Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert A. Heinlein

  The telephone Jubal routed through an answering service to which was given a short list from whom Harshaw would accept calls—and kept the house instrument on “refuse & record” most of the time.

  But mail always comes through.

  Harshaw told Jill that Mike had to grow up; he could start by handling his mail. She could help him. “But don’t bother me; I have enough screwball mail.”

  Jubal could not make it stick; there was too much and Jill did not know how.

  Just sorting was a headache. Jubal called the local postmaster (which got no results), then called Bradley, which caused a “suggestion” to trickle down; thereafter Mike’s mail arrived sacked as first, second, third, and fourth class, with mail for everyone else in another sack. Second and third class was used to insulate a root cellar. Once the cellar was over-insulated, Jubal told Duke to use such mail to check erosion in gullies.

  Fourth class mail was a problem. One package exploded in the village post office, blowing down several years of “Wanted” announcements and one “Use Next Window” sign—by luck the postmaster was out for coffee and his assistant, an elderly lady with weak kidneys, was in the washroom. Jubal considered having parcels processed by bomb specialists.

  This turned out not to be necessary; Mike could spot a “wrongness” about a package without opening it. Thereafter fourth class mail was left at the gate; Mike pried through it from a distance, caused to disappear any harmful parcel; Larry trucked the remainder to the house.

  Mike loved opening packages although the plunder might not interest him. Anything nobody wanted wound up in a gully; this included gifts of food, as Jubal was not certain that Mike’s nose for “wrongness” extended to poisons—Mike had drunk a poisonous solution used for photography which Duke had left in the refrigerator; Mike said mildly that the “iced tea” had a flavor he was not sure he liked.

  Jubal told Jill that it was all right to keep anything provided nothing was (a) paid for, (b) acknowledged, nor (c) returned no matter how marked. Some items were gifts; more was unordered merchandise. Either way, Jubal assumed that unsolicited chattels represented efforts to use the Man from Mars and merited no thanks.

  An exception was livestock, which Jubal advised Jill to return—unless she guaranteed care and feeding, and keeping same from falling into the pool.

  First class mail was the biggest headache. After looking over a bushel or so, Jubal set up categories:a. Begging letters—erosion fill.

  b. Threatening letters—file unanswered. Later letters from same source—turn over to S.S.

  c. Business “opportunities”—forward to Douglas.

  d. Crackpot letters—pass around any dillies; the rest to a gully.

  e. Friendly letters—answer if accompanied by stamped self-addressed envelope, using form letters signed by Jill. (Jubal pointed out that letters signed by the Man from Mars were valuable, and an invitation to more useless mail.)

  f. Scatological letters—pass to Jubal (who had a bet with himself that none would show the faintest literary novelty) for disposition, i.e., gully.

  g. Proposals of marriage and propositions less formal—file.

  h. Letters from scientific and educational institutions—handle as under “E”. If answered, use form letter explaining that the Man from Mars was not available for anything; if Jill felt that a brush-off would not do, pass to Jubal.

  i. Letters from persons who knew Mike, such as the crew of the Champion, the President of the United States, and others—let Mike answer as he pleased; exercise in penmanship would be good and exercise in human relations even better (if he wanted advice, let him ask).

  This cut the answers to a few for Jill, seldom even one for Mike. Jill found that she could skim and classify in about one hour each day. The first four categories remained large; category “G” was very large following the stereocast from the Palace, then dwindled. Jubal cautioned Jill that, while Mike should answer letters only from acquaintances, mail addressed to him was his.

  The third morning after the system was installed Jill brought a letter, category “G”, to Jubal. The ladies and other females (plus misguided males) who supplied this category usually included pictures alleged to be of themselves; some left little to the imagination.

  This letter enclosed a picture which left nothing to the imagination, then stimulated fresh imaginings. Jill said, “Look at this, Boss! I ask you!”

  Jubal read the letter. “She knows what she wants. What does Mike think?”

  “He hasn’t seen it.”

  Jubal glanced at the picture. “A type which, in my youth, we called ‘stacked.’ Well, her sex is not in doubt, nor her agility. Why show it to me? I’ve seen better.”

  “What should I do! The letter is bad enough . . . but that disgusting picture—should I tear it up?”

  “What’s on the envelope?”

  “Just the address and return address.”

  “How does the address read?”

  “Huh? ‘Mr. Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from’—”

  “Oh! Then it’s not addressed to you.”

  “Why, no, of course—”

  “Let’s get something straight. You are neither Mike’s mother nor his chaperon. If Mike wants to read everything addressed to him, including junk mail, he is free to do so.”

  “He does read most of those ads. But you don’t want him to see filth! He’s innocent.”

  “So? How many men has he killed?”

  Jill looked unhappy.

  Jubal went on: “If you want to help him, you will concentrate on teaching him that killing is frowned on in this society. Otherwise he will be conspicuous when he goes out into the world.”

