He compromised by leaving on jockey shorts and hung his other clothes in the foyer. As he did so, he noticed a sign printed on the inside of the door through which he had entered: "Did You Remember to Dress?"
He decided that, in this odd household, this gentle warning might be necessary if any were absent-minded. Then he saw something else that he had missed on coming in, his attention earlier having been seized by the sight of Patty herself. On each side of the door was a large bowl, as gross as a bushel basket - and each was tilled with money.
More than filled - Federation notes of various denominations spilled out on the floor.
He was staring at this improbability 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. "You must think I'm a sloppy housekeeper, Ben - and I am. Michael makes it so easy, most of the cleaning and such, that I forget." She squatted down, retrieved the money, stuffed it into the less crowded bowl.
"Patty, why in the world?"
"Oh. We keep it here because this door leads out to the street. Just for convenience. If one of us is leaving the Nest - and I do, myself, almost every day for grocery shopping - we are likely to need money. So we keep it where you won't forget to take some with you."
"You mean� just grab a handful and go?"
"Why, of course, dear. Oh, I see what you mean. But there is never anyone here but us. No visitors, ever. If any of us have friends outside - and, of course, all of us do - there are plenty of nice rooms lower down, the ordinary sort that outsiders are used to, where we can visit with them. This money isn't where it can tempt a weak person."
"Huh! I'm pretty weak, myself!"
She chuckled gently at his joke. "How can it tempt you when it's already yours? You're part of the Nest."
"Uh� I suppose so. But don't you worry about burglars?" He was trying to guess how much money one of those bowls contained. Most of the notes seemed to be larger than singles - hell, he could see one with three zeroes on it still on the floor, where Patty had missed it in her tidying up.
"One did get in, just last week."
"So? How much did he steal?"
"Oh, he didn't. Michael sent him away."
"Called the cops?"
"Oh, no, no - Michael would never turn anybody over to the cops. I grok that would be a wrongness 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. But I remember that you have a grass floor, Jill told me. That's where Michael first saw one. Is it grass all over? Every room?"
"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's not in the Nest, and Michael has taught us that it is good to ask, even when we know the answer is yes. I'll lie on it and feel the grass against me and be filled with Happiness to be in my brother's 'little nest.'
"You'll be most welcome, Patty." Ben reminded himself sharply that he didn't give a hoot in hell what his neighbors thought - but 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 you can, so I'll be in town. If not, Jill always knows the code for my door - I change it occasionally. Patty, doesn't anybody keep track of this money?"
"What for, Ben?"
"Uh, people usually do."
"Well, we don't. Just help yourself as you go out - then put back any you have left when you come home, if you remember to. Michael told me to keep the grouch bag filled. If it runs low I get some more from him."
Ben dropped the matter, stonkered by the simplicity of the arrangement. He already had some idea, from Mike and second-hand from Jill and Jubal, of the moneyless communism of the Martian culture; he could see that Mike had set up an enclave of it here - and these bowls of cash marked the transition point whereby one passed from Martian to Terran economy. He wondered if Patty knew that it was a fake� bolstered up by Mike's enormous fortune. He decided not to ask.
"Patty, how many are there in the Nest?" He felt a mild worry that he was acquiring too many sharing brothers without his consent, then shoved back the thought as unworthy after all, why would any of them want to sponge on him? Other than, possibly to lie on his grass rug - he didn't have any pots of gold just inside his door.
"Let me see� there are almost twenty now, counting novitiate brothers who don't really think in Martian yet and aren't ordained."
"Are you ordained, Patty?"
"Oh, yes. But mostly I teach. Beginners' classes in Martian, and I help novitiate brothers and such. And Dawn and I - Dawn and Jill are each High Priestess - Dawn and I are pretty well-known Fosterites, especially Dawn, so we work together to show other Fosterites that the Church of All Worlds 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 what it meant, and showed him also its miraculous companion placed by Mike.
"They all know what Foster's kiss means and how hard it is to win it and by then they've seen some of Mike's miracles and they are just about ripe to buckle down and sweat to climb into a higher circle."
"It's an effort?"
"Of course it is, Ben - for them. In your case and mine, and Jill's, and a few others - YOU know them all - 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. And that means they've got to start by learning Martian. That's not easy; I'm not perfect in it myself. But it is much Happiness to work and learn. You asked about the size of the Nest - let me see, Duke and Jim and Michael and myself - two Fosterites, Dawn and myself� one circumcised Jew and his wife and four children-"
"Kids in the Nest?"
"Oh, more than a dozen. Not here, but in the nestlings' nest just off of here; nobody could meditate with kids hooting and hollering and raising Ned, Want to see it?"
"Uh, later."
