A Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert A. Heinlein

  "What?"

  "Not to mention Larry and Duke. But, Jubal, almost everybody who knows you assumes that you are keeping the fanciest harem since the Sultan went out of business. Oh, don't misunderstand me - they envy you. But they think you're a lecherous old goat, too."

  Jubal drummed on the arm of his chair before replying. "Ben, I ordinarily do not mind being treated flippantly by my juniors. I encourage it, as you know. But in some matters I insist that my years be treated with respect. This is one of them."

  "Sorry," Ben said stiffly. "I thought if it was all right for you to kick my sex life around, you would not mind my being equally frank."

  "No, no, no, Ben! - you misunderstand me. Your inquiry was in order and your side comments no more than I had invited. I mean that I require the girls to treat me with respect - on this one subject."

  "Oh-"

  "I am, as you pointed out, old - quite old. Privately, to you alone, I am happy to say that I am still lecherous. But my lechery does not command me and I am not a goat. I prefer dignity and self-respect to indulging in pastimes which, believe me, I have already enjoyed in full measure and do not need to repeat. Ben, a man my age, who looks like a slum clearance in its most depressing stages, can attract a young girl enough to bed her - and possibly big her and thanks for the compliment; it just possibly might not be amiss - through three means only: money... or second, the equivalent of money in terms of wills and community property and the like and - pause for question: Can you imagine any of these three girls - these four, let me include Jill - bedding with a man, even a young and handsome one, for those reasons?"

  "No. Categorical no - not any of them."

  "Thank you, sir. I associate only with ladies; I see that you know it. The third incentive is a most female one. A sweet young girl can, and sometimes does, take an old wreck to bed because she is fond of him and sorry for him and wishes to make him happy. Would that reason apply here?"

  "Uh... yes, Jubal, I think it might. With all four of them."

  "I think it might, too. Although I'd hate like hell to have any of them sorry for me. But this third reason which any of these four ladies might find sufficient motivation is not sufficient motivation for me. I wouldn't put up with it. I have my dignity, sir - and I hope that I retain my reason long enough to extinguish myself if it ever appears about to slip. So please take my name off the list."

  Caxton grinned. "Okay - you stiff-necked old coot. I just hope that when I am your age I won't be so all-fired hard to tempt."

  Jubal smiled. "Believe me, it's better to be tempted and resist, than not to resist and be disappointed. Now about Duke and Larry: I don't know nor care. Whenever anyone has come here, to work and live as a member of the family, I have made it bluntly plain that this was neither a sweat shop nor a whore house, but a home... and, as such, it combined anarchy and tyranny without a trace of democracy, as in any well-run family, i.e., that they were utterly on their own except where I saw fit to give orders, which orders were not subject to vote or debate. My tyranny has never extended to their love life, if any. All the kids who live here have always chosen to keep their private matters reasonably private. At least-" Jubal smiled ruefully. "-until the Martian influence caused things to get a little out of hand... which includes you, too, my water brother. But Duke and Larry have been more restrained, in one sense or the other. Perhaps they have been dragging the gals behind every bush. If so, I haven't seen it - and there have been no screams."

  Ben thought of adding a little to Jubal's store of facts, decided against it. "Then you think it's Mike."

  Jubal scowled. "Yep, I think it's Mike. That part's all right - I told you the girls were smugly happy... and I'm not broke plus the fact that I could bleed Mike for any amount without telling the girls. Their babies won't lack. But, Ben, I'm troubled about Mike himself. Very."

  "So am I, Jubal."

  "And about Jill, too. I should have named Jill."

  "Uh... Jubal, Jill isn't the problem - other than for me, personally. And that's my hard luck, I hold no grudge. It's Mike."

  "Damn it, why can't the boy come home and quit this obscene pulpit pounding?"

  "Mmm... Jubal, that's not quite what he's doing." Ben added, "I've just come from there."

  "Huh? Why didn't you say so?"

  Ben sighed. "First you wanted to talk art, then you wanted to sing the blues, then you wanted to gossip. What chance have I had?"

  "Uh... conceded. You have the floor."

