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

XXXV

JUBAL HAD A MISERABLE TRIP. The taxi was automatic and it did just what he expected of machinery, developed trouble in the air and homed for maintenance instead of carrying out its orders. Jubal wound up in New York, farther from where he wanted to be than when he started. There he found that he could make better time by commercial schedule than he could by any charter available. So he arrived hours later than he expected to, having spent the time cooped up with strangers (which he detested) and watching a stereo tank (which he detested only slightly less).

But it did inform him somewhat. He saw an insert of Supreme Bishop Short proclaiming a holy war against the Antichrist, i.e… Mike, and he saw too many shots of what was obviously an utterly ruined building - he failed to see how any of them had escaped alive. Augustus Greaves, in his most solemn lippmann tones, viewed with alarm everything about it but pointed out that, in every spite-fence quarrel, one neighbor supplies the original incitement - and made it plain that, in his weasel-worded opinion, the so-called Man from Mars was at fault.

At last Jubal stood on a municipal landing flat sweltering in winter clothes unsuited to the blazing sun overhead, noted that palm trees still looked like a poor grade of feather duster, regarded bleakly the ocean beyond them, thinking that it was a dirty unstable mass of water, certainly contaminated with grape fruit shells and human excrement even though he couldn't see such at this distance - and wondered what to do next.

A man wearing a uniform cap approached him. "Taxi, sir?"

"Uh, yes, I think so." At worst he could go to a hotel, call in the press, and give out an interview that would publicize his whereabouts - there was occasionally some advantage to being newsworthy.

"Over this way, sir." The cabby led him out of the crowd and to a battered Yellow Cab. As he put his bag in after Jubal, the pilot said quietly, "I offer you Water."

"Eh? Never thirst."

"Thou art God." The hack driver sealed the door and got into his own compartment.

They wound up on a private landing flat on one wing of a big beach hotel - a four-car space, the hotel's own landing flat being on another wing. The pilot set the cab to home-in alone, took Jubal's bag and escorted him inside. "You couldn't have come in too easily via the lobby," he said conversationally, "as the foyer on this floor is filled with some very badtempered cobras. So if you decide you want to go down to the street, be sure to ask somebody first. Me, or anybody - I'm Tim."

"I'm Jubal Harshaw."

"I know, brother Jubal. In this way. Mind your step." They entered the hotel suite of the large, extreme luxury sort, and Jubal was led on into a bedroom with bath; Tim said, "This is yours," put Jubal's bag down and left. On the side table Jubal found water, glasses, ice cubes, and a bottle of brandy, opened but untouched. He was unsurprised to find that it was his preferred brand. He mixed himself a quick one, sipped it and sighed, then took off his heavy winter jacket.

A woman came in bearing a tray of sandwiches. She was wearing a plain dress which Jubal took to be the uniform of a hotel chambermaid since it was quite unlike the shorts, scarves, pediskirts, halters, sarongs and other bright-colored ways to display rather than conceal that characterized most females in this resort. But she smiled at him, said, "Drink deep and never thirst, our brother," put the tray down, went into his bath and started a tub for him, then checked around by eye in bath and in bedroom. "Is there anything you need, Jubal?"

"Me? Oh, no, everything is just fine. I'll make a quick cleanup and - is Ben Caxton around?"

"Yes. But he said you would want a bath and get comfortable first. If you want anything, just say so. Ask anyone. Or ask for me. I'm Patty."

"Oh! The Life of Archangel Foster."

She dimpled and suddenly was not plain but pretty, and much younger than the thirtyish Jubal had guessed her to be. "Yes."

"I'd like very much to see it some time. I'm interested in religious art."

"Now? No, I grok you want your bath. Unless you'd like help with your bath?"

Jubal recalled that his Japanese friend of the many tattoos had been a bath girl in her teens and would have made - had, many times - the same offer. But Patty was not Japanese and he simply wanted to wash away the sweat and stink and get into clothes suited to the climate. "No, thank you, Patty. But I do want to see them, at your convenience."

"Any time. There's no hurry." She left, unhurried but moving silently and very quickly.

Jubal soaped and dunked himself and refrained from lounging as the warm water invited his tired muscles to do; he wanted to see Ben and find out the score. Shortly he was checking through what Larry had packed for him and grunted with annoyance to find no summerweight slacks. He settled for sandals, shorts, and a bright sport shirt, which made him look like a paint-splashed emu and accented his hairy, thinning legs. But Jubal had ceased worrying about his appearance several decades earlier; it was comfortable and it would do, at least until he needed to go out on the Street… or into court. Did the bar association here have reciprocity with Pennsylvania? He couldn't recall. Well, it was always possible to act with another attorney-of-record.

