A Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert A. Heinlein

  His hand was suddenly empty. No shock, no jar, no twisting - the gun was gone and that was all.

  Jubal found that he was shaking, so he stopped it. "Perfect," he said to Mike. "You got it before I had it aimed at you. That's utterly perfect."

  "I am happy."

  "So am I. Duke, did that get in the camera?"

  "Yup. I put in fresh film cartridges. You didn't say."

  "Good." Harshaw sighed and found that he was very tired. "That's all today, kids. Run along. Go swimming. You, too, Anne."

  Anne said, "Boss? You'll tell me what the films show?"

  "Want to stay and see them?"

  "Oh, no! I couldn't, not the parts I Witnessed. But I would like to know - later - whether or not they show that I've slipped my clutches."

  "All right."

  * * *

  XIII

  WHEN THEY HAD GONE, Harshaw started to give instructions to Duke - then instead said grumpily, "What are you looking sour about?"

  "Boss, when are we going to get rid of that ghoul?"

  "'Ghoul'? Why, you provincial lout!"

  "Okay, so I come from Kansas. You won't find any cases of cannibalism in Kansas - they were all farther west. I've got my own opinions about who is a lout and who isn't... but I'm eating in the kitchen until we get rid of him."

  Harshaw said icily, "So? Don't put yourself out. Anne can have your closing check ready in five minutes... and it ought not to take you more than ten minutes to pack up your comic books and your other shirt."

  Duke had been setting up a projector. He stopped and straightened up. "Oh, I didn't mean that I was quitting."

  "It means exactly that to me, son."

  "But - I mean, what the hell? I've eaten in the kitchen lots of times."

  "So you have. For your own convenience, or to keep from making extra work for the girls. Or some such. You can have breakfast in bed, for all of me, if you can bribe the girls to serve it to you. But nobody who sleeps under my roof refuses to eat at my table because he doesn't want to eat with others who eat there. I happen to be of an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman - which means I can be a real revolving son of bitch when it suits me. And it suits me right now... which is to say that no ignorant, superstitious, prejudiced bumpkin is permitted to tell me who is, or is not, fit to eat at my table. If I choose to dine with publicans and sinners, that is my business. But I do not choose to break bread with Pharisees."

  Duke turned red and said slowly, "I ought to pop you one - and I would, if you were my age."

  "Don't let that stop you, Duke. I may be tougher than you think and if I'm not, the commotion will probably bring the others in. Do you think you can handle the Man from Mars?"

  "Him? I could break him in two with one hand!" "Probably... if you could lay a hand on him." "Huh?"

  "You saw me try to point a pistol at him. Duke - where's that pistol? Before you go flexing your biceps, stop and think - or whatever it is you do in place of thinking. Find that pistol. Then tell me whether or not you still think you can break Mike in two. But find the pistol first."

  Duke wrinkled his forehead, then went ahead setting up the projector. "Some sort of sleight-of-hand. The films will show it."

  Harshaw said, "Duke. Stop fiddling with that projector. Sit down. I'll take care of it after you've left and run off the films myself. But I want to talk to you a few moments first."

  "Huh? Jubal, I don't want you touching this projector. Every time you do, you get it out of whack. It's a delicate piece of machinery."

  "Sit down, I said."

  "But-"

  "It's my projector, Duke. I'll bust the damned thing if it suits me. Or: I'll get Larry to run it for me. But I do not accept service from a man alter he has resigned from my employ."

  "Hell, I didn't resign! You got nasty and sounded off and fired me - for no reason."

  "Sit down, Duke," Harshaw said quietly. "Either sit down... and let me try to save your life - or get off this place as fast as you can and let me send your clothes and wages after you. Don't stop to pack; it's too risky. You might not live that long."

  "What the hell do you mean?"

  "Exactly what I say. Duke, it's irrelevant whether you resigned or were fired; you terminated your employment here when you announced that you would no longer eat at my table. Nevertheless I would find it distasteful for you to be killed on my premises. So sit down and I will do my best to avoid it."

  Duke looked startled, opened his mouth - closed it and sat down. Harshaw went on, "Are you Mike's water brother?"

