A Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert Anson Heinlein

  "Which one, dear? I thought that big one was just mean� and the one I flipped the peanut to turned out to be just as mean. There certainly wasn't anything funny."

  "Jill, Jill my darling! Too much Martian has rubbed off on YOU. Of course it wasn't funny - it was tragic. That's why I had to laugh. I looked at a cageful of monkeys and suddenly I saw all the mean and cruel and utterly unexplainable things I've seen and heard and read about in the time I've been with my own people and suddenly it hurt so much I found myself laughing."

  "But- Mike dear, laughing is something you do when something is nice� not when it's horrid."

  "Is it? Think back to Las Vegas - When all you pretty girls came out on the stage, did people laugh?"

  "Well� no."

  "But you girls were the nicest part of the show. I grok now, that if they had laughed, you would have been hurt. No, they laughed when a comic tripped over his feet and fell down� or something else that is not a goodness."

  "But that's not all people laugh at."

  "Isn't it? Perhaps I don't grok all its fullness yet. But find me something that really makes you laugh, sweetheart� a joke, or anything else - but something that gave you a real belly laugh, not a smile. Then we'll see if there isn't a wrongness in it somewhere and whether you would laugh if the wrongness wasn't there." He thought. "I grok when apes learn to laugh, they'll be people."

  "Maybe." Doubtfully but earnestly Jill started digging into her memory for jokes that had struck her as irresistibly funny, ones which had jerked a laugh out of her� incidents she had seen or heard of which had made her helpless with laughter:

  "-her entire bridge club."

  "Should I bow?"

  "Neither one, you idiot - instead!"

  "-the Chinaman objects."

  "-broke her leg."

  "-make trouble for me!"

  "-but it'll spoil the ride for me."

  "-and his mother-in-law fainted."

  "Stop you? Why, I bet three to one you could do it!"

  "-something has happened to Ole."

  "-and so are you, you clumsy ox!"

  She gave up on "funny" stories, pointing out to Mike that such were just fantasies, not real, and tried to recall real incidents. Practical jokes? All practical jokes supported Mike's thesis, even ones as mild as a dribble glass - and when it came to an interne's notion of a practical joke - well, internes and medical students should be kept in cages. What else? The time Elsa Mae had lost her monogrammed panties? It hadn't been funny to Elsa Mae. Or the- She said grimly, "Apparently the pratfall is the peak of all humor. It's not a pretty picture of the human race, Mike."

  "Oh, but it is!"

  "Huh?"

  "I had thought - I had been told - that a 'funny' thing is a thing of a goodness. It isn't. Not ever is it funny to the person it happens to. Like that sheriff without his pants. The goodness is in the laughing itself. I grok it is a bravery� and a sharing� against pain and sorrow and defeat."

  "But - Mike, it is not a goodness to laugh at people."

  "No. But I was not laughing at the little monkey. I was laughing at you people. And I suddenly knew that I was people and could not stop laughing." He paused. "This is hard to explain, because you have never lived as a Martian, for all that I've told you about it. On Mars there is never anything to laugh at. All the things that are funny to us humans either physically cannot happen on Mars or are not permitted to happen - sweetheart, what you call 'freedom' doesn't exist on Mars; everything is planned by the Old Ones - or the things that do happen on Mars which we laugh at here on Earth aren't funny because there is no wrongness about them. Death, for example."

  "Death isn't funny."

  "Then why are there so many jokes about death? Jill, with us - us humans - death is so sad that we must laugh at it. All those religions - they contradict each other on every other point but every one of them is filled with ways to help people be brave enough to laugh even though they know they are dying." He stopped and Jill could feel that he had almost gone into his trance state. "Jill? Is it possible that I was searching them the wrong way? Could it be that every one of all those religions is true?"

  "Huh? How could that possibly be? Mike, if one of them is true, then the others are wrong. Logic."

  "So? Point to the shortest direction around the universe. It doesn't matter which way you point, it's the shortest� and you're pointing right back at yourself."