He found his way into a large living room, most comfortable but having that impersonal quality of all hotel accommodations. Several people were gathered near the largest stereovision tank Jubal had ever seen outside a theater. One of them glanced up, said, "Hi, Jubal," and came toward him.

"Hi, Ben. What's the situation? Is Mike still in jail?"

"Oh, no. He got out shortly after I talked to you."

"He's been arraigned then. Is the preliminary hearing set?"

Ben smiled. "That's not quite the way it is, Jubal. Mike is technically a fugitive from justice. He wasn't released on bail. He escaped."

Jubal looked disgusted. "What a silly thing to do. Now the case will be eight times as difficult."

"Jubal, I told you not to worry. All the rest of us are presumed dead - and Mike is simply missing. We're through with this city, so it doesn't matter in the least. We'll go someplace else."

"They'll extradite him."

"Never fear. They won't."

"Well… where is he? I want to talk to him."

"Oh, he's right here, a couple of rooms down from you. But he's withdrawn in meditation. He left word to tell you, when you arrived, to take no action - none. You can talk to him right now if you insist; Jill will call him out of it. But I don't recommend it. There's no hurry."

Jubal thought about it, admitted that he was damnably eager to hear from Mike himself just what the score was - and chew him out for having gotten into such a mess - but admitted, too, that disturbing Mike while he was in a trance was almost certainly much worse than disturbing Jubal himself when he was dictating a story - the boy always came out of his self-hypnosis when he had "grokked the fullness," whatever that was - and if he hadn't, then he always needed to go back into it. As pointless as disturbing a hibernating bear.

"All right, I'll wait. But I want to talk to him when he wakes up."

"You will. Now relax and be happy. Let the trip get out of your system." Ben urged him toward the group around the stereo tank.

Anne looked up. "Hello, Boss." She moved over and made room. "Sit down."

Jubal joined her. "May I ask what the devil you are doing here?"

"The same thing you're doing - nothing. Watching stereo. Jubal, please don't get heavy-handed because we didn't do what you told us. We belong here as much as you do. You shouldn't have told us not to come… but you were too upset for us to argue with you. So relax and watch what they're saying about us. The sheriff has just announced that he's going to run all us whores out of town." She smiled. "I've never been run out of town before. It should be interesting. Does a whore get ridden on a rail? Or will I have to walk?"

"I don't think there's protocol in the matter. You all came?"

"Yes, but don't fret. Jed McClintock is sleeping in the house. Larry and I made a standing arrangement with the McClintock boys for one of them to do so, more than a year ago - just in case. They know how the furnace works and where the switches are and things; it's all right."

"Hmm! I'm beginning to think I'm just a boarder there."

"Were you ever anything else, Boss? You expect us to run it without bothering you. We do. But it's a shame you didn't relax and let us all travel together. We got here more than two hours ago - you must have had some trouble."

"I did, A terrible trip. Anne, once I get home I don't intend ever to set foot off the place again in my life… and I'm going to yank out the telephone and take a sledgehammer to the babble box."

"Yes, Boss."

"This time I mean it." He glanced at the giant babble box in front of him. "Do those commercials go on forever? Where's my goddaughter? Don't tell me you left her to the mercies of McClintock's idiot sons!"

"Oh, of course not. She's here. She even has her own nursemaid, thank God."

"I want to see her."

"Patty will show her to you. I'm bored with her - she was a perfect little beast all the way down. Patty dear! Jubal wants to see Abby."

The tattooed woman checked one of her unhurried dashes through the room - so far as Jubal could see, she was the only one of the several present who was doing any work, and she seemed to be everywhere at once. "Certainly, Jubal. I'm not busy. Down this way.

"I've got the kids in my room," she explained, while Jubal strove to keep up with her, "so that Honey Bun can watch them."

Jubal was mildly startled to see, a moment later, what Patricia meant by that. The boa was arranged on one of twin double beds in squared-off loops that formed a nest - a twin nest, as one bight of the snake had been pulled across to bisect the square, making two crib-sized pockets, each padded with a baby blanket and each containing a baby.