  "I was coming back from covering the Cape Town conference; I squeezed out a day and visited them. What I saw worried the hell out of me - so much so that I stopped just long enough in Washington to get a few columns ahead, then came straight here. Jubal, couldn't you rig it with Douglas to shut off the faucet and close down this operation?"

  Jubal shook his head. "In the first place, I wouldn't. What Mike does with his life is his business."

  "You would if you had seen what I saw."

  "Not I! But in the second place I can't. Nor can Douglas."

  "Jubal, you know quite well that Mike would accept any decision you made about his money. He probably wouldn't even understand it - and he certainly wouldn't question it."

  "Ah, but he would understand it! Ben, recently Mike made his will, drew it up himself - no attorney - and sent it to me to criticize. Ben, it was one of the shrewdest legal documents I've ever seen. He recognized that he had more wealth than his heirs could possibly need - so he used half his money to guard the other half... rigged it so that anyone who contests the will does so to his own great disadvantage. It is a very cynical document in that respect and is booby-trapped not only against possible heirsclaimants of his legal parents and his natural parents - he knows he's a bastard, though I don't know how he found out - but also the same with respect to every member of the Envoy's company... he provided a generous way to settle out of court with any possible unknown heir having a good prima-facie claim - and rigged it so that they would almost have to overthrow the government to go into court and break his will... and the will also showed that he knew exactly each stock, bond, security, and asset he owned. I couldn't find anything to criticize in it." (-including, Jubal thought, his provision for you, my brother!) "Then he went to the trouble of depositing holographic originals in several places... and Fair-Witness copies in half a dozen reliable brains. Don't tell me that I could rig his money without his understanding what I had done!"

  Ben looked morose. "I wish you could."

  "I don't. But that was just the starter. It wouldn't help if we could. Mike hasn't taken a dollar out of his drawing account for almost a year. I know, because Douglas called me to ask if I thought the major portion of the backlog should be reinvested? Mike hadn't bothered to answer his letters. I told him that was his headache... but that if I were steward, I would follow my principal's last instructions."

  "No withdrawals? Jubal, he's spending a lot."

  "Maybe the church racket pays well."

  "That's the odd part about it. The Church of All Worlds is not really church."

  "Then what is it?"

  "Uh, primarily it's a language school."

  "Repeat?"

  "To teach the Martian language."

  "Well, no harm in that. But I wish, then, that he wouldn't call it a church."

  "Well, I guess it is a church, within the legal definition."

  "Look, Ben, a roller skating rink is a church - as long as some sect claims that roller skating is essential to their faith and a part of their worship. You wouldn't even have to go that far - simply claim that roller skating served a desirable though not essential function parallel to that which religious music serves in most churches. If you can sing to the glory of God, you can skate to the same end. Believe me, this has all been threshed out. There are temples in Malaya which are nothing to an outsider but boarding houses for snakes... but the same High Court rules them to be 'churches' as protects our own sects."

  "Well, Mike raises snakes, too, as well as
teaching Martian. But, Jubal, isn't anything ruled out?"

  "Mmm... that's a moot point. There are minor restrictions, adjudicated. A church usually can't charge a fee for fortune telling or calling up spirits of the dead but it can accept offerings... and then let custom make the 'offerings' become fees in fact. Human sacrifice is illegal everywhere - but I'm by no means sure that it is not still done in several spots around the globe - and probably right here in this former land of the free and home of the brave. The way to do anything under the guise of religion that would otherwise be suppressed is to do it in the inner sanctum and keep the gentiles out. Why, Ben? Is Mike doing something that might get him jailed or hanged?"

  "Uh, I don't know. Probably not."

  "Well, if he's careful - the Fosterites have demonstrated how to get by with almost anything. Certainly much more than Joseph Smith was lynched for."

  "Matter of fact, Mike has lifted quite a lot from the Fosterites. That's part of what worries me."

  "But what does worry you? Specifically."

  "Uh, Jubal, this has got to be a 'water brother' matter."

  "Okay, I had assumed that. I'm prepared to face redhot pincers and the rack, if necessary. Shall I start carrying poison in a hollow tooth? Against the possibility of cracking?"

  "Uh, the members of the inner circle are supposed to be able to discorporate voluntarily any second - no poison needed."

