"A Stranger in a Strange Land" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert)

PART THREE: HIS ECCENTRIC EDUCATION
XXII

IN ONE LIMB OF A SPIRAL GALAXY, close to a star known as "Sol" to some of its dependents, another star of the same type underwent catastrophic readjustment and became nova. Its glory would be seen on Mars in another three-replenished (729) years, or 1370 Terran years. The Old Ones noted the coming event as being useful, shortly, for instruction of the young, while never ceasing the exciting and crucial discussion of esthetic problems concerning the new epic woven around the death of the Fifth Planet.

The departure of the spaceship Champion for its home planet was noted without comment and a watch was kept on the strange nestling sent back in it, but nothing more, since it would be some time yet before it would be fruitful to grok the outcome. The twenty-three humans left behind on Mars coped, successfully in most ways, with an environment lethal to naked humans but less difficult, on the whole, than that in the Free State of Antarctica. One of them discorporated through an undiagnosed illness sometimes called "heartbreak" and at other times "homesickness." The Old Ones cherished the wounded spirit and sent it back where it belonged for further healing; aside from that the Martians left the Terrans alone.

On Earth the exploding neighbor star was not noticed at all, human astronomers still being limited by speed of light. The Man from Mars, having been briefly back in the news, had dropped out of the news again. The minority leader in the Federation Senate called for "a bold, new approach" to the twin problems of population and malnutrition in southeast Asia, starting with increased emergency grants-in-aid to families with more than five children. Mrs. Percy B. S. Souchek sued the supervisors of Los Angeles City-County over the death of her pet poodle Piddle which had taken place during a five-day period of stationary inversion layer. Cynthia Duchess announced that she was going to have the Perfect Baby by a scientifically selected anonymous donor and an equally perfect host mother just as soon as a battery of experts completed calculating the exact instant for conception to insure that the wonder child would be equally a genius in music, art, and statesmanship - and that she would (with the aid of hormonal treatments) nurse her child herself. She gave out a statement to the press on the psychological benefits of natural feeding and permitted, or insisted, that the press take pictures of her to prove that she was physically endowed for this happy duty - a fact that her usual publicity pictures had never really left undecided-

Supreme Bishop Digby denounced her as the Harlot of Babylon and forbade any Fosterite to accept the commission, either as donor or hostmother. Alice Douglas was quoted as saying: "While I do not know Miss Duchess personally, one cannot help but admire her. Her brave example should be an inspiration to mothers everywhere."

By accident, Jubal Harshaw saw one of the pictures and the accompanying story in a magazine some visitor had left in his house. He chuckled over it and posted it on the bulletin board in the kitchen… then noted (as he had expected) that it did not stay up long, which made him chuckle again.

He did not have too many chuckles that week; the world had been too much with him. The working press soon ceased bothering Mike and the Harshaw household when it was clear that the story was over and that Harshaw did not intend to let any fresh news happen - but a great many thousands of other people, not in the news business, did not forget Mike. Douglas honestly tried to insure Mike's privacy; S. S. troopers now patrolled Harshaw's fence and an S.S. car circled over the grounds and challenged any car that tried to land. But Harshaw resented the necessity of having guards.

Guards kept people out; the mail and the telephone came through. The telephone Jubal coped with by changing his call number and having all calls routed through an answering service to which was given a very limited list of persons from whom Harshaw would accept calls - and, at that, he kept the instrument in the house set on "refuse amp; record" most of the time.

But the mail always comes through.

At first, Harshaw told Jill that the problem was Mike's. The boy had to grow up someday; he could start by handling his own mail and she could help and advise him. "But don't bother me with it; I have enough trouble with screwball mail of my own!"

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

Just sorting the mail into categories was a headache. Jubal solved that by first making a phone call to the local postmaster (which got no results), then by a phone call to Bradley, which did get results after a "suggestion" from on high trickled back down to local level; thereafter mail for Mike arrived sacked as first class, second class, third class, and fourth class, with mail for everyone else in the household in still another sack.

Second and third class mail was used to insulate a new root cellar north of the house, the old root cellar having been dug by the former owner as a fallout shelter and never having been satisfactory as root cellar. Once the new root cellar was heavily over-insulated and could use no more, Jubal told Duke to dump such mail as fill to check erosion in gullies; combined with a small amount of brush such mail compacted very nicely.

