . . . Jubal, that's not quite what he's doing.” Ben added, “I've just come from there.”

“Huh?
Why didn't you
say
so?”

Ben sighed. “First you talked art, then you sang the blues, then you wanted to gossip.”

“Uh . . . you have the floor.”

“Coming back from the Capetown conference, I visited them. What I saw worried the hell out of me—so I stopped by my office, then came here. Jubal, couldn't you rig it with Douglas to close down this operation?”

Jubal shook his head. “What Mike does with his life is his business.”

“You would if you had seen what I saw.”

“Not I! But in the second place I
can't.
Nor can Douglas.”

“Jubal, Mike would accept any decision you made about his money. He probably wouldn't even understand it.”

“Ah, but he
would!
Ben, recently Mike made his will and sent it to me to criticize. It was one of the shrewdest documents I've ever seen. He recognized that he had more wealth than his heirs could use—so he used part of his money to guard the rest. It is booby-trapped not only against heirs-claimants of both his legal and natural parents—he knows he's a bastard though I don't know how he found out—but also of every member of the
Envoy's
company.
He
provided a way to settle out of court with any heir having a prima facie claim—and rigged it so that they would almost have to overthrow the government to break his will. The will showed that he knew every security and asset. I couldn't find
anything
to criticize.” (—including, Jubal thought, his provision for you, my brother!) “Don't tell
me
that I could rig his money!”

Ben looked morose. “I wish you could.”

“I
don't. But it wouldn't help if we could. Mike hasn't drawn a dollar from his account for almost a year. Douglas called me about it—Mike hadn't answered his letters.”

“No withdrawals? Jubal, he's spending a lot.”

“Maybe the church racket pays well.”

“That's the odd part. It's not really a church.”

“What is it?”

“Uh, primarily a language school.”

“Repeat?”

“To teach the Martian language.”

“Well, then, I wish he wouldn't call it a church.”

“Maybe it is a church, within the legal definition.”

“Look, Ben, a skating rink is a church—as long as some sect claims that skating is essential to worship—or even that skating served a desirable function. If you can sing to the glory of God, you can skate to the same end. There are temples in Malaya which are nothing—to an outsider—but boarding houses for snakes . . . but the same High Court rules them to be ‘churches' as protects our own sects.”

“Well, Mike raises snakes, too. Jubal, isn't
anything
ruled out?”

“Mmm . . . a moot point. A church usually can't charge for fortune telling or calling up spirits of the dead—but it can accept offerings and let the ‘offerings' be fees in fact. Human sacrifice is illegal—but it is done in several spots around the globe . . . probably right here in this former land of the free. The way to do anything that would otherwise be suppressed is to do it in the inner sanctum and keep the gentiles out. Why, Ben? Is Mike doing something that might get him jailed?”

“Uh, probably not.”

“Well, if he's careful—The Fosterites have shown how to get by with almost anything. Much more than Joseph Smith was lynched for.”

“Mike has lifted a lot from the Fosterites. That's part of what worries me.”

“But what
does
worry you?”

“Uh, Jubal, this is a ‘water brother' matter.”

“Shall I carry poison in a hollow tooth?”

“Uh, the inner circle are supposed to be able to discorporate voluntarily—no poison needed.”

“I never got that far, Ben. But I know ways to put up the only final defense. Let's have it.”

“Jubal, I said Mike raises snakes. I meant figuratively and literally—the setup is a snake pit. Unhealthy. Mike's Temple is a big place. An auditorium for public meetings, smaller ones for invitational meetings, many smaller rooms—and living quarters. Jill sent me a radiogram telling me where to go, so I was dropped at the private entrance on the back street. Quarters are above the auditorium, as private as you can be and still live in a city.”

Jubal nodded. “Be your acts legal or illegal, nosy neighbors are noxious.”

“In this case a very good idea. Outer doors let me in; I suppose I was scanned, although I didn't spot the scanner. Through two more automatic doors—then up a bounce tube. Jubal, it wasn't an ordinary one. Not controlled by the passenger, but by someone out of sight. Didn't feel like the usual bounce tube, either.”

“I have never used them and never shall,” Jubal said firmly.

“You wouldn't have minded this. I floated up gently as a feather. ”

“Ben, I don't trust machinery. It bites.” Jubal added, “However, Mike's mother was one of the great engineers and his father—his real father—was a competent engineer, or better. If Mike has improved bounce tubes until they are fit for humans, we ought not to be surprised.”

“As may be. I got to the top and landed without having to grab for it, or depend on safety nets—didn't see any, to tell the truth. Through more automatic doors and into an enormous living room. Oddly furnished and rather austere. Jubal, people think you run an odd household.”

“Nonsense! Just plain and comfortable.”

“Well, your menage is Aunt Jane's Finishing School compared with Mike's weirdie. I'm just inside the joint when the first thing I see I don't believe. A babe, tatooed from chin to toes—and not a goddam stitch on. Hell, she was tattooed
everywhere
. Fantastic!”

“You're a big-city bumpkin, Ben. I knew a tattooed lady once. Very nice girl.”

“Well . . .” Ben conceded, “this gal is nice, too, once you get adjusted to her pictorial supplement—and the fact that she usually has a snake with her.”

“I was wondering if it was the same woman. Fully tattooed women are scarce. But the lady I knew, thirty years back, had the usual vulgar fear of snakes. However, I'm fond of snakes . . . I look forward to meeting your friend.”

“You will when you visit Mike. She's sort of a majordomo for him. Patricia—but called ‘Pat,' or ‘Patty.' ”

“Oh, yes! Jill thinks highly of her. Never mentioned her tattoos, however.”