  “Uh, I don’t think he wants to ‘go out into the world.’ ”

  “I’m going to push him out of the nest as soon as he can fly. I shan’t make it possible for him to live out his life as an arrested infant. For one thing, I can’t . . . Mike will outlive me by many years. But you are correct; Mike is innocent. Nurse, have you seen that sterile laboratory at Notre Dame?”

  “I’ve read about it.”

  “Healthiest animals in the world—but they can’t leave the laboratory. Child, Mike has got to get acquainted with ‘filth’—and get immunized. Someday he’ll meet the gal who wrote this, or her spiritual sisters—he’ll meet her by the hundreds—shucks, with his notoriety and looks he could spend his life skipping from one bed to another. You can’t stop it, I can’t stop it; it’s up to Mike. Furthermore, I wouldn’t want to stop it, although it’s a silly way to spend one’s life—the same exercises over and over again, I mean. What do you think?”

  “I—” Jill blushed.

  “Maybe you don’t find them monotonous—none of my business, either way. But if you don’t want Mike’s feet kicked out from under him by the first five hundred women who get him alone, then don’t intercept his mail. Letters like that may put him on guard. Just pass it along in the stack, answer his questions—and try not to blush.”

  “Boss, you’re infuriating when you’re logical!”

  “A most uncouth way to argue.”

  “I’m going to tear up that picture after Mike has seen it!”

  “Oh, don’t do that!”

  “What? Do you want it?”

  “Heaven forbid! But Duke collects such pictures. If Mike doesn’t want it, give it to Duke.”

  “Duke collects such trash? He seems such a nice person.”

  “He is.”

  “But—I don’t understand.”

  Jubal sighed. “I could explain it all day and you still wouldn’t. My dear, there are aspects of sex on which it is impossible to communicate between the two sexes of our race. They are sometimes grokked by intuition across the gulf that separates us, by exceptionally gifted individuals. But words are useless. Just believe me: Duke is a perfect knight—and he will like that picture.”

  “I won’t hand it to Duke myself—he might get ideas.”

  “Sissy. Anything startling in
the mail?”

  “No. The usual crop who want Mike to endorse things, or peddle ‘Official Man-from-Mars’ junk—one character asked for a five-year royalty-free monopoly—and wants Mike to finance it, too.”

  “I admire a whole-hearted thief. Tell him that Mike needs tax losses—so how much guarantee would he like?”

  “Are you serious, Boss?”

  “No, the gonif would show up, with his family. But you’ve given me an idea for a story. Front!”

  Mike was interested in the “disgusting” picture. He grokked (theoretically) what the letter and picture symbolized, and studied the picture with the delight with which he studied each butterfly. He found butterflies and women tremendously interesting—all the grokking world was enchanting and he wanted to drink so deep that his own grokking would be perfect.

  He understood the mechanical and biological processes being offered in these letters but wondered why strangers wanted his help in quickening eggs? Mike knew (without grokking) that these people made ritual of this necessity, a “growing-closer” somewhat like water ceremony. He was eager to grok it.

  But he was not in a hurry, “hurry” he failed to grok. He was sensitive to correct timing—but with Martian approach: timing was accomplished by waiting. He noticed that his human brothers lacked his discrimination of time and often were forced to wait faster than a Martian would—but he did not hold their awkwardness against them; he learned to wait faster to cover their lack—he sometimes waited faster so efficiently that a human would have concluded that he was hurrying at breakneck speed.

  He accepted Jill’s edict that he was not to reply to these brotherly offers from female humans, but accepted it as a waiting—possibly a century hence would be better; in any case now was not the time since his brother Jill spoke rightly.

  Mike agreed when Jill suggested that he give this picture to Duke. He would have anyhow; Mike had seen Duke’s collection, looked through it with interest, trying to grok why Duke said, “That one ain’t much in the face, but look at those legs—brother!” It made Mike feel good to be called “brother” by one of his own but legs were legs, save that his people had three each while humans had only two—without being crippled, he reminded himself.

  As for faces, Jubal had the most beautiful face Mike had ever seen, distinctly his own. These human females in Duke’s picture collection could hardly be said to have faces. All young human females had the same face—how could it be otherwise?

  He had never had trouble recognizing Jill’s face; she was the first woman he had ever seen and 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 faces, it had not been so at first. Mike had distinguished by size and coloration—and by voice, since voices were never alike. When, as sometimes did happen, all three females were quiet at once, it was well that Anne was so much bigger, Dorcas so small, and that Miriam, bigger than Dorcas but smaller than Anne, nevertheless need not be mistaken for another if Anne or Dorcas was absent, because Miriam had hair called “red” even though it was not the color called “red” when speaking of anything but hair.

  Mike knew that every English word held more than one meaning. It was a fact one got used to, just as the sameness of girl faces one could get used to . . . and, after waiting, they were no longer the same. Mike now could call up Anne’s face and count the pores in her nose as readily as Jill’s. In essence, even an egg was uniquely self, different from all other eggs any where and when. So each girl had potentially her own face, no matter how small the difference.