Fourth class mail was a problem, especially as one package exploded prematurely in the village post office, blowing several years of "Wanted" announcements off the notice board and ruining one "Use Next Window" sign - by great good luck the postmaster was out for coffee and his assistant, an elderly lady with weak kidneys, was safe in the washroom. Jubal considered having all fourth class mail addressed to Mike processed by the bomb-disposal specialists of the S.S, who performed the same service for the Secretary General.

This turned out not to be necessary; Mike could spot a "wrongness" about a package without opening it. Thereafter all fourth class mail was unsacked in a heap just inside the gate; then, after the postman had left, Mike would pry through the pile from a distance, cause to disappear any harmful parcel; then Larry would truck the remainder to the house. Jubal felt that this method was far better than soaking suspect packages, opening them in darkness, X-raying them, or any other conventional method.

Mike loved opening the harmless packages; it made every day Christmas for him. He particularly enjoyed reading his own name on address labels. The plunder inside might or might not interest him; usually he gave it to one of the others - and, in the process, at last learned what "property" was in discovering that he could make gifts to his friends. Anything that nobody wanted wound up in a gully; this included, by definition, all gifts of food, as Jubal was not certain that Mike's nose for "wrongness" extended to poisons - especially after Mike had drunk, through error, a beaker of a poisonous solution Duke had left in the refrigerator he used for his photographic work. Mike had simply said mildly that the "Iced tea" had a flavor he was not sure that he liked.

Jubal told him that it was otherwise all right to keep anything that came to Mike by parcel post provided that none of it was (a) ever paid for, (b) ever acknowleged, (c) nor ever returned no matter how marked. Some of the items were legitimatly gifts; more of it was unordered merchandise. Either way, Jubal assumed conclusively that unsolicited chattels from strangers always represented efforts to make use of the Man from Mars and therefore merited no thanks.

An exception was made for live stock, from baby chicks to baby alligators which Jubal advised her to return unless she was willing to guarantee the care and feeding thereof, and the responsibility of keeping same from falling into the pool.

First class mail was a separate headache. After looking over a bushel or so of Mike's first class mail Jubal set up a list of categories:

A. Begging letters, personal and institutional - erosion fill.

B. Threatening letters - file unanswered. Second and later letters from any one source to be turned over to S.S.

C. Offers of business deals of any nature forward to Douglas unanswered.

D. Crackpot letters not containing threat - pass around any real dillies; the rest to go in a gully.

E. Friendly letters - answer only if accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelope, in which case use one of several form letters to be signed by Jill (Jubal pointed out that letters signed by the Man from Mars were valuable per se, and an open invitation to more useless mail.)

F. Scatological letters - pass to Jubal (who had a bet with himself that no such letter would ever show the faintest sign of literary novelty) for further disposition - i.e., gully.

G. Proposals of marriage and propositions not quite so formal - ignore and file. Use procedure under "B" on third offense.

H. Letters from scientific and educational institutions - handle as under "E"; if answered at all, use form letter explaining that the Man from Mars was not available for anything; if Jill felt that a form brushoff would not do, pass along to Jubal.

I. Letters from persons who actually had met Mike, such as all the crew of the Champion, the President of the United States, and a few others - let Mike answer them exactly as he pleased; the exercise in penmanship would be good for him and the exercise in human personal relations he needed even more (and if he wanted advice, let him ask for it).

This guide cut the number of letters that had to be answered down to manageable size - a few each day for Jill, seldom even one for Mike. Just opening the mail took a major effort, but Jill found that she could skim and classify in about one hour each day, after she got used to it. The first four categories remained large at all times; category "G" was very large during the fortnight following the world stereocast from the Palace, then dwindled and the curve flattened to a steady trickle.

Jubal cautioned Jill that, while Mike should himself answer letters only from acquaintances and friends, mail addressed to him was his to read if he wished.

The third morning after the category system had gone into effect Jill brought a letter, category "G," to Jubal. More than half of the ladies and other females (plus a few misguided males) who supplied this category included pictures alleged to be of themselves; some of these pictures left little to the imagination, as did the letters themselves in many cases-

This letter enclosed a picture which managed not only to leave nothing to the imagination, but started over by stimulating fresh imaginings. Jill said, "Look at this, Boss! I ask you!"

Jubal read the letter, then looked at the picture. "She seems to know what she wants. What does Mike think of it?"

"He hasn't seen it. That's why I brought it to you."