“But she's nearly the age to be your friend. When I said ‘babe' I was giving a first impression. She looks to be in her twenties; she claims her oldest child is that old. Anyhow, she trotted up, all big smile, put her arms around me and kissed me. ‘You're Ben. Welcome, brother! I give you water!'

“Jubal, I've been in the newspaper racket for years—I've been around. But I had never been kissed by a strange babe dressed only in tattoos. I was
embarrassed.”

“Poor Ben.”

“Damn it, you would have felt the same way.”

“No. Remember, I've met one tattooed lady. They feel dressed in those tattoos. Or at least this was true of my friend Sadako. Japanese, she was. But Japanese are not body conscious the way we are.”

“Well,” Ben answered. “Pat isn't body conscious—just about her tattoos. She wants to be stuffed and mounted, nude, when she dies, as a tribute to George.”

“ ‘George'?”

“Sorry. Her husband. Up in heaven, to my relief . . . although she talked as if he had just slipped out for a beer. But, essentially, Pat is a lady ... and she didn't let me stay embarrassed—”

PATRICIA PAIWONSKI gave Ben Caxton the all-out kiss of brotherhood before he knew what hit him. She felt his unease and was surprised. Michael had told her to expect him and placed Ben's face in her mind. She knew that Ben was a brother in all fullness, of the Inner Nest, and Jill was grown-closer with Ben second only to that with Michael.

But Patricia's nature was an endless wish to make other people as happy as she was; she slowed down. She invited Ben to get rid of his clothes but did not press the matter, except to ask him to remove his shoes—the Nest was soft, and clean as only Michael's powers could keep things clean.

She showed him where to hang clothes and hurried to fetch him a drink. She knew his preferences from Jill and decided on a double martini; the poor dear looked tired. When she came back with drinks, Ben was barefooted and had removed his jacket. “Brother, may you never thirst.”

“We share water,” he agreed and drank. “There's mighty little water in that.”

“Enough,” she answered. “Michael says that water could be in the thought; it is the sharing. I grok he speaks rightly.”

“I grok. And just what I needed. Thanks, Patty.”

“Ours is yours and you are ours. We're glad you're home. The others are at services or teaching. There's no hurry; they will come when waiting is filled. Would you like to look around your Nest?”

Ben let her lead him on a tour—a huge kitchen with a bar at one end, a library even more loaded than Jubal's, bathrooms ample and luxurious, bedrooms—Ben decided that they must be bedrooms although they contained no beds but simply floors that were even softer than elsewhere; Patty called them “little nests” and showed him the one she usually slept in.

It had been fitted on one side for her snakes. Ben suppressed his queasiness until he came to cobras. “It's all right,” she assured him. “We did have glass in front of them. But Michael has taught them that they must not come past this line.”

“I would rather trust glass.”

“Okay, Ben.” She lowered a glass barrier. He felt relieved and managed to stroke Honey Bun when invited to. Then Pat showed him one other room. It was very large, circular, had a floor as cushiony as the bedrooms; its center was a round swimming pool. “This,” she told him, “is the Innermost Temple, where we receive new brothers into the Nest.” She dabbled a foot in water. “Want to share water and grow closer? Or maybe just swim?”

“Uh, not right now.”

“Waiting is,” she agreed. They returned to the huge living room and Patricia went to get him another drink. Ben settled himself on a big couch—then got up. The place was warm, that drink was making him sweat, and a couch that adjusted to his contours made him hotter. He decided it was silly to dress the way he would in Washington—with Patty decked out in nothing but a bull snake she had left around her shoulders.

He compromised on jockey shorts and hung the rest in the foyer. There he noticed a sign on the entrance door:
“Did You Remember to Dress?”

He decided that, in this household, the warning might be necessary. He saw nothing else that he had missed on coming in. On each side of the door was a huge brass bowl—filled with money.

More than filled—Federation notes of various denominations spilled out on the floor.

He was staring at this when Patricia returned. “Here's your drink, Brother Ben. Grow close in Happiness.”

“Uh, thanks.” His eyes returned to the money.

She followed his glance. “I'm a sloppy housekeeper, Ben. Michael makes it so easy, cleaning and such, that I forget.” She retrieved the money, stuffed it into the less crowded bowl.

“Patty, why in the world?”

“Oh. We keep it here because this door leads to the street. If one of us is leaving the Nest—and I do, myself, almost every day for grocery shopping—we may need money. We keep it where you won't forget to take some.”

“Just grab a handful and go?”

“Why, yes, dear. Oh, I see what you mean. There is never anyone here but us. If we have friends outside—and all of us do—there are rooms lower down, the sort outsiders are used to, where we visit. This isn't where it can tempt a weak person.”

“Huh! I'm pretty weak, myself!”

She chuckled. “How can it tempt you when it's yours?”

“Uh . . . how about burglars?” He tried to guess how much money those bowls
contained
. Most of the notes seemed to be larger than singles—hell, he could see one with three zeroes on the floor; Patty had missed it.

“One did get in, last week.”

“So? How much did he steal?”

“Oh, he didn't. Michael sent him away.”

“Called the cops?”

“Oh, no! Michael would never turn anybody over to cops. Michael just ” She shrugged. “—made him go away. Then Duke fixed the hole in the skylight in the garden room—did I show you that? It's lovely, a grass floor. You have a grass floor, Jill told me. That's where Michael first saw one. Is it grass all over?”

“Just my living room.”

“If I ever get to Washington, can I walk on it? Lie down on it? Please?”

“Of course, Patty. Uh . . . it's yours.”

“I know, dear. But it is good to ask. I'll lie on it and feel the grass against me and be filled with Happiness to be in my brother's ‘little nest. ' ”