Stranger in a Strange Land (64 page)

“I grok,” Jubal agreed, “although the picture of Becky Vesey as a Martian adept shakes me a little. Still, she was one of the best mentalists in show business; she could give a cold reading that would scare a mark out of his shoes. Stinky, if you are going away for peace and quiet while you unwind this, why don't you come home? Plenty of room in the new wing.”

“Perhaps we shall. Waiting is.”

“Sweetheart,” Miram said earnestly, “that's a solution I would love—if Mike pushes us out of the Nest.”

“If we grok to leave the Nest, you mean.”

“Same thing.”

“You speak rightly, my dearest. But when do we eat around here? I feel a most unMartian urgency. The service was better in the Nest.”

“You can't expect Patty to work on your dratted old dictionary, see to it that everyone is comfortable, run errands for Mike, and still have food on the table the instant you get hungry, my love. Jubal, Stinky will never achieve priesthood—he's a slave to his stomach.”

“Well, so am I.”

“You girls might give Patty a hand,” her husband added.

“That's a crude hint. You know we do all she'll let us—and Tony will hardly allow anyone in his kitchen.” She stood up. “Come on Jubal, let's see what's cooking. Tony will be flattered if you visit his kitchen.”

Jubal went with her, met Tony, who scowled until he saw who was with Miriam, then was beamingly proud to show off his workshop—accompanied by invective at the scoundrels who had destroyed “his” kitchen in the Nest. In the meantime a spoon, unassisted, continued to keel a pot of spaghetti sauce.

Shortly thereafter Jubal refused to sit at the head of a long table, grabbed a place elsewhere. Patty sat at one end; the head chair remained vacant . . . except for a feeling which Jubal suppressed that the Man from Mars was sitting there and that everyone but himself could see him.

Across the table was Dr. Nelson.

Jubal discovered that he would have been surprised only if Dr. Nelson had not been present. He nodded and said, “Hi, Sven.”

“Hi, Doc. Share water.”

“Never thirst. What are you? Staff physician?”

Nelson shook his head. “Medical student.”

“So. Learning anything?”

“I've learned that medicine isn't necessary.”

“If youda ast me, I coulda told yuh. Seen Van?”

“He ought to be in late tonight or early tomorrow. His ship grounded today.”

“Does he always come here?” inquired Jubal.

“He's an extension student. Can't spend much time here.”

“It'll be good to see him. I haven't laid eyes on him for a year.” Jubal picked up a conversation with the man on his right while Nelson talked with Dorcas, on his right. Jubal noticed the same tingling expectancy at the table which he had left before, but reinforced. There was nothing he could put his finger on—a quiet family dinner in relaxed intimacy. Once, a glass of water was passed all around the table. When it reached Jubal, he took a sip and passed it to the girl on his left—round-eyed and too awed to make chit-chat with him—and said, “I offer you water.”

She managed to answer, “I thank you for water, Fa—Jubal.” That was all he got out of her. When the glass completed the circuit, reaching the vacant chair at the head of the table, there was a half inch of water in it. It raised itself, poured, and water disappeared; the tumbler placed itself on the cloth. Jubal decided that he had taken part in a ‘Sharing-Water' of the Innermost Temple . . . probably in his honor—although it was not like the Bacchanalian revels he had thought accompanied such welcome. Was it because they were in strange surroundings? Or had he read into unexplicit reports what his own id wanted to find?

Or had they toned it down out of deference to him?

That seemed a likely theory—and it vexed him. He told himself that he was glad to be spared the need to refuse an invitation that he did not want—and would not have relished at any age, his tastes being what they were.

But just the same, damn it—“Don't anybody mention ice skating; Grandmaw is too old and frail and it wouldn't be polite. Hilda, you suggest dominoes and we'll all chime in—Grandmaw
likes
dominoes. We'll go skating some other time. Okay, kids?”

Jubal resented the idea—he would almost prefer to go skating anyhow, even at the cost of a broken hip.

He put it out of mind with the help of the man on his right. His name, Jubal learned, was Sam.