Jubal glanced again at the picture. "A type which, in my youth, we referred to as 'stacked.' Well, her sex is not in doubt, nor her agility. But why are you showing it to me? I've seen better, I assure you."

"But what should I do with it? The letter is bad enough… but that disgusting picture - should I tear it up? Before Mike sees it?"

"Oh- Siddown, Nurse. What does it say on the envelope?"

"Nothing. Just the address and the 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-"

"That's all I wanted to be sure of. Now let's get something straight. I am not Mike's guardian. You are neither his mother nor his chaperon. I've simply co-opted you as his secretary. If Mike wants to read everything that comes in here addressed to him, including third class junk mail, he is free to do so."

"Well, he does read almost all of those ads. But surely you don't want him to see filth? Jubal, Mike doesn't know what the world is like. He's innocent.

"So? How many men has he killed so far, Jill?"

Jill did not answer; she looked unhappy. Jubal went on: "If you want to help him, you will concentrate on teaching him that casual killing is frowned on in this society. Otherwise he is bound to be unpleasantly conspicuous when he goes out into the world."

"Uh, I don't think he wants to 'go out into the world.'"

"Well, I'm damned well going to push him out of the nest as soon as I think he can fly. He can come back later, if he wishes - But I shan't make it possible for him to live out his life here, as an arrested infant. For one thing, I can't even if I wanted to… because Mike will probably outlive me by sixty or seventy years and this nest will be gone. But you are correct; Mike is innocent our standards. Nurse, have you ever seen that sterile laboratory at Notre Dame?"

"No. I've read about it."

"Healthiest animals in the world but they can't ever leave the laboratory. Child, I'm not running a sterile laboratory. Mike has got to get acquainted with 'filth,' as you call it - and get immunized to it. One day he's going to meet the gal who wrote this letter, or her spiritual twin sister - in fact he's going to meet her by the dozens and hundreds, shucks, with his notoriety and his looks he can spend his life skipping from one warm bed to another, if he likes. You can't stop it, I can't stop it; it's up to Mike. Furthermore, I wouldn't want to stop it, although for my taste it's a silly way to spend one's life - doing the same monotonous exercises over and over again, I mean - what do you think?"

"I-" Jill stopped and blushed.

"I withdraw the question. Maybe you don't find them monotonous but 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 that get him alone and I don't regard it as a good idea, either; he should have other interests as well - then don't try to intercept his mail. Letters like that may vaccinate him a little… or at least tend to put him on guard. Don't make a thing out of it; just pass it along in the stack, cum 'filthy' picture. Answer his questions if he asks them… and try not to blush."

"Uh, all right. Boss, you're infuriating when you're logical."

"Yes, a most uncouth way to argue. Now run along."

"All right. But I'm going to tear up that picture after Mike has seen it."

"Oh, don't do that!"

"What? Do you want it, Boss?"

"Heaven forbid! I told you I had seen much better. But Duke is not as jaundiced as I am; he collects such pictures. If Mike doesn't want it - and five-to-one he doesn't give it to Duke - he'll be delighted."

"Duke collects such trash? But he seems such a nice person.

"He is. A very nice person indeed. Or I'd kick him out."

"But- I don't understand it"

Jubal sighed. "And I could sit here all day explaining it and you still wouldn't understand it. 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 a few exceptionally gifted individuals. But words are useless, so I won't try. Just take my word for it: Duke is a perfect knight, sans peur et sans reproche - and he would like to have that picture."

"All right, he can have it if Mike doesn't keep it. But I'll just pass it along to you. I won't give it to Duke myself - he might get ideas."

"Sissy. You might enjoy his ideas- Anything startling in the mail otherwise?"

"No. The usual crop of people who want Mike to endorse this and that, or peddle 'Official Man-from-Mars this's and that's-one character had the nerve to ask for a five-year monopoly royalty free, on the name, but wants Mike to finance it as well."

"I admire that sort of whole-hearted thief. Encourage him. Tell him that Mike is so rich that he makes crepes suzettes with Napoleon brandy and needs some tax losses - so how much guarantee would he like?"

"Are YOU serious, Boss? I'll have to dig it out of the group already sacked for Mr. Douglas."

"Of course I'm not serious. The gonif would show up here tomorrow, with his family. But you've given me a fine idea for a story, so run along. Front!"