  "Well, what does that prove? You taught me the true answer, Mike. 'Thou art God.'"

  "And Thou art God, my lovely. I wasn't disputing that� but that one prime fact which doesn't depend at all on faith may mean that all faiths are true."

  "Well� if they're all true, then right now I want to worship Siva." Jill changed the subject with emphatic direct action.

  "Little pagan," he said softly. "They'll run you out of San Francisco."

  "But we're going to Los Angeles� where it won't be noticed. Oh! Thou art Siva!"

  "Dance, Kali, dance!"

  Some time during the night she woke and saw him standing at the window, looking out over the city. ("Trouble, my brother?")

  He turned and spoke. "There's no need for them to be so unhappy."

  "Darling, darling! I think I had better take you home. The city is not good for you."

  "But I would still know it. Pain and sickness and hunger and fighting - there's no need for any of it. It's as foolish as those little monkeys."

  "Yes, darling. But it's not your fault-"

  "Ah, but it is!"

  "Well� that way - yes. But it's not just this one city; it's five billion people and more. You can't help five billion people."

  "I wonder."

  He came over and sat down by her. "I grok with them now, I can talk to them. Jill, I could set up our act again� and make the marks laugh every minute. I am certain."

  "Then why not do it? Patty would certainly be pleased� and so would I. I liked being 'with it' - and now that we've shared water with Patty, it would be like being home."

  He didn't answer. Jill felt his mind and knew that he was contemplating, trying to grok. She waited.

  "Jill? What do I have to do to be ordained?"

  PART FOUR: HIS SCANDALOUS CAREER

  XXX

  THE FIRST MIXED LOAD Of permanent colonists arrived on Mars; six of the seventeen survivors of the twenty-three originals returned to Earth. Prospective colonists trained in Peru at sixteen thousand feet. The president of Argentina moved one night to Montevideo, taking with him such portables as could be stuffed into two suitcases, and the new Presidente started an extradition process before the high Court to yank him back, or at least the two suitcases. Last rites for Alice Douglas were held privately in the National Cathedral with less than two thousand attending, and editorialists and stereo commentators alike praised the dignified fortitude with which the Secretary General took his bereavement. A three-year-old named Inflation, carrying 126 pounds with Jinx Jenkins Up, won the Kentucky Derby, paying fifty-four for one, and two guests of the Colony Airotel, Louisville, Kentucky, discorporated, one voluntarily, the other by heart failure.

  Another bootleg edition of the (unauthorized) biography The Devil and Reverend Foster appeared simultaneously on news stands throughout the United States; by nightfall every copy had been burned and the plates destroyed, along with incidental damage to other chattels and to real estate, plus a certain amount of mayhem, maiming, and simple assault. The British Museum was rumored to possess a copy of the first edition (untrue), and also the Vatican Library (true, but available only to certain church scholars).

  In the Tennessee legislature a bill was again introduced to make the ratio pi exactly equal to three; it was reported out by the committee on public education and morals, passed with no objection by the lower house and died in committee in the upper house. An interchurch fundamentalist group opened offices in Van Buren, Arkansas, for the purpose of soliciting funds to send missionaries to the Martians; Dr. Jubal Harshaw happily sen
t them a lavish donation, but took the precaution of sending it in the name (and with the address) of the editor of the New Humanist, a rabid atheist and his close friend.

  Other than that, Jubal had very little to feel amused about - there had been too much news about Mike lately, and all of it depressing. He had treasured the occasional visits home of Jill and Mike and had been most interested in Mike's progress, especially after Mike developed a sense of humor. But they came home less frequently now and Jubal did not relish the latest developments.

  It had not troubled Jubal when Mike was run out of Union Theological Seminary, hotly pursued in spirit by a pack of enraged theologians, some of whom were angry because they believed in God and others because they did not - but all united in detesting the Man from Mars. Jubal honestly evalued anything that happened to a theologian short of breaking him on the wheel was no more than meet - and the experience was good for the boy; he'd know better next time.

