A Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert Anson Heinlein

  Mike readily assented when Jill suggested, quite firmly, that he give this picture to Duke. He went at once to do so and would have done so anyhow; Mike knew about Duke's collection, he had seen it, looked through it with deep interest, trying to grok why Duke said, "That one ain't much in the face, but look at those legs - brother!" It always made Mike feel good to be called "brother" by one of his water brothers but legs were just legs, save that his own people had three each while humans each had only two - without being crippled thereby, he reminded himself, two legs were proper for humans, he must always grok that this was correct.

  As for faces, Jubal had the most beautiful face Mike had ever seen, clearly and distinctly his own. It seemed to Mike that these human females in Duke's picture collection could hardly be said to have grown faces as yet, so much did one look like the other in the face. All young human females had much the same face - how could it be otherwise? Of course he had never had any trouble recognizing Jill's face; she was not only the first woman he had ever seen but, most important, his first female water brother - Mike knew every pore on her nose, every incipient wrinkle in her face and had praised each one in happy meditation.

  But, while he now knew Anne from Dorcas and Dorcas from Miriam by their faces alone, it had not been so when first he came here. For several days Mike had distinguished between them by size and coloration - and, of course, by voice, since no two voices were ever alike. But, as sometimes did happen, all three females would be quiet at once and then it was well that Anne was so much bigger, Dorcas so small, and that Miriam, who was bigger than Dorcas but smaller than Anne, nevertheless need not be mistaken for the missing one if either Anne or Dorcas was absent because Miriam had unmistakable hair called "red," even though it was not the color called "red" when speaking of anything but hair.

  This special meaning for "red" did not trouble Mike; he knew before he reached Earth that every English word held more than one meaning. It was a fact one could get used to, without grokking, just as the sameness of all girl faces could be gotten used to� and, after waiting, they were no longer quite the same. Mike now could call up Anne's face in his mind and count the pores in her nose as readily as with Jill's. In essence, even an egg was uniquely itself, different from all other eggs any where and when - Mike had always known that. So each girl had her own face, no matter how small those differences might be.

  Mike gave the "disgusting" picture to Duke and was warmed by Duke's pleasure. Mike did not feel that he was depriving himself in parting with the picture; he had seen it once, he could see it in his mind whenever he wished - even the face in that picture, as it had glowed with a most unusual expression of beautiful pain.

  He accepted Duke's thanks gravely and went happily back to read the rest of his mail.

  Mike did not share Jubal's annoyance at the avalanche of mail; he reveled in it, the insurance ads quite as much as the marriage proposals. His trip to the Palace had opened his eyes to the enormous variety in this world and he was resolved to grok it all. He could see that it would take him several centuries and that he must grow and grow and grow, but he was undaunted and in no hurry - he grokked that eternity and the everbeautifully-changing now were identical.

  He had decided not to reread the Encyclopedia Britannica; the flood of mail gave him brighter glimpses of the world. He read it, grokked what he could, remembered the rest for contemplation at night while the household slept.

  From these nights of meditation he was beginning, he thought, to grok "business," and "money," and "buying," and "selling," and related un-Martian activities - the articles in the Encyclopedia had always left him feeling unfilled, as (he now grokked) each one had assumed that he knew many things that he did not know. But there arrived in the mail, from Mr. Secretary General Joseph Edgerton Douglas, a check book and other papers, and his brother Jubal had taken great pains to explain to him what money was and how it was used.

  Mike had failed utterly to understand it at first, even though Jubal showed him how to make out his first check, gave him "money" in exchange for it, taught him how to count it.

  Then suddenly, with a grokking so blinding that he trembled and forced himself not to withdraw, he understood the abstract symbolic nature of money. These pretty pictures and bright medallions were not "money"; they were concrete symbols for an abstract idea which spread all through these people, all through their world. But these things were not money, any more than water shared in water ceremony was the growing-closer. Water was not necessary to the ceremony� and these pretty things were not necessary to money. Money was an idea, as abstract as an Old One's thoughts - money was a great structured symbol for balancing and healing and growing closer.