  Mike gave the picture to Duke and was warmed by Duke’s pleasure. Mike was not depriving himself; he could see it in his mind whenever he wished—even the face, as it had glowed with an unusual expression of beautiful pain.

  He accepted Duke’s thanks and went happily back to his mail.

  Mike did not share Jubal’s annoyance at the postal avalanche; he reveled in it, insurance ads and marriage proposals. His trip to the Palace had opened his eyes to enormous variety in this world and he resolved to grok it all. It would take centuries and he must grow and grow and grow, but he was in no hurry—he grokked that eternity and the ever-beautifully-changing now were identical.

  He decided not to reread the Encyclopedia Britannica; mail gave him brighter glimpses of the world. He read it, grokked what he could, remembered the rest for contemplation while the household slept. He was beginning, he thought, to grok “business,” “buying,” “selling,” and related unMartian activities—the Encyclopedia had left him unfilled, as (he now grokked) each article had assumed that he knew things that he did not.

  There arrived in the mail, from Mr. Secretary General Joseph Edgerton Douglas, a checkbook and papers; his brother Jubal took pains to explain what money was and how it was used. Mike failed to understand, even though Jubal showed him how to make out a check, gave him “money” in exchange for it, taught him to count it.

  Then suddenly, with grokking so blinding that he trembled, he understood money. These pretty pictures and bright medallions were not “money”; they were symbols for an idea which spread through these people, all through their world. But things were not money, any more than water shared was growing-closer. 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 symbols was beautiful in small, reminding him of games taught nestlings to encourage them to reason and grow, but it was the totality that dazzled him, an entire world reflected in one dynamic symbol structure. Mike then grokked that the Old Ones of this race were very old indeed to have composed such beauty; he wished humbly to be allowed to meet one.

  Jubal encouraged him to spend money and Mike did so, with the timid eagerness of a bride being brought to bed. Jubal suggested that he “buy presents for friends” and Jill helped, starting by placing limits: one per friend and a total cost not even a reciprocal filled-three of the sum in his account—Mike had intended to spend all.

  He learned how difficult it was to spend money. There were so many things, all wonderful and incomprehensible. Surrounded by catalogs from Marshall Field’s and the Ginza, Bombay and Copenhagen, he felt smothered in riches. Even the Sears & Montgomery catalog was too much.

  Jill helped. “No. Duke would not want a tractor.”

  “Duke likes tractors.”

  “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 all day long. But even that is too expensive. Mike dear, a present ought not to be expensive—unless you are trying to get a girl to marry you—or something. A present should show that you considered that person’s tastes. Something he would enjoy but probably would not buy.”

  “How?”

  “That’s the problem. Wait, I just remembered something in this morning’s mail.” 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 cannot be mailed. Orders cannot be accepted from addresses in the following states—’ Um, Pennsylvania is on the list—but we’ll find a way—for if I know Duke’s tastes, this is what he likes.”

  It was delivered via S.S. patrol car—and the next ad boasted: “—as supplied to the Man from Mars, by special appointment,” which pleased Mike and annoyed Jill.

  Picking a present for Jubal stumped Jill. What does one buy for a man who has everything he wants that money can buy? 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 forsworn pets, because he outlived them, or (worse yet) it was now possible that a pet would outlive him, be orphaned.

  They consulted others
. “Shucks,” Duke told them, “didn’t you know? The boss likes statues.”

  “Really?” Jill answered. “I don’t see any sculpture around.”

  “The stuff he likes mostly isn’t for sale. He says the crud they make nowdays looks like disaster in a junk yard and any idiot with a blow torch and astigmatism calls himself a sculptor.”

  Anne nodded. “Duke is right. You can tell by looking at books in Jubal’s study.”

  Anne picked out three books as bearing evidence (to her eyes) of having been looked at most often. “Hmm . . .” she said. “The Boss likes anything by Rodin. Mike, if you could buy one of these, which would you pick? Here’s a pretty one—‘Eternal Springtime.’ ”

  Mike glanced at it and turned pages. “This one.”

  “What?” Jill shuddered. “Mike, that’s 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.”

  Ordinarily such a rebuke, especially from Jill, would shut Mike up, force him to spend the night in trying to grok his fault. But in his he was sure of himself. The portrayed figure felt like a breath of home. Although it pictured a human woman it gave him a feeling that a Martian Old One should be near, responsible for its creation. “It is beauty,” he insisted. “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 the book falls open in three places; this page has been handled more than the other two. This other one—‘The Caryatid Fallen under Her Stone’—Jubal looks at almost as often. But Mike’s choice is Jubal’s pet.”

  “I buy it,” Mike said decisively.

  Anne telephoned the Rodin Museum in Paris and only Gallic gallantry kept them from laughing. Sell one of the Master’s works? My dear lady, they are not only not for sale but may not be reproduced. Non, non, non! Quelle Idée!