"One Catholic couple with a baby boy - excommunicated I'm sorry to say; their priest found out about it. Michael had to give them very special help; it was a nasty shock to them - and so utterly unnecessary. They were getting up early every Sunday morning to go to mass just as usual - but kids will talk. One Mormon family of the new schism - that's three more, and their kids. The rest are the usual run of Protestants and one atheist� that is, he thought he was an atheist, until Michael opened his eyes. He came here to scoff; he stayed to learn� and he'll be a priest before long. Uh, nineteen grown-ups - I'm pretty sure that's right though it's hard to say, since 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 - that's 'three-filled,' or three times three multiplied by itself - but Michael says that there will be much waiting before we'd need a bigger nest and by then we will be building other nests. Ben? Wouldn't you like to see an outer service, see how Michael makes the pitch, instead of just listening to me ramble on? Michael will be preaching just about now."
"Why, yes, if it's not too much trouble."
"You could go by yourself. But I'd like to go with you� and I'm not busy. Just a see, dearie, while I get decent."
"Jubal, she was back in a couple of minutes in a robe not unlike Anne's Witness robe but cut differently, with angel-wing sleeves and a high neck and the trademark Mike uses for the Church of All Worlds - nine concentric circles and a conventionalized Sun-embroidered over her heart. This getup was a priestess robe, her vestments; Jill and the other priestesses wear the same sort, except that Patty's was opaque, a heavy synthetic silk, and came so high that it covered her cartoons, and was caught at both wrists for the same reason. She had put on stockings, too, or maybe bobby socks, and was carrying sandals.
"Changed the hell out of he
r, Jubal. It gave her great dignity. Her face is quite nice and I could see that she was considerably older than I had first guessed her although not within twenty years of what she claims to be. She has an exquisite complexion and I thought what a shame it was that anyone had ever touched a tattooing needle to such skin.
"I had dressed again. She asked me to take off just my shoes because we weren't going out the way I had come in. She led me back through the Nest and out into a corridor; we stopped to put on shoes and went down a ramp that wound down maybe a couple of floors until we reached a gallery. It was sort of a loge overlooking the main auditorium. Mike was holding forth on the platform. No pulpit, no altar, just a lecture hall, with a big All-Worlds symbol on the wall behind him. There was a robed priestess on the platform with him and, at that distance, I thought it was Jill - but it wasn't; it was another woman who looks a bit like her and is almost as beautiful. The other high priestess, Dawn - Dawn Ardent."
"What was that name?" Jubal interrupted.
"Dawn Ardent-ne 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. "Some mistake. The 'Dawn Ardent' I mean I just barely met, about two years ago. She wouldn't even remember me."
"She remembers you. She gets every one of your pieces of commercial crud, on tape, under every pseudonym she has been able to track down. She goes to sleep by them, usually, and they give her beautiful dreams. She says. Furthermore there is no doubt that she knows who you are. Jubal, that big living room, the Nest proper, has exactly one item of ornamentation, if you'll pardon the word - a life-sized color copy of your head. Looks as if you had been decapitated, with your face in a hideous grin. A candid shot that Duke sneaked of you, I understand."
"Why, that brat!"
"Jill asked him to, behind your back."
"Double brat!"
"Sir, you are speaking of the woman I love - although I'm not alone in that distinction. But 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 this to me!"
"They already have. But don't worry; it's unofficial and not publicized. But Mike freely gives you credit, inside the Nest just among water brothers, for having instigated the whole show and explained things to him so well that he was finally able to figure out how to put over Martian theology to humans."
Jubal looked about to retch. Ben went on, "I'm afraid you can't duck it. But in addition, Dawn thinks you're beautiful. Aside from that quirk, she is an intelligent woman - and utterly charming. But I digress. Mike spotted us at once, waved and called out, 'Hi, Ben! Later' - and went on with his spiel.
"Jubal, I'm not going to try to quote him, you'll just have to hear it. He didn't sound preachy and he didn't wear robes - just a smart, well-tailored, white syntholinen suit. He sounded like a damned good car salesman, except that there was no doubt he was talking about religion. He cracked jokes and told parables - none of them straitlaced but nothing really dirty, either. The essence of it was a sort of pantheism� one of his parables was the oldy about the earthworm burrowing along through the soil who encounters another earthworm and at once says, 'Oh, you're beautiful! You're lovely! Will you marry me?' and is answered: 'Don't be silly! I'm your other end.' You've heard it before?"
"'Heard it?' I wrote it!"
"I hadn't realized it was that old. Anyhow, Mike made good use of it. His idea is that whenever you encounter any other grokking thing - he didn't say 'grokking' at this stage - any other living thing, man, woman, or stray cat� you are simply encountering your 'other end'� and the universe is just a little thing we whipped up among us the other night for our entertainment and then agreed to forget the gag. He put it in a much more sugar-coated fashion, being extremely careful not to tread on competitors' toes."
Jubal nodded and looked sour. "Solipsism and Pantheism. Teamed together they can explain anything. Cancel out any inconvenient fact, reconcile all theories, and include any facts or delusions you care to name. Trouble is, it's just cotton candy, all taste and no substance - and as unsatisfactory as solving a story by saying: '-and then the little boy fell out of bed and woke up; it was just a dream.'"