  "I'm sorry, Ben. I never got that far. Never mind, I know other adequate ways to put up the only final defense against the third degree. Let's have it."

  "You can discorporate at will, they tell me - if you learn Martian first. Never mind. Jubal, I said Mike raises snakes. I meant that both figuratively and literally - the whole setup is a snake pit. Unhealthy.

  "But let me describe it. Mike's Temple is a big place, almost a labyrinth. A big auditorium for public meetings, some smaller ones for invitational meetings - many smaller rooms - and living quarters - quite a lot of living quarters. Jill sent me a radiogram telling me where to go, so I was dropped at the living quarters entrance on the street the Temple backs onto. The living quarters are above the main auditorium, about as private as you can be and still live in a city."

  Jubal nodded. "Makes sense. Be your acts legal or illegal, nosy neighbors are noxious."

  "In this case a very good idea. A pair of outer doors let me in; I suppose I was scanned first, although I didn't spot the scanner. Through two more sets of automatic doors any one of which would slow down a raiding squad - then up a bounce tube. Jubal, it wasn't an ordinary bounce tube. It wasn't controlled by the passenger, but by someone out of sight. More evidence that they wanted privacy and meant to have it - a raiding squad would need special climbing gear to get up that way. No stairs anywhere. Didn't feel like the ordinary bounce tube, either - frankly, I avoid them when I can; they make me queasy."

  "I have never used them and never shall," Jubal said firmly.

  "You wouldn't have minded this. I floated up gently as a feather."

  "Not me, Ben. I don't trust machinery. It bites." Jubal added, "However, I must concede that Mike's mother was one of the great engineers of all times and his father - his real father - was a number one pilot and a competent engineer, or better... and both of genius level. If Mike has improved bounce tubes until they are fit for humans, I ought not to be surprised."

  "As may be. I got to the top and was landed without having to grab for it, or depend on safety nets - I didn't see any, to tell the truth. Through more doors that unlocked for me and into an enormous living room. Enormous! Very oddly furnished and rather austere. Jubal, there are people who think you run an odd household here."

  "I can't imagine why. Just plain and comfortable."

  "Well, your ménage is Aunt Jane's Finishing School for Refined Young Ladies compared with the weirdie Mike runs. I'm just barely inside the joint when the first thing I see I don't believe. A babe, tattooed from her chin to her toes - and not a goddam stitch otherwise. Hell, not even the home-grown fig leaf - she was tattooed everywhere. Fantastic!"

  Jubal said quietly, "You're a big-city bumpkin, Ben. I knew a tattooed lady once. Very nice girl. Intense in some ways. But sweet."

  "Well," Ben conceded. "I was giving you a first impression. This gal is very nice, too, once you get adjusted to her pictorial supplement - and the fact that she usually has a snake with her. She's the one who raises them, rather than Mike."

  Jubal shook his head. "I was wondering if by any chance it was the same woman. Fully tattooed women are rather scarce these days. But the lady I knew, some thirty years back - too old now to be this one, I suppose - had the usual vulgar fear of snakes, to excess. However, I'm fond of snakes myself... I look forward to meeting your friend. I hope."

  "You will when you visit Mike. She's sort of a majordomo for him - and a priestess, if you'll pardon the word. Patricia - but called 'Pat,' or 'Patty.'"

  "Oh, yes! Jill has spoken of her... and thinks very highly of her. Never mentioned her tattoos, however. Probably didn't think it was relevant. Or perhaps none of my business."

  "But she's nearly the right age to be your friend. She says. When I said 'babe' I was again giving a first impression. She looks to be in her twenties; she claims her oldest child is that old. Anyhow, she trotted up to meet me, all big smile, put her arms around me and kissed me. 'You're Ben, I know. Welcome, brother! I give you water!'

  "You know me, Jubal. I've been in the newspaper racket for years - I've been around. But I had never been kissed by a totally strange babe dressed only in tattoos... who was determined to be as friendly and affectionate as a collie pup. I was embarrassed."

  "Poor Ben. My heart bleeds."

  "Damn it, you would have felt the same way."