“This setback is only apparent,” Sam assured him. “The egg was ready to hatch and now we'll spread out. Of course we'll go on having trouble—because no society will allow its basic concepts to be challenged with impunity. And we are challenging everything from the sanctity of property to the sanctity of marriage.”

“Property, too?”

“Property the way it is today. So far Michael has merely antagonized a few crooked gamblers. But what happens when there are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and more, of people who can't be stopped by bank vaults and have only self-discipline to restrain them from taking anything they want? To be sure, that discipline is stronger than any legal restraint—but no banker can grok that until he himself travels the thorny road to discipline . . . and he'll no longer be a banker. What happens to the market when illuminati know which way a stock will move?”

“Do
you
know?”

Sam shook his head. “Not interested. But Saul over there—that other big Hebe, my cousin—gives it grokking, with Allie. Michael has them be cautious, no big killings and they use a dozen dummy accounts—but any of the disciplined can make any amount of money at anything—real estate, stocks, horse races, gambling, you name it—when competing with the un-awakened. No, money and property will not disappear—Michael says that both concepts are useful—but they're going to be turned upside down and people will have to learn new rules (the hard way, just as we have) or be hopelessly outclassed. What happens to Lunar Enterprises when the common carrier between here and Luna City is teleportation?”

“Should I buy? Or sell?”

“Ask Saul. He might use the present corporation, or bankrupt it. Or it might be left untouched a century or two. But consider
any
occupation. How can a teacher handle a child who knows more than she does? What becomes of physicians when people are healthy? What happens to the cloak and suit industry when clothing isn't necessary and women aren't so engrossed in dressing up (they'll never lose interest entirely)—and nobody gives a damn if he's caught with his arse bare? What shape does ‘the Farm Problem' take when weeds can be told not to grow and crops can be harvested without benefit of International Harvester? Just name it; the discipline changes it beyond recognition. Take one change that will shake both marriage—in its present form—and property. Jubal, do you know how much is spent each year in this country on Malthusian drugs and devices?”

“I have some idea, Sam. Almost a billion on oral contraceptives alone . . . more than half on worthless patent nostrums.”

“Oh, yes, you're a medical man.”

“Only in passing.”

“What happens to that industry—and to the shrill threats of moralists—when a female conceives only as an act of volition, when she is immune to disease, cares only for the approval of her own sort . . . and has her orientation so changed that she desires intercourse with a whole-heartedness that Cleopatra never dreamed of—but any male who tried to rape her would die so quickly, if she so grokked, that he wouldn't know what hit him? When women are free of guilt and fear—but invulnerable? Hell, the pharmaceutical industry will be a minor casualty—what other industries, laws, institutions, attitudes, prejudices, and nonsense must give way?”

“I don't grok its fullness,” admitted Jubal. “It concerns a subject of little personal interest to me.”

“One institution won't be damaged. Marriage.”

“So?”

“Very much so. Instead it will be purged, strengthened, and made endurable. Endurable? Ecstatic! See that wench down there with the long black hair?”

“Yes. I was delighting in its beauty earlier.”

“She knows it's beautiful and it's grown a foot and a half since we joined the church. That's my wife. Not much over a year ago we lived together like bad-tempered dogs. She was jealous . . . and I was inattentive. Bored. Hell, we were both bored and only our kids kept us together—that and her possessiveness; I knew she would never let me go without a scandal . . . and I didn't have any stomach for trying to put together a new marriage at my age, anyhow. So I grabbed a little on the side, when I could get away with it—a professor has many temptations, few safe opportunities—and Ruth was quietly bitter. Or sometimes not quiet. And then we joined up.” Sam grinned happily. “And I fell in love with my wife. Number-one gal friend!”

Sam had spoken only to Jubal, his words walled by noise. His wife was far down the table. She looked up and said clearly, “That's an exaggeration, Jubal. I'm about number six.”

Her husband called out, “Stay out of my mind, beautiful!—we're talking men talk. Give Larry your undivided attention.” He threw a roll at her.