  "Huh? Of course not. Oh, I've heard such chatter - but it's nonsense, if you ask me."

  "It is not nonsense and nobody asked you; you aren't competent to have an opinion about it." Harshaw frowned. "That's too bad. I can see that I am not only going to have to let you go - and, Duke, I don't want to fire you; you do a good job of keeping the gadgetry around here working properly and thereby save me from being annoyed by mechanical buffoonery I am totally uninterested in. But I must not only get you safely off the place but I must also find out at once who else around here is not a water brother to Mike... and either see to it that they become such - or get them off the place before anything happens to them." Jubal chewed his lip and stared at the ceiling. "Maybe it would be sufficient to exact a solemn promise from Mike not to hurt anyone without my specific permission. Mmmm... no, I can't risk it. Too much horse play around here - and there is always the chance that Mike might misinterpret something that was meant in fun. Say if you - or Larry, rather, since you won't be here - picked up Jill and tossed her into the pool, Larry might wind up where that pistol went, before I could explain to Mike that it was all in fun and Jill was not in danger. I wouldn't want Larry to die through my oversight. Larry is entitled to work out his own damn foolishness without having it cut short through my carelessness. Duke, I believe in everyone's working out his own damnation his own way... but nevertheless that is no excuse for an adult to give a dynamite cap to a baby as a toy."

  Duke said slowly, "Boss, you sound like you've come unzipped. Mike wouldn't hurt anybody - shucks, this cannibalism talk makes me want to throw up but don't get me wrong; I know he's just a savage, he doesn't know any better. Hell, Boss, he's gentle as a lamb. He would never hurt anybody."

  "You think so?"

  "I'm sure of it."

  "So. You've got two or three guns in your room. I say he's dangerous. It's open season on Martians, so pick a gun you trust, go down to the swimming pool, and kill him. Don't worry about the law; I'll be your attorney and I guarantee that you'll never be indicted. Go ahead, do it!"

  "Jubal... you don't mean that."

  "No. No, I don't really mean it. Because you can't. If you tried it, your gun would go where my pistol went - and if you hurried him you'd probably go with it. Duke, you don't know what you are fiddling with - and I don't either except that I know it's dangerous and you don't. Mike is not 'gentle as a lamb' and he is not a savage. I suspect we are the savages. Ever raise snakes?"

  "Uh... no."

  "I did, when I was a kid. Thought I was going to be a zoologist then. One winter, down in Florida, I caught what I thought was a scarlet snake. Know what they look like?"

  "I don't like snakes."

  "Prejudice again, rank prejudice. Most snakes are harmless, useful, and fun to raise. The scarlet snake is a beauty - red, and black and yellow - docile and makes a fine pet. I think this little fellow was fond of me, in its dim reptilian fashion. Of course I knew how to handle snakes, how not to alarm them and not give them a chance to bite, because the bite of even a non-poisonous snake is a nuisance. But I was fond of this baby; he was the prize of my collection. I used to take him out and show him to people, holding him back of his head and letting him wrap himself around my wrist.

  "One day I got a chance to show my collection to the herpetologist of the Tampa zoo - and I showed him my prize first. He almost had hysterics. My pet was not a scarlet snake - it was a young coral snake. The Americ
an cobra... the most deadly snake in North America. Duke, do you see my point?"

  "I see that raising snakes is dangerous. I could have told you."

  "Oh, for Pete's sake! I already had rattlesnakes and water moccasins in my collection. A poisonous snake is not dangerous, not any more than a loaded gun is dangerous - in each case, if you handle it properly. The thing that made that coral snake dangerous was that I hadn't known what it was, what it could do. If, in my ignorance, I had handled it carelessly, it would have killed me as casually and as innocently as a kitten scratches. And that's what I'm trying to tell you about Mike. He seems as gentle as a lamb - and I'm convinced that he really is gentle and unreservedly friendly with anyone he trusts. But if he doesn't trust you - well, he's not what he seems to be. He seems like an ordinary young male human, rather underdeveloped, decidedly clumsy, and abysmally ignorant ... but bright and very docile and eager to learn. All of which is true and not surprising, in view of his ancestry and his strange background. But, like my pet snake, Mike is more than he appears to be. If Mike does not trust you, blindly and all out, he can be instantly aggressive and much more deadly than that coral snake. Especially if he thinks you are harming one of his water brothers, such as Jill - or me."