  Nor had he been troubled when Mike (with the help of Douglas) had enlisted under an assumed name in the Federation armed forces. He had been quite sure (through private knowledge) that no sergeant could cause Mike any permanent distress, and contrariwise, Jubal was not troubled by what might happen to sergeants or other ranks - an unreconciled old reactionary, Jubal had burned his own honorable discharge and all that went with it on the day that the United States had ceased having its own armed forces.

  Actually, Jubal had been surprised at how little shambles Mike had created as "Private Jones" and how long be had lasted - almost three weeks. He had crowned his military career the day that be had seized on the question period following an orientation lecture to hold forth on the utter uselessness of force and violence under any circumstances (with some side continents on the desirability of reducing surplus population through cannibalism) and had offered himself as a test animal for any weapon of any nature to prove to them that force was not only unnecessary but literally impossible when attempted against a self-disciplined person.

  They had not taken his offer; they had kicked him out.

  But there had been a little more to it than that, Douglas had allowed Jubal to see a top-level super secret eyes-only numbered-one-of-three report after cautioning Jubal that no one, not even the Supreme Chief of staff, knew that "Private Jones" was the Man from Mars. Jubal had merely scanned the exhibits, which had been mostly highly conflicting reports of eye witnesses as to what had happened at various times when "Jones" had been "trained" in the uses of various weapons; the only surprising thing to Jubal about them was that some witnesses had the courage and self-confidence to state under oath that they had seen weapons disappear. "Jones" had also been placed on the report three times for losing weapons, same being accountable property of the Federation.

  The end of the report was all that Jubal had bothered to read carefully enough to remember: "Conclusion: Subject man is an extremely talented natural hypnotist and, as such, could conceivably be useful in intelligence work, although he is totally unfitted for any combat branch. However, his low intelligence quotient (moron), his extremely low general classification score, and his paranoid tendencies (delusions of grandeur) make it inadvisable to attempt to exploit his idiot-savant talent. Recommendation: Discharge, Inaptitude - no pension credit, no benefits."

  Such little romps were good for the boy and Jubal had greatly enjoyed Mike's inglorious career as a soldier because Jill had spent the time at home. When Mike had come home for a few days after it was over, he hadn't seemed hurt by it - he had boasted to Jubal that he had obeyed Jill's wishes exactly and hadn't disappeared anybody merely a few dead things� although, as Mike grokked it, there had been several times when Earth could have been made a better place if Jill didn't have this queasy weakness. Jubal didn't argue it; he had a lengthy - though inactive, "Better Dead" list himself.

  But apparently Mike had managed to have fun, too. During parade on his last day as a soldier, the commanding General and his entire staff had suddenly lost their trousers as Mike's platoon was passing in review - and the top sergeant of Mike's company fell flat on his face when his shoes momentarily froze to the ground. Jubal decided that, in acquiring a sense of humor, Mike had developed an atrocious taste in practical jokes - but what the hell? the kid was going through a delayed boyhood; he needed to dump over a few privies. Jubal recalled with pleasure an incident in medical school involving a cadaver and the Dean - Jubal had worn rubber gloves for that caper, and a good thing, too!

  Mike's unique ways of growing up were all right; Mike was unique.

  But this last thing - "The Reverend Dr. Valentine M. Smith, AS., D.D., Ph.D.," founder and pastor of the Church of All Worlds, inc. - gad! It was bad enough that the boy had decided to be a Holy Joe, instead of leaving other people's souls alone, as a gentleman should. But those diploma-mill degrees he had tacked onto his name - Jubal wanted to throw up.

  The worst of it was that Mike had told him that he had gotten the whole idea from something he had heard Jubal say, about what a church was and what it could do. Jubal was forced to admit that it was something he could have said, although he did not recall it; it was little consolation that the boy knew so much law that he might have arrived at the same end on his own.