The ophidian nursemaid raised her head inquiringly as they came in. Patty stroked it and said, "It's all right, dear. Father Jubal wants to see them. Pet her a little, and let her grok you, so that she will know you next time."

First Jubal coochey-cooed at his favorite girl friend when she gurgled at him and kicked, then petted the snake. He decided that it was the handsomest specimen of Bojdae he had ever seen, as well as the biggest - longer, he estimated, than any other boa constrictor in captivity. Its cross bars were sharply marked and the brighter colors of the tail quite showy. He envied Patty her blue-ribbon pet and regretted that he would not have more time in which to get friendly with it.

The snake rubbed her head against his hand like a cat. Patty picked up Abby and said, "Just as I thought. Honey Bun, why didn't you tell me?"- then explained, as she started to change diapers, "She tells me at once if one of them gets tangled up, or needs help, or anything, since she can't do much for them herself - no hands - except nudge them back if they try to crawl out and might fall. But she just can't seem to grok that a wet baby ought to be changed - Honey Bun doesn't see anything wrong about that. And neither does Abby."

"I know. We call her 'Old Faithful.' Who's the other cutie pie?"

"Huh? That's Fatima Michele, I thought you knew."

"Are they here? I thought they were in Beirut!"

"Why, I believe they did come from some one of those foreign parts. I don't know just where. Maybe Maryam told me but it wouldn't mean anything to me; I've never been anywhere. Not that it matters; I grok all places are alike - just people. There, do you want to hold Abigail Zenobia while I check Fatima?"

Jubal did so and assured her that she was the most beautiful girl in the world, then shortly thereafter assured Fatima of the same thing. He was completely sincere each time and the girls believed him - Jubal had said the same thing on countless occasions starting in the Harding administration, had always meant it and had always been believed. It was a Higher Truth, not bound by mundane logic.

Regretfully he left them, after again petting Honey Bun and telling her the same thing, and just as sincerely.

They left and at once ran into Fatima's mother. "Boss honey!" She kissed him and patted his tummy. "I see they've kept you fed."

"Some. I've just been in smooching with your daughter, She's an angel doll, Miriam."

"Pretty good baby, huh? We're going to sell her down to Rio - get a fancy price for her."

"I thought the market was better in Yemen?"

"Stinky says not. Got to sell her to make room." She put his hand on her belly. "Feel the bulge? Stinky and I are making a boy now - got no time for daughters."

"Maryam," Patricia said chidingly, "that's no way to talk, even in fun."

"Sorry, Patty. I won't talk that way about your baby - Aunt Patty is a lady, and groks that I'm not."

"I grok that you aren't, too, you little hellion, But if Fatima is for sale, I'll give you twice your best commercial offer."

"You'll have to take it up with Aunt Patty; I'm merely allowed to see her occasionally."

"And you don't bulge, so you may want to keep her yourself. Let me see your eyes. Mmm… could be."

"Is. And Mike has grokked it most carefully and tells Stinky he's made a boy."

"How can Mike grok that? Impossible. I'm not even sure you're pregnant-"

"Oh, she is, Jubal," Patricia confirmed.

Miriam looked at him serenely. "Still the skeptic, Boss. Mike grokked it while Stinky and I were still in Beirut, before we were sure we had caught. So Mike phoned us. And the next day Stinky told the university that we were taking a sabbatical for field work - or his resignation, if they wished. So here we are."

"Doing what?"

"Working. Working harder than you ever made me work, Boss - my husband is a slave driver."

"Doing what?"

"They're writing a Martian dictionary," Patty told him.

"Martian to English? That must be difficult."

"Oh, no, no, no!" Miriam looked almost shocked. "That wouldn't be difficult, that would be impossible. A Martian dictionary in Martian. There's never been one before; the Martians don't need such things. Uh, my part of it is just clerical; I type what they do. Mike and Stinky - mostly Stinky - worked out a phonetic script for Martian, eighty-one characters. So we had an I.B.M. typer worked over for those characters, using both upper and lower case - Boss darling, I'm ruined as a secretary; I type touch system in Martian now. Will you love me anyhow? When you shout 'Front!' and I'm not good for anything? I can still cook… and I'm told that I have other talents."

"I'll learn to dictate in Martian."

"You will, before Mike and Stinky get through with you. I grok. Eh, Patty?"

"You speak rightly, my brother."