Mike was not uninterested in the "disgusting" picture. He grokked correctly (if only theoreticly) what the letter and the picture symbolized - and studied the picture with the clear-eyed delight With which he studied each passing butterfly. He found both butterflies and women tremendously interesting - in fact, all the grokking world around him was enchanting and he wanted to drink so deep of it all that his own grokking would be perfect.

He understood, intellectually, the mechanical and biological processes being offered to him in these letters but he wondered why these strangers wanted his help in quickening their eggs? Mike understood (without grokking it) that these people made ritual of this simple necessity, a "growing closer" possibly almost as important and precious as the water ceremony. He was eager to grok it.

But he was not in a hurry, "hurry" being one human concept he had failed to grok at all. He was sensitively aware of the key importance of correct timing in all acts - but with the Martian approach: correct timing was accomplished by waiting. He had noticed, of course, that his human brothers lacked his own fine discrimination of time and often were forced to wait a little faster than a Martian would - but he did not hold their innocent awkwardness against them; he simply learned to wait faster himself to cover their lack.

In fact, he sometimes waited faster so efficiently that a human would have concluded that he was hurrying at breakneck speed. But the human would have been mistaken - Mike was simply adjusting his own waiting in warm consideration for the needs of others.

So he accepted Jill's edict that he was not to reply to any of these brotherly offers from female humans, but he accepted it not as a final veto but as a waiting - possibly a century hence would be better; in any case now was not the correct time since his water brother Jill spoke rightly.

Mike readily assented when Jill suggested, quite firmly, that he give this picture to Duke. He went at once to do so and would have done so anyhow; Mike knew about Duke's collection, he had seen it, looked through it with deep interest, trying to grok why Duke said, "That one ain't much in the face, but look at those legs - brother!" It always made Mike feel good to be called "brother" by one of his water brothers but legs were just legs, save that his own people had three each while humans each had only two - without being crippled thereby, he reminded himself, two legs were proper for humans, he must always grok that this was correct.

As for faces, Jubal had the most beautiful face Mike had ever seen, clearly and distinctly his own. It seemed to Mike that these human females in Duke's picture collection could hardly be said to have grown faces as yet, so much did one look like the other in the face. All young human females had much the same face - how could it be otherwise? Of course he had never had any trouble recognizing Jill's face; she was not only the first woman he had ever seen but, most important, 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 their faces alone, it had not been so when first he came here. For several days Mike had distinguished between them by size and coloration - and, of course, by voice, since no two voices were ever alike. But, as sometimes did happen, all three females would be quiet at once and then it was well that Anne was so much bigger, Dorcas so small, and that Miriam, who was bigger than Dorcas but smaller than Anne, nevertheless need not be mistaken for the missing one if either Anne or Dorcas was absent because Miriam had unmistakable hair called "red," even though it was not the color called "red" when speaking of anything but hair.

This special meaning for "red" did not trouble Mike; he knew before he reached Earth that every English word held more than one meaning. It was a fact one could get used to, without grokking, just as the sameness of all girl faces could be gotten used to… and, after waiting, they were no longer quite the same. Mike now could call up Anne's face in his mind and count the pores in her nose as readily as with Jill's. In essence, even an egg was uniquely itself, different from all other eggs any where and when - Mike had always known that. So each girl had her own face, no matter how small those differences might be.

Mike gave the "disgusting" picture to Duke and was warmed by Duke's pleasure. Mike did not feel that he was depriving himself in parting with the picture; he had seen it once, he could see it in his mind whenever he wished - even the face in that picture, as it had glowed with a most unusual expression of beautiful pain.

He accepted Duke's thanks gravely and went happily back to read the rest of his mail.

Mike did not share Jubal's annoyance at the avalanche of mail; he reveled in it, the insurance ads quite as much as the marriage proposals. His trip to the Palace had opened his eyes to the enormous variety in this world and he was resolved to grok it all. He could see that it would take him several centuries and that he must grow and grow and grow, but he was undaunted and in no hurry - he grokked that eternity and the everbeautifully-changing now were identical.

He had decided not to reread the Encyclopedia Britannica; the flood of mail gave him brighter glimpses of the world. He read it, grokked what he could, remembered the rest for contemplation at night while the household slept.

From these nights of meditation he was beginning, he thought, to grok "business," and "money," and "buying," and "selling," and related un-Martian activities - the articles in the Encyclopedia had always left him feeling unfilled, as (he now grokked) each one had assumed that he knew many things that he did not know. But there arrived in the mail, from Mr. Secretary General Joseph Edgerton Douglas, a check book and other papers, and his brother Jubal had taken great pains to explain to him what money was and how it was used.

