Stranger in a Strange Land (54 page)

“You're most welcome, Patty.” He hoped she would leave her snakes behind! “When will you be there?”

“I don't know. When waiting is filled. Maybe Michael knows.”

“Well, warn me if possible, so I'll be in town. If not, Jill always knows my door code. Patty, doesn't anybody keep track of this money?”

“What for, Ben?”

“Uh, people usually do.”

“We don't. Just help yourself—then put back any you have left when you come home, if you remember. Michael told me to keep the grouch bag filled. If it runs low I get more from him.”

Ben dropped the matter, stonkered by its simplicity. He had some idea of the moneyless communism of Martian culture; he could see that Mike had set up an enclave of it here—these bowls marked transition from Martian to Terran economy. He wondered if Patty knew that it was fake . . . propped up by Mike's wealth.

“Patty, how many are there in the Nest?” He felt a mild worry, then shoved back the thought—why would they sponge on him?—
he
didn't have pots of gold inside his door.

“Let me see . . . almost twenty, counting novitiate brothers who don't think in Martian yet and aren't ordained.”

“Are you ordained, Patty?”

“Oh, yes. Mostly I teach. Beginners' classes in Martian, and I help novitiates and such. And Dawn and I—Dawn and Jill are High Priestesses—Dawn and I are pretty well-known Fosterites, so we work together to show other Fosterites that the Church of All World's doesn't conflict with the Faith, any more than being a Baptist keeps a man from joining the Masons.” She showed Ben Foster's kiss, explained it, and showed him its miraculous companion placed by Mike.

“They know what Foster's kiss means and how hard it is to win it . . . and they've seen some of Mike's miracles and are about ripe to buckle down and climb into a higher circle.”

“It's an effort?”

“Of course, Ben—for them. In your case and mine, and Jill's, and a few others Michael called us straight into brotherhood. But to others Michael first teaches a discipline—not a faith but a way to realize faith in works. That means they've got to learn Martian. That's not easy; I'm not perfect in it. But it is Happiness to work and learn. You asked about the Nest—let me see, Duke and Jill and Michael . . . two Fosterites, Dawn and myself . . . one circumcised Jew and his wife and four children—”

“Kids in the Nest?”

“Oh, lots of them. In the nestlings' nest just off of here; nobody could meditate with kids hollering and raising Ned. Want to see it?”

“Uh, later.”

“One Catholic couple with a little boy—excommunicated I'm sorry to say; their priest found out. Michael had to give them special help; it was a nasty shock—and utterly unnecessary. They were getting up early every Sunday to go to mass as usual—but kids will talk. One Mormon family of the new schism—that's three more, and their kids. The rest are Protestants and one atheist . . . that is, he thought he was until Michael opened his eyes. He came here to scoff; he stayed to learn . . . he'll be a priest soon. Uh, nineteen grown-ups, but we're hardly ever all in the Nest at once, except for our own services in the Innermost Temple. The Nest is built to hold eighty-one—‘three-filled, '—but Michael groks much waiting before we need a bigger nest and by then we will build other nests. Ben? Would you like to see an outer service, see how Michael makes the pitch? Michael is preaching now.”

“Why, yes, if it's not too much trouble.”

“Good. Just a sec, dearie, while I get decent.”

“Jubal, she came back in a robe like Anne's Witness robe but with angel-wing sleeves and a high neck and the trademark Mike uses—nine concentric circles and a conventionalized Sun—over her heart. This getup was vestments; Jill and the other priestesses wear the same, except that Patty's was high-necked to cover her cartoons. She had put on socks and was carrying sandals.

“Changed the hell out of her, Jubal. It gave her great dignity. I could see she was older than I had guessed although not within years of what she claims. She has an exquisite complexion—a shame ever to tattoo such skin.

“I had dressed again. She asked me to carry my shoes and led me back through the Nest and out into the corridor; we stopped to put on shoes and took a ramp that wound down a couple of floors. We reached a gallery overlooking the main auditorium. Mike was on the platform. No pulpit, just a lecture hall, with a big All-Worlds symbol on the back wall. A priestess was with him and, at that distance, I thought it was Jill—but it was the other high priestess, Dawn—Dawn Ardent.”

“What was that name?”

“Dawn Ardent—nee Higgins, if you want to be fussy.”

“I've met her.”

“I know you have, you allegedly-retired goat. She's got a crush on you.”

Jubal shook his head. “The ‘Dawn Ardent' I mean I just barely met, two years ago. She wouldn't remember me.”

“She remembers you. She gets every one of your pieces of commercial crud, on tape, under every pseudonym she can track down. She goes to sleep by them; they give her beautiful dreams. She says. But they all know you, Jubal; that living room has exactly
one
ornament—a life-sized color-solly of your head. Looks as if you had been decapitated, with your face in a hideous grin. A shot Duke sneaked of you.”

“Why that brat!”

“Jill asked him to.”

“Double brat!”

“Mike put her up to it. Brace yourself, Jubal—you are the patron saint of the Church of All Worlds.”

Jubal looked horrified. “They can't do that!”

“They already have. Mike gives you credit for having started the whole show by explaining things so well that he was able to figure out how to put over Martian theology to humans.”

Jubal groaned. Ben went on, “In addition, Dawn thinks you're beautiful. Aside from that quirk, she is intelligent ... and utterly charming. But I digress. Mike spotted us and called out, ‘Hi, Ben! Later'—and went on with his spiel.

“Jubal, you'll have to hear it. He didn't sound preachy and didn't wear robes—just a smart, well-tailored white suit. He sounded like a damned good car salesman. He cracked jokes and told parables. The gist was a sort of pantheism . . . one parable was the oldy about the earthworm burrowing through the soil who encounters another earthworm and says, ‘Oh, you're beautiful! Will you marry me?' and is answered: ‘Don't be silly! I'm your other end.' You've heard it?'

