A Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert A. Heinlein

  "Allie! Never mind that. Do you know the answers?"

  "Naturally."

  "Oh, thank goodness! I thought perhaps you were trying to tell me that it was too much for you."

  Madame Vesant showed and sincerely felt injured dignity. "My dear, the Science never alters; only the configurations alter. The means that predicted the exact instant and place of the birth of Christ, that told Julius Caesar the moment and method of his death... how could it fail now? Truth is Truth, unchanging."

  "Yes, of course."

  "Are you ready for the readings?"

  "Let me switch on 'recording' - go ahead."

  "Very well. Agnes, this is a most critical period in your life; only twice before have the heavens gathered in such strong configuration. Above all, you must be calm, not hasty, and think things through. On the whole the portents are in your favor... provided you do not fight them and avoid ill-considered action. Do not let your mind be distressed by surface appearances-" She went on at length, giving good advice. Becky Vesey always gave good advice and she gave it with great conviction because she always believed it. She had learned from Simon that, even when the stars seemed darkest, there was always some way to soften the blow, some aspect which the client could use toward greater happiness... if she would only find it and point it out.

  The tense face opposite her in the screen calmed and began nodding agreement as she made her points. "So you see," she concluded, "the mere temporary absence of young Smith at this time is not a bad thing, but a necessity, resulting from the joint influences of your three horoscopes. Do not worry and do not be afraid; he will be back - or you will hear from him - very shortly. The important thing is to take no drastic or irrevocable action until that time. Be calm."

  "Yes, I see that."

  "Just one more point. The aspect of Venus is most favorable and potentially dominant over that of Mars. In this case, Venus symbolizes yourself, of course, but Mars is both your husband and young Smith - as a result of the unique circumstance of his birth. This throws a double burden on you and you must rise to the challenge; you must demonstrate those qualities of calm wisdom and restraint which are peculiarly those of woman. You must sustain your husband, guide him through this crisis, and soothe him. You must supply the earth-mother's calm wells of wisdom. That is your special genius... and now is the time you must use it."

  Mrs. Douglas sighed. "Allie, you are simply wonderful! I don't know how to thank you."

  "Don't thank me. Thank the Ancient Masters whose humble student I am."

  "I can't thank them so I'll thank you. This isn't covered by your retainer, Allie. There will be a present."

  "Not necessary at all, Agnes. It is my privilege to serve."

  "And it is my privilege to appreciate service. No, Allie, not another word!" Madame Vesant let herself be coaxed, then switched off, feeling warmly content from having given a reading that she just knew was right. Poor Agnes! Such a good woman inside... and so twisted up with conflicting desires. It was a privilege to smooth her path a little, make her heavy burdens a little easier to carry. It made her feel good to help Agnes.

  It made Madame Vesant feel good to be treated as an almost-equal by the wife of the Secretary General, too, although she did not think of it that way, not being snobbish at heart. But young Becky Vesey had been so insignificant that the precinct committeeman could never remember her name even though he noticed her bust measurement. Becky Vesey had not resented it; Becky liked people. She liked Agnes Douglas now.

  Becky Vesey liked everybody.

  She sat a while longer, enjoying the warm glow and the respite from pressure and just a nip more of the tonic, while her shrewd and able brain shuffled the bits and pieces she had picked up. Presently, without consciously making a decision, she called her stockbroker and instructed him to sell Lunar Enterprises short.

  He snorted. "Allie, you're crazy. That reducing diet is weakening your mind."

  "You listen to me, Ed. When it is down ten points, cover me, even if it is still slipping. Wait for it to turn. When it rallies three points, buy into it again... then sell when it gets back to today's closing."

  There was a long silence while he looked at her. "Allie, you know something. Tell Uncle Ed."

  "The stars tell me, Ed."

  Ed made a suggestion astronomically impossible and added, "All right, if you won't, you won't. Mmm... I never did have sense enough to stay out of a crooked game, Mind if I ride along with you on it, Allie?"

  "Not at all, Ed, as long as you don't go heavy enough to let it show. This is a delicate special situation, with Saturn just balanced between Virgo and Leo."