  Harshaw shook his head sadly. "Duke, if you had given way to your natural impulse to take a poke at me, a few minutes ago when I told you some homely truths about yourself, and if Mike had been standing in that doorway behind you... well, I'm convinced that you would have stood no chance at all. None. You would have been dead before you knew it, much too quickly for me to stop him. Mike would then have been sorrowfully apologetic over having 'wasted food' - namely your big, beefy carcass. Oh, he would feel guilty about that; you heard him a while ago. But he wouldn't feel guilty about killing you; that would just be a necessity you had forced on him... and not a matter of any great importance anyhow, even to you. You see, Mike believes that your soul is immortal."

  "Huh? Well, hell, so do I. But-"

  "Do you?" Jubal said bleakly. "I wonder."

  "Why, certainly I do! Oh, I admit I don't go to church much, but I was brought up right. I'm no infidel. I've got faith."

  "Good. Though I've never been able to understand 'faith' myself, nor to see how a just God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion out of an infinitude of false ones - by faith alone. It strikes me as a sloppy way to run an organization, whether a universe or a smaller one. However, since you do have faith and it includes belief in your own immortality, we need not trouble further over the probability that your prejudices will result in your early demise. Do you want to be cremated or buried?"

  "Huh? Oh, for cripe's sake, Jubal, quit trying to get my goat."

  "Not at all. I can't guarantee to get you off my place safely as long as you persist in thinking that a coral snake is a harmless scarlet snake - any blunder you make may be your last. But I promise you I won't let Mike eat you."

  Duke's mouth dropped open. At last he managed to answer, explosively, profanely, and quite incoherently. Harshaw listened, then said testily, "All right, all right, but pipe down. You can make any arrangements with Mike you like. I thought I was doing you a favor." Harshaw turned and bent over the projector. "I want to see these pictures. Stick around, if you want to, until I'm through. Prob'ly safer. Damn!" he added. "The pesky thing savaged me."

  "You tried to force it. Here-" Duke completed the adjustment Harshaw had muffed, then went ahead and inserted the first film cartridge. Neither of them re-opened the question of whether Duke was, or was not, still working for Jubal. The cameras were Mitchell servos; the projector was a Yashinon tabletop tank, with an adapter to permit it to receive Land Solid-Sight-Sound 4 mm. film. Shortly they were listening to and watching the events leading up to the disappearance of the empty brandy case.

  Jubal watched the box being thrown at his head, saw it wink out in midair. "That's enough," he said. "Anne will be pleased to know that the cameras back her up. Duke, let's repeat that last bit in slow motion."

  "Okay." Duke spooled back, then announced, "This is ten-to-one."

  The scene was the same but the slowed-down sound was useless; Duke switched it off. The box floated slowly from Jill's hands toward Jubal's head, then quite suddenly ceased to be. But it did not simply wink out; under slow-motion projection it could be seen shrinking, smaller and smaller until it was no longer there.

  Jubal nodded thoughtfully. "Duke, can you slow it down still more?"

  "Just a sec. Something is fouled up with the stereo."

  "What?"

  "Darned if I can figure it out. It looked all right on the fast run. But when I slowed it down, the depth effect was reversed. You saw it. That box went away from us fast, mighty fast - but it always looked closer than the wall. Swapped parallax, of course. But I never took that cartridge off the spindle. Gremlins."

  "Oh. Hold it, Duke. Run the film from the other camera."

  "Unh... oh, I see, That'll give us a ninety-degree cross on it and we'll see properly even if I did jimmy this film somehow." Duke changed cartridges. "Zip through the first part, okay? Then undercranked ten-to-one on the part that counts."

  "Go ahead."