She stopped it in orbit, propelled it back. “I'm giving Larry all the attention he wants . . . until later, maybe. Jubal, that brute didn't let me finish. Sixth place is wonderful! Because my name wasn't on his list till we joined the church. I hadn't rated as high as six with Sam for twenty years.”

“The point,” Sam said quietly, “is that we are now partners, more so than we ever were outside—and we got that way through the training, culminating in sharing and growing closer with others who had the same training. We all wind up in partnerships inside the group—usually with spouses-of-record. Sometimes not . . . and if not, the readjustment takes place without heartache and creates a warmer, better relationship between the ‘divorced' couple than ever, in bed and out. No loss and all gain. Shucks, this pairing needn't be between man and woman. Dawn and Jill for example—they work together like an acrobatic team.”

“Hmm . . . I had thought of them as being Mike's wives.”

“No more so than they are to any of us. Or than Mike is to the rest. Mike has been too busy to do more than make sure that he shared himself all the way around.” Sam added, “If anybody is Mike's wife, it's Patty, although she keeps so busy that the relation is more spiritual than physical. Both Mike and Patty are short-changed when it comes to mauling the mattress.”

Patty was farther away than Ruth. She looked up and said, “Sam dear, I don't feel short-changed.”

“Huh?” Sam announced bitterly, “The only thing wrong with this church is that a man has
absolutely no privacy!”

This brought on him a barrage from distaff brothers. He tossed it all back without lifting a hand . . . until a plateful of spaghetti caught him full in the face—thrown, Jubal noticed, by Dorcas.

For a moment Sam looked like a crash victim. Then his face was clean and even sauce that spattered on Jubal's shirt was gone. “Don't give her any more, Tony. She wasted it; let her go hungry.”

“Plenty in the kitchen,” Tony answered. “Sam, you look good in spaghetti. Pretty good sauce, huh?” Dorcas's plate sailed out, returned loaded.

“Very good sauce,” agreed Sam. “I salvaged some that hit me in the mouth. What is it? Or shouldn't I ask?”

“Chopped policeman,” Tony answered.

Nobody laughed. Jubal wondered if the joke was a joke. Then he recalled that his brothers smiled a lot but rarely laughed—and besides, policeman should be good food. But the sauce couldn't be “long pig,” or it would taste like pork. This had a beef flavor.

He changed the subject. “The thing I like best about this religion—”

“ ‘Religion'?” Sam interposed.

“Well, call it a church.”

“Yes,” agreed Sam. “It fills every function of a church, and its quasi-theology matches up with some real religions. I jumped in because I used to be a stalwart atheist—and now I'm a high priest and don't know what I am.”

“I understood you to say you were Jewish.”

“From a long line of rabbis. So I wound up atheist. Now look at me. But Saul and my wife Ruth are Jews in the religious sense—talk to Saul; you'll find it's no handicap. Ruth, once she broke past the barriers, progressed faster than I did; she was a priestess long before I became a priest. But she's the spiritual sort; she thinks with her gonads. Me, I have to do it the hard way, between my ears.”

“The discipline,” repeated Jubal. “That's what I like. The faith I was reared in didn't require anybody to know anything. Just confess and be saved, and there you were, safe in the arms of Jesus. A man might be too stupid to count sheep . . . yet conclusively presumed to be one of God's elect, guaranteed an eternity of bliss, because he had been ‘converted.' He might not even be a Bible student and certainly didn't have to know anything else. This church doesn't accept ‘conversion' as I grok it—”

“You grok correctly.”

“A person must start with a willingness to learn and follow it with long, hard study. I grok that is salutary.”

“More than salutary,” agreed Sam. “Indispensable. The concepts can't be thought about without the language, and the discipline that results in this horn-of-plenty of benefits—from how to live without fighting to how to please your wife—all derive from conceptual logic . . . understanding who you are, why you're here, how you tick—and behaving accordingly. Happiness is functioning the way a being is organized to function . . . but the words in English are a tautology, empty. In Martian they are a complete set of working instructions. Did I mention that I had a cancer when I came here?”