  "As you say, Allie."

  Mrs. Douglas got busy at once, happy that Allie had confirmed all her judgments. She gave orders about the campaign to destroy the reputation of the missing Berquist, after sending for his dossier and looking it over; she closeted herself with Commandant Twitchell of the Special Service squads for twenty minutes - he left her looking thoughtfully unhappy and immediately made life unbearable for his executive officer. She instructed Sanforth to release another of the "Man from Mars" stereocasts and to include with it a rumor "from a source close to the administration" that Smith was about to be transferred, or possibly had already been transferred, to a sanitarium high in the Andes, in order to provide him with a climate for convalescence as much like that of Mars as possible. Then she sat back and thought about how to nail down the Pakistan votes for Joseph.

  Presently she got hold of him and urged him to support Pakistan's claim to the lion's share of the Kashmir thorium. Since he had been wanting to do so all along but had not, up to now, convinced her of the necessity, he was not hard to persuade, although a little nettled by her assumption that he had been opposing it. With that settled, she left to address the Daughters of the Second Revolution on Motherhood in the New World.

  * * *

  X

  WHILE MRS. DOUGLAS WAS SPEAKING too freely on a subject she knew too little about, Jubal E. Harshaw, LL.B., M.D., Sc.D., bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, popular author extraordinaire, and neo-pessimist philosopher, was sitting by his swimming pool at his home in the Poconos, scratching the thick grey thatch on his chest, and watching his three secretaries splash in the pool. They were all three amazingly beautiful; they were also amazingly good secretaries. In Harshaw's opinion the principle of least action required that utility and beauty be combined.

  Anne was blonde, Miriam was red-headed, and Dorcas was dark; in each case the coloration was authentic. They ranged, respectively, from pleasantly plump to deliciously slender. Their ages spread over fifteen years but it was hard to tell off-hand which was the eldest. They undoubtedly had last names but Harshaw's household did not bother much with last names. One of them was rumored to be Harshaw's own granddaughter but opinions varied as to which one it was.

  Harshaw was working as hard as he ever worked. Most of his mind was occupied with watching pretty girls do pretty things with sun and water - one small, shuttered, sound-proofed compartment was composing. He claimed that his method of literary composition was to hook his gonads in parallel with his thalamus and disconnect his cerebrum entirely; his habits lent some credibility to the theory.

  A microphone on a table at his right hand was hooked to a voicewriter in his study but he used the voicewriter only for notes. When he was ready to write he used a human stenographer and watched her reactions. He was ready now. "Front!" he shouted.

  "Anne is 'front,' "answered Dorcas. "But I'll take it. That splash was Anne."

  "Dive in and get her. I can wait." The little brunette cut the water; a few moments later Anne climbed out, put on a towel robe, dried her hands on it, and sat down on the other side of the table. She said nothing, nor did she make any preparations; Anne had total recall, never bothered with recording devices.

  Harshaw picked up a bucket of ice cubes over which brandy had been poured, took a deep swig. "Anne, I've got a really sick-making one. It's about a little kitten that
wanders into a church on Christmas Eve to get warm. Besides being starved and frozen and lost, the kitten has - God knows why - an injured paw. All right; start: 'Snow had been falling since-'

  "What pen name?"

  "Mmm... better use 'Molly Wadsworth' again. This one is pretty icky. And title it The Other Manger. Start again." He went on talking while watching her closely. When tears started to leak out of her closed eyes he smiled slightly and closed his own eyes. By the time he finished, tears were running down his cheeks as well as hers, both bathed in a catharsis of schmaltz.

  "Thirty," he announced. "You can blow your nose. Send it off and for God's sake don't let me see it or I'll tear it up."

  "Jubal, aren't you ever ashamed?"

  "No."

  "Someday I'm going to kick you right in your fat stomach for one of these."

  "I know. But I can't pimp for my sisters; they'd be too old and I never had any. Get your fanny indoors and take care of it before I change my mind."

  "Yes, boss."

  She kissed his bald spot as she passed behind his chair. Harshaw yelled, "Front!" again and Miriam started toward him. But a loudspeaker mounted on the house behind him came to life:

  "Boss!"