Mike had failed utterly to understand it at first, even though Jubal showed him how to make out his first check, gave him "money" in exchange for it, taught him how to count it.

Then suddenly, with a grokking so blinding that he trembled and forced himself not to withdraw, he understood the abstract symbolic nature of money. These pretty pictures and bright medallions were not "money"; they were concrete symbols for an abstract idea which spread all through these people, all through their world. But these things were not money, any more than water shared in water ceremony was the growing-closer. Water was not necessary to the ceremony… and these pretty things were not necessary to money. 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 the symbols was another matter, beautiful in small, but reminding him of games taught to nestlings to encourage them to learn to reason correctly and grow. It was the total structure that dazzled him, the idea that an entire world could be reflected in one dynamic, completely interconnected, symbol structure. Mike grokked then that the Old Ones of this race were very old indeed to have composed such beauty, and he wished humbly that he might soon be allowed to meet one of them.

Jubal encouraged him to spend some of his money and Mike did so, with the timid, uncertain eagerness of a bride being brought to bed. Jubal suggested that he "buy presents for his friends" and Jill helped him with it, starting by placing arbitrary limits: only one present for each friend and a total cost that was not even a reciprocal filled-three of the sum that had been placed to his account - Mike's original intention had been to spend all of that pretty balance on his friends.

He quickly learned how difficult it is to spend money. There were so many things from which to choose, all of them wonderful and most of them incomprehensible. Surrounded by thick catalogs from Marshall Field's to the Ginza, and back by way of Bombay and Copenhagen, he felt smothered in a plethora of riches. Even the Sears amp; Montgomery catalog was too much for him.

But Jill helped. "No, Mike, Duke would not want a tractor."

"Duke likes tractors."

"Um, maybe - but 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 and shine it all day long. But even that is too expensive, what with the taxes. Mike dear, a present ought not to be very expensive - unless you are trying to get a girl to marry you, or something. Especially 'something.' But a present should show that you thought about it and considered that person's tastes. Something he would enjoy but probably would not buy for himself."

"How?"

"That's always the problem. Wait a minute. I just remembered something in this morning's mail - I hope Larry hasn't carted it off yet." 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 will not be sent by mail. It will be forwarded at purchaser's risk by prepaid express only. Orders cannot be accepted from addresses in the following states-' Um, Pennsylvania is on the verboten list - but don't let that worry you; if it is addressed to you, it will be delivered - and if I know Duke's vulgar tastes, this is just what he would like."

Duke did like it. It was delivered, not by express, but via the S.S. patrol car capping the house - and the next ad for the same item to arrive in the house boasted: "-exactly as supplied to the Man from Mars, by special appointment," which pleased Mike and annoyed Jill.

Other presents were just as difficult, but picking a present for Jubal was supremely difficult. Jill was stumped. What does one buy for a man who has everything - everything, that is to say, that he wants which money can buy? The Sphinx? 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 ago even foresworn pets, because he outlived them, or (worse yet) it was now possible that a pet would outlive him, be orphaned.

Privately they consulted the others. "Shucks," Duke told them, "didn't you know? The boss likes statues."

"Really?" Jill answered. "I don't see any sculpture around."

"That's because most of the stuff he likes isn't for sale. He says that the crud they're making nowdays looks like disaster in a junk yard and any idiot with a blow torch and astigmatism can set himself up as a sculptor."

Anne nodded thoughtfully. "I think Duke is right. You can tell what Jubal's tastes in sculpture are by looking at the books in his study. But I doubt if it will help much."

Nevertheless they looked, Anne and Jill and Mike, and Anne picked out three books as bearing evidence (to her eyes) of having been looked at most often. "Hmm…" she said. "It's clear that the Boss would like anything by Rodin. Mike, if you could buy one of these for Jubal, which one would you pick? Oh, here's a pretty one - 'Eternal Springtime.'"

Mike barely glanced at it and turned the page. "This one."

"What?" Jill looked at it and shuddered. "Mike, that one is perfectly 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. Or else you just don't know any better."