  Mike was dazzled with the magnificent beauty of money.

  The flow and change and countermarching of the symbols was another matter, beautiful in small, but reminding him of games taught to nestlings to encourage them to learn to reason correctly and grow. It was the total structure that dazzled him, the idea that an entire world could be reflected in one dynamic, completely interconnected, symbol structure. Mike grokked then that the Old Ones of this race were very old indeed to have composed such beauty, and he wished humbly that he might soon be allowed to meet one of them.

  Jubal encouraged him to spend some of his money and Mike did so, with the timid, uncertain eagerness of a bride being brought to bed. Jubal suggested that he "buy presents for his friends" and Jill helped him with it, starting by placing arbitrary limits: only one present for each friend and a total cost that was not even a reciprocal filled-three of the sum that had been placed to his account - Mike's original intention had been to spend all of that pretty balance on his friends.

  He quickly learned how difficult it is to spend money. There were so many things from which to choose, all of them wonderful and most of them incomprehensible. Surrounded by thick catalogs from Marshall Field's to the Ginza, and back by way of Bombay and Copenhagen, he felt smothered in a plethora of riches. Even the Sears amp; Montgomery catalog was too much for him.

  But Jill helped. "No, Mike, Duke would not want a tractor."

  "Duke likes tractors."

  "Um, maybe - but he's got one, or Jubal has, which is the same thing. He might like one of those cute little Belgian unicycles - he could take it apart and put it together and shine it all day long. But even that is too expensive, what with the taxes. Mike dear, a present ought not to be very expensive - unless you are trying to get a girl to marry you, or something. Especially 'something.' But a present should show that you thought about it and considered that person's tastes. Something he would enjoy but probably would not buy for himself."

  "How?"

  "That's always the problem. Wait a minute. I just remembered something in this morning's mail - I hope Larry hasn't carted it off yet." She was back quickly. "Found it! Listen to this: 'Living Aphrodite: A de-luxe Album of Feminine Beauty in Gorgeous Stereo-Color by the World's Greatest Artists of the Camera. Notice: this item will not be sent by mail. It will be forwarded at purchaser's risk by prepaid express only. Orders cannot be accepted from addresses in the following states-' Um, Pennsylvania is on the verboten list - but don't let that worry you; if it is addressed to you, it will be delivered - and if I know Duke's vulgar tastes, this is just what he would like."

  Duke did like it. It was delivered, not by express, but via the S.S. patrol car capping the house - and the next ad for the same item to arrive in the house boasted: "-exactly as supplied to the Man from Mars, by special appointment," which pleased Mike and annoyed Jill.

  Other presents were just as difficult, but picking a present for Jubal was supremely difficult. Jill was stumped. What does one buy for a man who has everything - everything, that is to say, that he wants which money can buy? The Sphinx? Three Wishes? The fountain that Ponce de Leon failed to find? Oil for his ancient bones, or one golden day of youth? Jubal had long ago even foresworn pets, because he outlived them, or (worse yet) it was now possible that a pet would outlive
him, be orphaned.

  Privately they consulted the others. "Shucks," Duke told them, "didn't you know? The boss likes statues."

  "Really?" Jill answered. "I don't see any sculpture around."

  "That's because most of the stuff he likes isn't for sale. He says that the crud they're making nowdays looks like disaster in a junk yard and any idiot with a blow torch and astigmatism can set himself up as a sculptor."

  Anne nodded thoughtfully. "I think Duke is right. You can tell what Jubal's tastes in sculpture are by looking at the books in his study. But I doubt if it will help much."

  Nevertheless they looked, Anne and Jill and Mike, and Anne picked out three books as bearing evidence (to her eyes) of having been looked at most often. "Hmm�" she said. "It's clear that the Boss would like anything by Rodin. Mike, if you could buy one of these for Jubal, which one would you pick? Oh, here's a pretty one - 'Eternal Springtime.'"

  Mike barely glanced at it and turned the page. "This one."