  The scene was the same save for angle. When the image of Jill grabbed the box, Duke slowed down the show and again they watched the box go away. Duke cursed. "Something was fouled up with the second camera too."

  "So?"

  "Of course. It was looking at it around from the side so the box should have gone out of the frame to one side or the other. Instead it went straight away from us again. Well, didn't it? You saw it. Straight away from us."

  "Yes," agreed Jubal. "'Straight away from us.'"

  "Out it can't - not from both angles."

  "What do you mean, it can't? It already did." Harshaw added, "If we I had used doppler-radar in place of each of those cameras, I wonder what they would have shown?"

  "How should I know? I'm going to take both these cameras apart."

  "Don't bother."

  "But-"

  "Don't waste your time, Duke; the cameras are all right. What is exactly ninety degrees from everything else?"

  "I'm no good at riddles."

  "It's not a riddle and I meant it seriously. I could refer you to Mr. A. Square from Flatland, but I'll answer it myself. What is exactly at right angles to everything else? Answer: two dead bodies, one old pistol, and an empty liquor case."

  "What the deuce do you mean, Boss?"

  "I never spoke more plainly in my life. Try believing what the cameras see instead of insisting that the cameras must be at fault because what they saw was not what you expected. Let's see the other films."

  Harshaw made no comment as they were shown; they added nothing to what he already knew but did confirm and substantiate. The ash tray when floating near the ceiling had been out of camera angle, but its leisurely descent and landing had been recorded. The pistol's image in the:' stereo tank was quite small but, so far as could be seen, the pistol had done just what the box appeared to have done: shrunk away into the far distance without moving. Since Harshaw had been gripping it tightly when it had shrunk out of his hand, he was satisfied - if "satisfied" was the right word, he added grumpily to himself. "Convinced" at least.

  "Duke, when you get time, I want duplicate prints of all of those."

  Duke hesitated. "You mean I'm still working here?"

  "What? Oh, damn it! You can't eat in the kitchen, and Duke, try to cut your local prejudices out of the circuit and just while. Try really hard."

  "I'll listen."

  "When Mike asked for the privilege of eating my stringy old carcass, he was doing me the greatest honor that he knew of - by the only rules he knows. What he had 'learned at his mother's knee,' so to speak. Do you savvy that? You heard his tone of voice, you saw his manner. He was paying me his highest compliment - and asking of me a boon. You see? Never mind what they think of such things in Kansas; Mike uses the values taught him on Mars."

  "I
think I'll take Kansas."

  "Well," admitted Jubal, "so do I. But it is not a matter of free choice for me, nor for you - nor for Mike. All three of us are prisoners of our early indoctrinations, for it is hard, very nearly impossible, to shake off one's earliest training. Duke, can you get it through your skull that if you had been born on Mars and brought up by Martians, you yourself would have exactly the same attitude toward eating and being eaten that Mike has?"

  Duke considered it, then shook his head. "I won't buy it, Jubal. Sure, about most things it's just Mike's hard luck that he wasn't brought up in civilization - and my good luck that I was. I'm willing to make allowances for him. But this is different, this is an instinct."

  "'Instinct,' dreck!"

  "But it is. I didn't get any 'training at my mother's knee' not to be a cannibal. Hell, I didn't need it; I've always known it was a sin - a nasty one. Why, the mere thought of it makes my stomach do a flip-flop. It's a basic instinct."

  Jubal groaned. "Duke, how could you learn so much about machinery and never learn anything about how you yourself tick? That nausea you feel - that's not an instinct; that's a conditioned reflex. Your mother didn't have to say to you, 'Mustn't eat your playmates, dear; that's not nice,' because you soaked it up from our whole culture - and so did I. Jokes about cannibals and missionaries, cartoons, fairy tales, horror stories, endless little things. But it has nothing to do with instinct. Shucks, son, it couldn't possibly be instinct... because cannibalism is historically one of the most widespread of human customs, extending through every branch of the human race. Your ancestors, my ancestors, everybody."

  "Your ancestors, maybe. Don't bring mine into it."

  "Um. Duke, didn't you tell me you had some Indian blood?"