  But Jubal did concede that Mike had been cagy about the operation - some actual months of residence at a very small, very poor (in all senses) sectarian college, a bachelor's degree awarded by examination, a "call" to their ministry followed by ordination in this recognized though flat-headed sect, a doctor's dissertation on comparative religion which was a marvel of scholarship while ducking any real conclusions (Mike had brought it to Jubal for literary criticism, Jubal had added some weasel words himself through conditioned reflex), the award of the "earned" doctorate coinciding with an endowment (anonymous) to this very hungry school, the second doctorate (honorary) right on top of it for "contributions to interplanetary knowledge" from a distinguished university that should have known better, when Mike let it be known that such was his price for showing up as the drawing card at a conference on solar system studies. The one and only Man from Mars had turned down everybody from CalTech to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the past; Harvard University could hardly be blamed for swallowing the bait.

  Well, they were probably as crimson as their banner now, Jubal thought cynically. Mike had then put in a few weeks as assistant chaplain at his church-mouse alma mater - then had broken with the sect in a schism and founded his own church. Completely kosher, legally airtight, as venerable in precedent as Martin Luther� and as nauseating as last week's garbage.

  Jubal was called out of his sour daydream by Miriam. "Boss! Company!"

  Jubal looked up to see a car about to land and ruminated that he had not realized what a blessing that S.S. patrol cap had been until it was withdrawn.

  "Larry, fetch my shotgun - I promised myself that I would shoot the next dolt who landed on the rose bushes."

  "He's landing on the grass, Boss."

  "Well, tell him to try again. We'll get him on the next pass."

  "Looks like Ben Caxton."

  "So it is. We'll let him live - this time. Hi, Ben! What'll you drink?"

  "Nothing, this early in the day, you professional bad influence. Need to talk to you, Jubal."

  "You're doing it. Dorcas, fetch Ben a glass of warm milk; he's sick."

  "Without too much soda," amended Ben, "and milk the bottle with the three dimples in it. Private talk, Jubal."

  "All right, up to my study - although if you think you can keep anything from the kids around here, let me in on your method." After Ben finished greeting properly (and somewhat unsanitarily, in three cases) the members of the family, they moseyed upstairs.

  Ben said, "What the deuce? Am I lost?"

  "Oh. You haven't seen the alterations, have you? A new wing on the north, which gives us two more bedrooms and another bath downstairs - and up here, my gallery."

  "Enough statues to fill a graveyard!"

  "Please, Ben. 'Statu
es' are dead politicians at boulevard intersections. What you see is 'sculpture.' And please speak in a low, reverent tone lest I become violent� for here we have exact replicas of some of the greatest sculpture this naughty globe has produced."

  "Well, that hideous thing I've seen before� but when did you acquire the rest of this ballast?"

  Jubal ignored him and spoke quietly to the replica of La Belle Heaulmire. "Do not listen to him, ma petite chre - he is a barbarian and knows no better." He put his hand to her beautiful ravaged cheek, then gently touched one empty, shrunken dug. "I know just how you feel but it can't be very much longer. Patience, my lovely."

  He turned back to Caxton and said briskly, "Ben, I don't know what you have on your mind but it will have to wait while I give you a lesson in how to look at sculpture - though it's probably as useless as trying to teach a dog to appreciate the violin. But you've just been rude to a lady and I don't tolerate that."

  "Huh? Don't be silly, Jubal; you're rude to ladies - live ones - a dozen times a day. And you know which ones I mean."

  Jubal shouted, "Anne! Upstairs! Wear your cloak!"

  "You know I wouldn't be rude to the old woman who posed for that. Never. What I can't understand is a so-called artist having the gall to pose somebody's great grandmother in her skin� and you having the bad taste to want it around."

  Anne came in, cloaked, said nothing. Jubal said to her, "Anne have I ever been rude to you? Or to any of the girls?"

  "That calls for an opinion."

  "That's what I'm asking for. Your opinion. You're not in court-"

  "You have never at any time been rude to any of us, Jubal."

  "Have you ever known me to be rude to a lady?"

  "I have seen you be intentionally rude to a woman. I have never seen you be rude to a lady."