  "What?" Jill looked at it and shuddered. "Mike, that one is perfectly dreadful! I hope I die long before I look like that."

  "That is beauty," Mike said firmly.

  "Mike!" Jill protested. "You've got a depraved taste - you're worse than Duke. Or else you just don't know any better."

  Ordinarily such a rebuke from a water brother, most especially from Jill, would have shut Mike up, forced him to spend the following night in trying to understand his fault. But this was art in which he was sure of himself. The portrayed statue was the first thing he had seen on Earth which felt like a breath of home to him. Although it was clearly a picture of a human woman it gave him a feeling that a Martian Old One should be somewhere around, responsible for its creation. "It is beauty," he insisted stubbornly. "She has her own face. I grok."

  "Jill," Anne said slowly, "Mike is right."

  "Huh? Anne! Surely you don't like that?"

  "It frightens me. But Mike knows what Jubal likes. Look at the book itself. It falls open naturally to any one of three places. Now look at the pages - this page has been handled more than the other two. Mike has picked the Boss's favorite. This other one - 'The Caryatid Who has Fallen under the Weight of Her Stone' - he likes almost as well. But Mike's choice is Jubal's pet."

  "I buy it," Mike said decisively.

  But it was not for sale. Anne telephoned the Rodin Museum in Paris on Mike's behalf and only Gallic gallantry and her beauty kept them from laughing in her face. Sell one of the Master's works? My dear lady, they are not only not for sale but they may not be reproduced. Non, non, non! Quelle idt!

  But for the Man from Mars some things are possible which are not possible for others. Anne called Bradley; a couple of days later he called her back. As a compliment from the French government - no fee, but a strongly couched request that the present never be publicly exhibited - Mike would receive, not the original, but a full-size, microscopically-exact replica, a bronze photopantogram of "She Who Used to Be the Beautiful Heaulmire."

  Jill helped Mike select presents for the girls, here she knew her ground. But when he asked her what he should buy for her; she not only did not help but insisted that he must not buy her anything.

  Mike was beginning to realize that, while a water brother always spoke rightly, sometimes they spoke more rightly than others, i.e., that the English language had depths to it and it was sometimes necessary to probe to reach the right depth. So he consulted Anne.

  "Go ahead and buy her a present, dear. She has to tell you that but you give her a present anyhow. Hmm� Anne vetoed clothes and jewelry, finally selected for him a present which puzzled him - Jill already smelled exactly the way Jill should smell.

  The small size and apparent unimportance of the present, when it arrived, added to his misgivings - and when Anne let him whiff it before having him give it to Jill, Mike was more in doubt than ever; the odor was very strong and smelled not at all like Jill.

  Nevertheless, Anne was right; Jill was delighted with the perfume and insisted on kissing him at once. In kissing her he grokked fully that this gift was what she wanted and that it made them grow closer.

  When she wore it at dinner that night, he discovered that the fragrance truly did not differ from that of Jill herself; in some unclear fashion it simply made Jill smell more deliciously like Jill than ever. Still stranger, it caused Dorcas to kiss him and whisper, "Mike hon� the negligee is lovely and just what I wanted - but perhaps someday you'll give me perfume?"

  Mike could not grok why Dorcas would want it, since Dorcas did not smell at all like Jill and therefore perfume would not be proper for her nor, he realized, would he want Dorcas to smell like Jill; he wanted Dorcas to smell like Dorcas.

  Jubal interrupted with: "Quit nuzzling the lad and let him eat his dinned Dorcas, you already reek like a Marseilles cat house; don't wheedle Mike for more stinkum."

  "Doss, you mind your own business."

  It was all very puzzling - both that Jill could smell still more like Jill and that Dorcas should wish to smell like Jill when she already smelled like herself� and that Jubal would say that Dorcas smelled like a cat when she did not. There was a cat who lived on the place (not as a pet, but as co-owner); on rare occasion it came to the house and deigned to accept a handout. The cat and Mike had grokked each other at once, and Mike had found its carniverous thoughts most pleasing and quite Martian. He had discovered, too, that the cat's name (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) was not the cat's name at all, but he had not told anyone this because he could not pronounce the cat's real name; he could only hear it in his head.