“ ‘Heard it'? I
wrote
it!”

“Hadn't realized it was
that
old. Mike made good use of it. His idea is that whenever you encounter any other grokking thing—man, woman, or stray cat . . . you are meeting your ‘other end.' The universe is a thing we whipped up among us and agreed to forget the gag.”

Jubal looked sour. “Solipsism and pantheism. Together they explain
anything.
Cancel out any inconvenient fact, reconcile all theories, include any facts or delusions you like. But it's cotton candy, all taste and no substance—as unsatisfactory as solving a story by saying: ‘—then the little boy fell out of bed and woke up.' ”

“Don't crab at me; take it up with Mike. Believe me, he made it convincing. Once he stopped and said, ‘You must be tired of so much talk—' and they yelled back,
‘No!'
He really had them. He protested that his voice was tired and, anyhow it was time for miracles. Then he did amazing sleight-of-hand—did you know he had been a magician in a carnival?”

“I knew he had been with it. He never told me the nature of his shame.”

“He's a crackerjack; he did stunts that had me fooled. But it would have been okay if he had used just kid tricks; it was his patter that had them spellbound. Finally he stopped and said, ‘The Man from Mars is expected to do wonderful things . . . so I pass some miracles each meeting. I can't help being the Man from Mars; it's just something that happened. Miracles can happen for
you,
if you want them. However, for anything more than these narrow-gauge miracles, you must enter the Circle. Those who want to learn I will see later. Cards are being passed around.'

“Patty explained it. ‘This crowd is just marks, dear—people here out of curiosity or maybe shilled in by people who have reached one of the inner circles.' Jubal, Mike has rigged the thing in nine circles, like lodge degrees—and nobody is told that there are circles farther in until they're ripe for it. ‘This is Michael's bally,' Pat told me, ‘which he does as easy as he breathes—while he's feeling them out and deciding which ones are possible. That's why he strings it out—Duke is up behind that grille and Michael tells him who might measure up, where he sits and everything. Michael's about to turn this tip . . . and spill the ones he doesn't want. Then Dawn takes over, after she gets the seating diagram from Duke. ' ”

“How did they work that?” asked Harshaw.

“I didn't see it, Jubal. There are a dozen ways they could cut from the herd as long as Mike knew which they were and had some way to signal Duke. Patty says Mike's clairvoyant—I won't deny the possibility. Then they took the collection. Mike doesn't do even this church style—you know, soft music and dignified ushers. He said nobody would believe this was a church if he didn't take a collection. Then, so help me, they passed collection baskets already loaded with money and Mike told them that this was what the last crowd had given, so help themselves—if they were broke or hungry and needed it. But if they felt like giving . . . give. Do one or the other—put something in, or take something out. I figured he had found one more way to get rid of too much money.”

Jubal said thoughtfully, “That pitch, properly given, should result in people giving
more
. . . while a few take just a little. Probably
very
few.”

“I don't know, Jubal. Patty whisked me away when Mike turned the service over to Dawn. She took me to a private auditorium where services were opening for the seventh circle—people who had belonged for months and had made progress. If it
is
progress.

“Jubal, we went straight from one to the other and it was hard to adjust. That outer meeting was half lecture, half entertainment—this one was almost a voodoo rite. Mike was in robes now; he looked taller, ascetic, and intense—his eyes gleamed. The place was dim, there was creepy music and yet it made you want to dance. Patty and I took a couch that was darn near a bed. What the service was I couldn't say. Mike would sing out in Martian, they would answer in Martian—except for chants of ‘Thou art God! Thou art God!' echoed by some Martian word that would make my throat sore to pronounce.”

Jubal made a croaking noise “Was that it?”

“Huh? I believe so. Jubal . . . are
you
hooked? Have you been stringing me along?”

“No. Stinky taught it to me—he says it's heresy of the blackest sort. By his lights I mean. It's the word Mike translates as ‘Thou are God.' Mahmoud says that isn't even close to a translation. It's the universe proclaiming its self-awareness . . . or it's ‘peccavimus' with a total absence of contrition . . . or a dozen other things. Stinky says that he doesn't understand it even in Martian—except that it is a bad word, the worst possible in his opinion . . . and closer to Satan's defiance than to the blessing of God. Go on. Was that all? Just a bunch of fanatics yelling Martian?”

“Uh . . . Jubal, they didn't yell and it wasn't fanatical. Sometimes they barely whispered. Then it might climb a little. They did it in a rhythm, a pattern, like a cantata . . . yet it didn't feel rehearsed; it felt more as if they were all one person, humming whatever he felt. Jubal, you've seen Fosterites work themselves up—”

“Too much, I'm sorry to say.”

“Well, this was not that sort of frenzy; this was quiet and easy, like dropping off to sleep. It was intense all right and got steadily more so, but—Jubal, ever try a spiritualist seance?”

“I have. I've tried everything I could, Ben.”

“Then you know how tension can grow without anybody moving or saying a word. This was more like that than like a revival, or even the most sedate church service. But it wasn't mild; it packed terrific wallop.”

“The word is ‘Apollonian.' ”

“Huh?”

“As opposed to ‘Dionysian.' People simplify ‘Apollonian' into ‘mild,' and ‘calm,' and ‘cool.' But ‘Apollonian' and ‘Dionysian' are two sides of one coin—a nun kneeling in her cell, holding perfectly still, can be in ecstasy more frenzied than any priestess of Pan Priapus celebrating the vernal equinox. Ecstasy is in the skull, not the setting-up exercises.” Jubal frowned. “Another error is to identify ‘Apollonian' with ‘good'—merely because our most respectable sects are Apollonian in ritual and precept. Mere prejudice. Proceed.”