Ordinarily such a rebuke from a water brother, most especially from Jill, would have shut Mike up, forced him to spend the following night in trying to understand his fault. But this was art in which he was sure of himself. The portrayed statue was the first thing he had seen on Earth which felt like a breath of home to him. Although it was clearly a picture of a human woman it gave him a feeling that a Martian Old One should be somewhere around, responsible for its creation. "It is beauty," he insisted stubbornly. "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 Mike knows what Jubal likes. Look at the book itself. It falls open naturally to any one of three places. Now look at the pages - this page has been handled more than the other two. Mike has picked the Boss's favorite. This other one - 'The Caryatid Who has Fallen under the Weight of Her Stone' - he likes almost as well. But Mike's choice is Jubal's pet."

"I buy it," Mike said decisively.

But it was not for sale. Anne telephoned the Rodin Museum in Paris on Mike's behalf and only Gallic gallantry and her beauty kept them from laughing in her face. Sell one of the Master's works? My dear lady, they are not only not for sale but they may not be reproduced. Non, non, non! Quelle idt!

But for the Man from Mars some things are possible which are not possible for others. Anne called Bradley; a couple of days later he called her back. As a compliment from the French government - no fee, but a strongly couched request that the present never be publicly exhibited - Mike would receive, not the original, but a full-size, microscopically-exact replica, a bronze photopantogram of "She Who Used to Be the Beautiful Heaulmire."

Jill helped Mike select presents for the girls, here she knew her ground. But when he asked her what he should buy for her; she not only did not help but insisted that he must not buy her anything.

Mike was beginning to realize that, while a water brother always spoke rightly, sometimes they spoke more rightly than others, i.e., that the English language had depths to it and it was sometimes necessary to probe to reach the right depth. So he consulted Anne.

"Go ahead and buy her a present, dear. She has to tell you that but you give her a present anyhow. Hmm… Anne vetoed clothes and jewelry, finally selected for him a present which puzzled him - Jill already smelled exactly the way Jill should smell.

The small size and apparent unimportance of the present, when it arrived, added to his misgivings - and when Anne let him whiff it before having him give it to Jill, Mike was more in doubt than ever; the odor was very strong and smelled not at all like Jill.

Nevertheless, Anne was right; Jill was delighted with the perfume and insisted on kissing him at once. In kissing her he grokked fully that this gift was what she wanted and that it made them grow closer.

When she wore it at dinner that night, he discovered that the fragrance truly did not differ from that of Jill herself; in some unclear fashion it simply made Jill smell more deliciously like Jill than ever. Still stranger, it caused Dorcas to kiss him and whisper, "Mike hon… the negligee is lovely and just what I wanted - but perhaps someday you'll give me perfume?"

Mike could not grok why Dorcas would want it, since Dorcas did not smell at all like Jill and therefore perfume would not be proper for her nor, he realized, would he want Dorcas to smell like Jill; he wanted Dorcas to smell like Dorcas.

Jubal interrupted with: "Quit nuzzling the lad and let him eat his dinned Dorcas, you already reek like a Marseilles cat house; don't wheedle Mike for more stinkum."

"Doss, you mind your own business."

It was all very puzzling - both that Jill could smell still more like Jill and that Dorcas should wish to smell like Jill when she already smelled like herself… and that Jubal would say that Dorcas smelled like a cat when she did not. There was a cat who lived on the place (not as a pet, but as co-owner); on rare occasion it came to the house and deigned to accept a handout. The cat and Mike had grokked each other at once, and Mike had found its carniverous thoughts most pleasing and quite Martian. He had discovered, too, that the cat's name (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) was not the cat's name at all, but he had not told anyone this because he could not pronounce the cat's real name; he could only hear it in his head.

The cat did not smell like Dorcas.

Giving presents was a great goodness and the buying thereof taught Mike much about the true value of money. But he had not forgotten even momentarily that there were other things he was eager to grok. Jubal had put off Senator Boone's invitation to Mike twice without mentioning it to Mike and Mike had not noticed, since his quite different grasp of time made "next Sunday" no particular date.

But the next repetition of the invitation came by mall and was addressed to Mike; Senator Boone was under pressure from Supreme Bishop Digby to produce the Man from Mars and Boone had sensed that Harshaw was stalling him and might stall indefinitely.

Mike took it to Jubal, stood waiting. "Well?" Jubal growled. "Do you want to go, or don't you? You don't have to attend a Fosterite service. We can tell 'em to go to hell."

So a Checker Cab with a human driver (Harshaw refused to trust his life to an autocab) picked them up the next Sunday morning and delivered Mike, Jill, and Jubal to a public landing fiat just outside the sacred grounds of Archangel Foster Tabernacle of the Church of the New Revelation.