  "No. Remember, I've met one tattooed lady. They feel completely dressed in those tattoos - and rather resent having to put on clothes. Or at least this was true of my friend Sadako. Japanese, she was. But of course the Japanese are not body conscious the way we are."

  "Well," Ben answered. "Pat isn't exactly body conscious, either - just about her tattoos. She wants to be stuffed and mounted, nude, when she dies, as a tribute to George."

  "'George'?"

  "Sorry. Her husband. Up in heaven, to my relief... although she talked about him as if he had just slipped out for a short beer. While she was behaving as if she expected a trial mounting and stuffing any moment. But, essentially, Pat is a lady... and she didn't let me stay embarrassed-"

  * * *

  XXXI

  PATRICIA HAD HER ARMS around Ben Caxton and gave him the all-out kiss of brotherhood before he knew what hit him. She felt at once his unease and was herself surprised, because Michael had told her to expect him, given her Ben's face in her mind, had explained that Ben was a brother in all fullness, of the Inner Nest, and she knew that Jill was grown closer with Ben second only to that with Michael... which was always necessarily first since Michael was the fountain and source of all their knowledge of the water of life.

  But the foundation of Patricia's nature was an endless wish to make other people as happy as she was; she slowed down. She invited Ben to get rid of his clothes but did so casually and did not press the matter, except to ask him to remove his shoes, with the explanation that the Nest was everywhere kind to bare feet and the unstated corollary that street shoes would not be kind to it - it was soft and clean as only Michael's powers could keep things clean, which Ben could see for himself.

  Aside from that she merely pointed out where to hang any clothes he found too warm for the Nest and hurried away to fetch him a drink. She didn't ask his preferences; she knew them from Jill. She merely decided that he would choose a double martini this time rather than Scotch and soda, the poor dear looked tired. When she came back with a drink for each of them, Ben was barefooted and had removed his street jacket. "Brother, may you never thirst."

  "We share water," he agreed and drank. "But there's mighty little water in that."

  "Enough," she answered. "Michael
says that the water could be completely in the thought; it is the sharing. I grok he speaks rightly."

  "I grok. And it's just what I needed. Thanks, Patty."

  "Ours is yours and you are ours. We're glad you're safely home. Just now the others are all at services or teaching. But there's no hurry; they will come when waiting is filled. Would you like to look around your Nest?"

  Still puzzled but interested Ben let her lead him on a guided tour. Some parts of it were commonplace: a huge kitchen with a bar at one end - rather short on gadgets and having the same kind-to-the-feet floor covering as elsewhere, but not notable otherwise save for size - a library even more loaded than Jubal's, bathrooms ample and luxurious, bedrooms - Ben decided that they must be bedrooms although they contained no beds but simply floors that were even softer than elsewhere; Patty called them "little nests" and showed him one she said she usually slept in.

  It contained her snakes.

  It had been fitted on one side for the comfort of snakes. Ben suppressed his own slight queasiness about snakes until he came to the cobras. "It's all right," she assured him. "We did have glass in front of them. But Michael has taught them that they must not come past this line."

  "I think I would rather trust glass."

  "Okay, Ben." In remarkably short order she replaced the glass barrier, front and top. But he was relieved when they left, even though he managed to stroke Honey Bun when invited to. Before returning to the huge living room Pat showed him one other room. It was large, circular, had a floor which seemed almost as cushiony as that of the bedrooms, and no furniture. In its center was a round pool of water, almost a swimming pool. "This," she told him, "is the Innermost Temple, where we receive new brothers into the Nest." She went over and dabbled a foot in the water. "Just right," she said. "Want to share water and grow closer? Or maybe just swim?"

  "Uh, not right now."

  "Waiting is," she agreed. They returned to the living room and Patricia went to get him another drink. Ben settled himself on a big, very comfortable couch - then got up at once. The place was too warm for him, that first drink was making him sweat, and leaning back on a couch that adjusted itself too well to his contours made him just that much hotter. He decided it was damn silly to dress the way he would in Washington, warm as it was in here - and with Patty decked out in nothing but ink and a bull snake she had left around her shoulders during the latter part of the tour that reptile would keep him from temptation even if it wasn't already clearly evident that Patty was not trying to be provocative.