  The cat did not smell like Dorcas.

  Giving presents was a great goodness and the buying thereof taught Mike much about the true value of money. But he had not forgotten even momentarily that there were other things he was eager to grok. Jubal had put off Senator Boone's invitation to Mike twice without mentioning it to Mike and Mike had not noticed, since his quite different grasp of time made "next Sunday" no particular date.

  But the next repetition of the invitation came by mall and was addressed to Mike; Senator Boone was under pressure from Supreme Bishop Digby to produce the Man from Mars and Boone had sensed that Harshaw was stalling him and might stall indefinitely.

  Mike took it to Jubal, stood waiting. "Well?" Jubal growled. "Do you want to go, or don't you? You don't have to attend a Fosterite service. We can tell 'em to go to hell."

  So a Checker Cab with a human driver (Harshaw refused to trust his life to an autocab) picked them up the next Sunday morning and delivered Mike, Jill, and Jubal to a public landing fiat just outside the sacred grounds of Archangel Foster Tabernacle of the Church of the New Revelation.

  XXIII

  JUBAL HAD BEEN TRYING to warn Mike all the way to church; of what, Mike was not certain. He had listened, he always listened - but the landscape below them tugged for attention, too; he had compromised by storing what Jubal said. "Now look, boy," Jubal had admonished, "these Fosterites are after your money. That's all right, most everybody is after your money; you just have to be firm. Your money and the prestige of having the Man from Mars join their church. They're going to work on you - and you have to be firm about that, too."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "Damn it, I don't believe you've been listening."

  "I am sorry, Jubal."

  "Well� look at it this way. Religion is a solace to many people and it is even conceivable that some religion, somewhere, really is Ultimate Truth. But in many cases, being religious is merely a form of conceit. The Bible Belt faith in which I was brought up encouraged me to think that I was better than the rest of the world; I was 'saved' and they were 'damned' - we were in a state of grace and the rest of the world were 'heathens' and by 'heathen' they meant such people as our brother Mahmoud. It meant that an ignorant, stupid lout who seldom bathed and planted his corn by the phase of the Moon could claim to know the final answers of the Universe. That entitled him to look down his nose at everybody else. Our hymn book was loaded with s
uch arrogance - mindless, conceited, self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us and us alone, and what hell everybody else was going to catch come Judgment Day. We peddled the only authentic brand of Lydia Pinkham's-"

  "Jubal!" Jill said sharply. "He doesn't grok it."

  "Uh? Sorry. I got carried away. My folks tried to make a preacher out of me and missed by a narrow margin; I guess it still shows."

  "It does."

  "Don't rub it in, girl. I would have made a good one if I hadn't fallen into the fatal folly of reading anything I could lay hands on. With just a touch more self confidence and a liberal helping of ignorance I could have been a famous evangelist. Shucks, this place we're headed for today would have been known as the 'Archangel Jubal Tabernacle.'"

  Jill made a face. "Jubal, please! Not so soon after breakfast."

  "I mean it. A confidence man knows that he's lying; that limits his scope. But a successful shaman ropes himself first; he believes what he says - and such belief is contagious; there is no limit to his scope. But I lacked the necessary confidence in my own infallibility; I could never become a prophet� just a critic - which is a poor thing at best, a sort of fourth-rate prophet suffering from delusions of gender." Jubal frowned. "That's what worries me about Fosterites, Jill. I think that they are utterly sincere and you and I know that Mike is a sucker for sincerity."

  "What do you think they'll try to do to him?"

  "Convert him, of course. Then get their hands on his fortune."

  "I thought you had things fixed so that nobody could do that?"

  "No, I just fixed it so that nobody could take it away from him against his will. Ordinarily he couldn't even give it away without the government stepping in. But giving it to a church, especially a politically powerful church like the Fosterites, is another matter."