  Harshaw uttered one word and Miriam clucked at him reprovingly. He added, "Yes, Larry?"

  The speaker answered, "There's a dame down here at the gate who wants to see you - and she's got a corpse with her."

  Harshaw considered this for a moment. "Is she pretty?" he said to the microphone.

  "Uh... yes."

  "Then why are you sucking your thumb? Let her in." Harshaw sat back. "Start," he said. "City montage dissolving into a medium two-shot, interior. A cop is seated in a straight chair, no cap, collar open, face covered with sweat. We see only the back of the other figure, which is depthed between us and the cop. The figure raises a hand, bringing it back and almost out of the tank. He slaps the cop with a heavy, meaty sound, dubbed." Harshaw glanced up and said, "We'll pick up from there." A ground car was rolling up the hill toward the house.

  Jill was driving the car; a young man was seated beside her. As the car stopped near Harshaw the man jumped out at once, as if happy to divorce himself from car and contents. "There she is, Jubal."

  "So I see. Good morning, little girl. Larry, where is this corpse?"

  "In the back seat, Boss. Under a blanket."

  "But it's not a corpse," Jill protested. "It's... Ben said that you... I mean-" She put her head down on the controls and started to cry.

  "There, my dear," Harshaw said gently. "Very few corpses are worth it. Dorcas - Miriam - take care of her. Give her a drink... and wash her face."

  He turned his attention to the back seat, started to lift the blanket. Jill shrugged off Miriam's proffered arm and said shrilly, "You've got to listen! He's not dead. At least I hope not. He's... oh dear!" She started to cry again. "I'm so dirty... and so scared!"

  "Seems to be a corpse," Harshaw said meditatively. "Body temperature is down to air temperature, I should judge. The rigor is not typical. How long has he been dead?"

  "But he's not dead! Can't we get him out of there? I had an awful time getting him in."

  "Surely. Larry, give me a hand. And quit looking so green, Larry. If you puke, you'll clean it up." Between them they got Valentine Michael Smith out of the back seat and laid him on the grass by the pool; his body remained stiff, still huddled together. Without being told Dorcas had gone in and fetched Dr. Harshaw's stethoscope; she set it on the ground by Smith, switched it on and stepped up the gain.

  Harshaw stuck the headpiece in his ears, started sounding for heart beat. "I'm afraid you're mistaken," he said gently to Jill. "This one is beyond my help. Who was he?"

  Jill sighed. Her face was drained of expression and she answered in a fiat voice, "He was the Man from Mars. I tried so hard."

  "I'm sure you did - the Man from Mars?"

  "Yes. Ben... Ben Caxton said you were the one to come to."

  "Ben Caxton, eh? I appreciate the confid - hush!" Harshaw emphasized the demand for silence with a hand upheld while he continued to frown and listen. He looked puzzled, then surprise burst over his face. "Heart action! I'll be a babbling baboon. Dorcas - upstairs, the clinic - third drawer down in the locked part of the cooler; the code is 'sweet dreams.' Bring the whole drawer and pick up a 1cc. hypo from the sterilizer."

  "Right away!"

  "Doctor, no stimulants!"

  Harshaw turned to Jill. "Eh?"

  "I'm sorry, sir. I'm just a nurse... but this case is different. I know."

  "Mmm... he's my patient now, nurse. But about forty years ago I found out I wasn't God, and about ten years thereafter I discovered I wasn't even Aesculapius. What do you want to try?"

  "I just want to try to wake him up. If you do anything to him, he just goes deeper into it."

  "Hmm... go ahead. Just as long as you don't use an ax. Then we'll try my methods."

  "Yes, sir." Jill knelt beside him, Started gently trying to straighten out his limbs. Harshaw's eyebrows went up when he saw that she had succeeded. Jill took Smith's head in her lap and cradled it gently in her hands. "Please wake up," she said softly. "This is Jill... your water brother."

  The body stirred. Very slowly the chest lifted. Then Smith let out a long bubbling sigh and his eyes opened. He looked up at Jill and smiled his baby smile. Jill smiled back. Then he looked around and the smile left him.