"Don't crab at me about it; take it up with Mike. But believe me, he made it sound convincing. Once he stopped and said, 'You must be tired of so much talk-' and they yelled back, 'No!'-I tell you, he really had them. But he protested that his voice was tired and, anyhow, a church ought to have miracles and this was a church, even though it didn't have a mortgage. 'Dawn, fetch me my miracle box.' Then he did some really amazing sleight-of-hand. Did you know he had been a magician with a carnival?"
"I knew he had been with it. He never told me the exact nature of his shame."
"He's a crackerjack magician; he did stunts for them that had me fooled. But it wouldn't have mattered if it had been only the card tricks kids learn; it was his patter that had them rolling in the aisles. Finally he stopped and said apologetically. 'The Man from Mars is supposed to be able to do wonderful things� so I have to pass a few miracles each meeting. I can't help being the Man from Mars; it's just something that happened to me. But miracles can happen for you, too, if you want them. However, to be allowed to see anything more than these narrow-gauge miracles, you must enter the Circle. Those of you who truly want to learn I will see later. Cards are being passed around,'
"Patty explained to me what Mike was really doing. 'This crowd is just marks, dear - people who come out of curiosity or maybe have been shined in by some of our own people who have reached one of the inner circles.' Jubal, Mike has the thing rigged in nine circles, like degrees in a lodge - and nobody is told that there actually is a circle farther in until they're ready to be inducted into it. 'This is just Michael's bally,' Pat told me, 'which he does as easy as he breathes - while all the time he's feeling them out, sizing them up, getting inside their heads and deciding which ones are even possible. Maybe one in ten. That's why he strings it out - Duke is up behind that grille and Michael tells him every mark who just might measure up, where he sits and everything. Michael's about to turn this tip� and spill the ones he doesn't want. Dawn will handle that part, after she gets the seating diagram from Duke.'"
"How did they work that?" asked Harshaw.
"I didn't see it, Jubal. Does it matter? There are a dozen ways they could cut from the herd the ones they wanted as long as Mike knew which they were and had worked out some way to signal Duke. I don't know. Patty says he's clairvoyant and says it with a straight face - and, do you know, I won't discount the possibility. But right after that, they took the collection. Mike didn't do even this in church style - you know, soft music and dignified ushers. He said nobody would believe that this was a church service if be didn't take a collection� so he would, but with a difference. Either take it or put it - suit yourself. Then, so help me, they passed collection baskets already loaded with money. Mike kept telling them that this was what the last crowd had left, so help themselves� if they were broke or hungry and needed it. But if they felt like giving� give. Share with others. Just do one or the other - put something in, or take something out. When I saw it, I figured he had found one more way to get rid of too much money."
Jubal said thoughtfully, "I'm not sure he would lose by it. That pitch, properly given, should result in more people giving more� while a few take just a little. And probably very few. I would say that it would be hard indeed to reach in and take out money when the people on each side of you are putting money in� unless you need it awfully badly."
"I don't know, Jubal� but I understand that they are just as casual about those collections as they are about that stack of dough upstairs. But Patty whisked me away when Mike turned the service over to his high priestess. I was taken to a much smaller auditorium where services were just opening for the seventh circle in - people who had belonged for several months at
least and had made progress. If it is progress.
"Jubal, Mike had gone straight from one to the other, and I couldn't adjust to the change. That outer meeting was half popular lecture and half sheer entertainment - this one was more nearly a voodoo rite. Mike was in robes this time; he looked taller, ascetic, and intense-! swear his eyes gleamed. The place was dimly lighted, there was music that was creepy and yet made you want to dance. This time Patty and I took a double seat together, a couch that was darn near a bed. What the service was all about I couldn't say. Mike would sing out to them in Martian, they would answer in Martian - except for chants of 'Thou art God! Thou art God!' which was always echoed by some Martian word that would make my throat sore to try to pronounce it."
Jubal made a croaking noise. "Was that it?"
"Huh? I believe it was - allowing for your horrible tall-corn accent. Jubal� are you hooked? Have you just been stringing me along?"
"No. Stinky taught it to me - and he says that it's heresy of the blackest sort. By his lights I mean - I couldn't care less. It's the Martian word Mike translates as: 'Thou art God.' But our brother Mahmoud says that isn't even close to being a translation. It's the universe proclaiming its own self-awareness� or it's 'peccavimus' with a total absence of contrition or a dozen other things, all of which don't translate it. Stinky says that not only it can't be translated but that he doesn't really understand it in Martian - except that it is a bad word, the worst possible in his opinion and much closer to Satan's defiance than it is to the blessing of a benevolent God. Go on. Was that all there was to it? Just a bunch of fanatics yelling Martian at each other?"
"Uh� Jubal, they didn't yell and it wasn't fanatical. Sometimes they would barely whisper, the room almost dead quiet. Then it might climb in volume a little but not much. They did it in sort of a rhythm, a pattern, like a cantata, as if they had rehearsed it a long time� and yet it didn't feel as if they had rehearsed it; it felt more as if they were all just one person, humming to himself whatever he felt at the moment. Jubal, you've seen how the Fosterites get themselves worked up-"
A Stranger in a Strange Land Page 50