  "It's all right," Jill said quickly. "These are all friends."

  "All friends?"

  "That's right. All of them are your friends. Don't worry - and don't go away again. Everything is all right."

  He did not answer but lay still with his eyes open, staring at everything and everyone around him. He seemed as content as a cat in a lap.

  Twenty-five minutes later Harshaw had both of his patients in bed. Jill had managed to tell him, before the pill he gave her took hold, enough of the situation to let him know that he had a bear by the tail. Ben Caxton was missing - he'd have to try to figure out something to do about that - and young Smith was as hot as a dry bearing... although he had been able to guess that when he heard who he was. Oh, well, life might be amusing for a while; it would keep back that grey boredom that lay always just around the corner.

  He looked at the little utility car that Jill had arrived in. Lettered across its sides was: READING RENTALS - Permapowered Ground Equipment of All Sorts-"Deal with the Dutchman!"

  "Larry, is the fence hot?"

  "Switch it on. Then before it gets dark I want you to polish every possible fingerprint off that heap. As soon as it is dark, drive it over the other side of Reading - better go almost to Lancaster - and leave it in a ditch. Then go to Philadelphia, catch the shuttle for Scranton, come home from Scranton."

  "Sure thing, Jubal. Say - is he really the Man from Mars?"

  "You had better hope that he isn't, because if he is and they catch you before you dump that wagon and they associate you with him, they'll probably interrogate you with a blow torch. But I think he is."

  "I scan it. Should I rob a few banks on the way back?"

  "Probably the safest thing you can do."

  "Okay, Boss." Larry hesitated. "Do you mind if I stay over night in Philly?"

  "What in God's name can a man find to do at night in Philadelphia?"

  "Plenty, if you know where to look."

  "Suit yourself." Harshaw turned away. "Front!"

  Jill slept until shortly before dinner, which in that household was a comfortable eight o'clock. She awoke refreshed and feeling alert, so much so that she sniffed the air incoming from the grille over her head and surmised correctly that the doctor had offset the hypnotic she had been given with a stimulant. While she was asleep someone had removed the dirty and torn street clothes she had been wearing and had left a simple, off-white dinner dress and sandals. The clothes fit her fairly well; Jill concluded that they must belong to the one the doctor had called Miriam. She bathed and painted her face and c
ombed her hair and went down to the big living room feeling like a new woman.

  Dorcas was curled in a big chair, doing needle point; she looked up, nodded in a friendly manner as if Jill were always part of the household, turned her attention back to her fancy work. Harshaw was standing and stirring gently a mixture in a tall and frosty pitcher. "Drink?" he said.

  'Uh, yes, thank you."

  He poured two large cocktail glasses to their brims, handed her one. "What is it?" she asked.

  "My own recipe, a comet cocktail. One third vodka, one third muriatic acid, one third battery water - two pinches of salt and add a pickled beetle."

  "Better have a highball," Dorcas advised. Jill noticed that the other girl had a tall glass at her elbow.

  "Mind your own business," Harshaw advised without rancor. "The hydrochloric acid is good for the digestion; the beetle adds vitamins and protein." He raised his glass to Jill and said solemnly, "Here's to our noble selves! There are damned few of us left." He almost emptied his glass, replenished it before he set it down.

  Jill took a cautious sip, then a much bigger one. Whatever the true ingredients, the drink seemed to be exactly what she needed; a warm feeling of well-being spread gently from her center of gravity toward her extremities. She drank about half of it, let Harshaw add a dividend. "Look in on our patient?" he asked.

  "No, sir. I didn't know where he was."

  "I checked him a few minutes ago. Sleeping like a baby - I think I'll rename him Lazarus. Do you think he would like to come down to dinner?"

  Jill looked thoughtful. "Doctor, I really don't know."

  "Well, if he wakes I'll know it. Then he can join us, or have a tray, as he wishes. This is Freedom Hall, my dear. Everyone does absolutely as he pleases... then if he does something I don't like, I just kick him the hell out. Which reminds me: I don't like to be called 'Doctor.'"