They returned to the living room, Caxton joined them and suggested finding a quieter place, away from the giant babble box, led Jubal down a passage and into another living room. "You seem to have most of this floor"

"All of it," agreed Ben. "Four suites - the Secretarial; the Presidential, the Royal, and Owner's Cabin, opened into one and not accessible other than by our own landing fiat. except through a foyer that is not very healthy without help. You were warned about that?"

"Yes."

"We don't need so much room right now… but we may: people are flocking in."

"Ben, how can you hide from the cops as openly as this? The hotel staff alone will give you away."

"Oh, there are ways - the staff doesn't come up here. You see, Mike owns the hotel."

"So much the worse, I would think-"

"So much the better… unless our doughty police chief has Mr. Douglas on his payroll, which I doubt. Mike bought it through about four links of dummies and Douglas doesn't snoop into why Mike wants things done. Douglas doesn't despise me quite as much since Os Kilgallen took over my column, I think, but nevertheless he doesn't want to surrender control to me - he does what Mike wants. The hotel is a sound investment; it makes money but the owner of record is one of our clandestine Ninth Circle. So the owner decides he wants this floor for the season and the manager can't and doesn't and wouldn't want to inquire into why, or how many guests of his own the owner has coming or going - he likes his job; Mike is paying him more than he's worth. It's a pretty good hide-out, for the time being. 'Till Mike groks where we will go next."

"Sounds like Mike had anticipated a need for a hide-out."

"Oh, I'm sure he did. Almost two weeks ago Mike cleared out the nestlings' nest except for Maryam and her baby; Maryam is needed for the job she's on. Mike sent the parents with children to other cities - places he means to open temples, I think - and when the time came, there were just about a dozen of us to move. No sweat."

"As it was, you barely got out with your lives, I take it." Jubal wondered how they had even managed to grab clothes in view of how they probably were not dressed. "You lost all the contents of the Nest? All your personal possessions?"

"Oh, no, not anything we really wanted. Stuff like Stinky's language tapes and a trick typer that Maryam uses; even that horrible Madame Tussaud picture of you. And Mike grabbed our clothes and some cash that was on hand."

Jubal objected, "You say Mike did this? But I thought Mike was in jail when the fire broke out."

"Uh, he was and he wasn't. His body was in jail… curled up in withdrawal. But he was actually with us. You understand?"

"Uh, I don't grok."

"Rapport. He was inside Jill's head, mostly, but we were all pretty closely tied in together. Jubal, I can't explain it; you have to do it. When the explosion hit, he moved us over here. Then he went back and saved the minor stuff worth saving."

Jubal frowned. Caxton said impatiently, "Teleportation, of course. What's so hard to grok about it, Jubal? You yourself told me to come down here and open my eyes and know a miracle when I saw one. So I did and they were. Only they aren't miracles, any more than radio is a miracle. Do you grok radio? Or stereovision? Or electronic computers?"

"Me? No."

"Nor do I, I've never studied electronics. But I'm sure I could if I took the time and the hard sweat to learn the language of e1ctronics. I don't think it's miraculous - just complex. Teleportation is quite simple, once you learn the language - it's the language that is so difficult."

"Ben, you can teleport things?"

"Me? Oh, no, they don't teach that in kindergarten. Oh, I'm a deacon by courtesy, simply because I'm 'First Called' and Ninth Circle - but my actual progress is about Fourth Circle, bucking for Fifth. Why, I'm just beginning to get control of my own body. Patty is the only one of us who uses teleportation herself with any regularity… and I'm not sure she ever does it without Mike's support. Oh, Mike says she's quite capable of it, but Patty is such a curiously naive and humble person for the genius she is that she is quite dependent on Mike. Which she needn't be. Jubal, I grok this: we don't actually need Mike - Oh, I'm not running him down; don't get me wrong. But you could have been the Man from Mars. Or even me.

It's like the first man to discover fire. Fire was there all along - and after he showed that it could be used, anybody could use it… anybody with sense and savvy enough not to get burned with it. Follow me?"

"I grok, somewhat at least."

"Mike is our Prometheus - but remember, Prometheus was not God. Mike keeps emphasizing this. Thou art God, I am God, he is God that groks. Mike is a man along with the rest of us… even though he knows more. A very superior man, admittedly - a lesser man, taught the things the Martians know, probably would have set himself up as a pipsqueak god. Mike is above that temptation. Prometheus… but that's all,"

Jubal said slowly, "As I recall, Prometheus paid a high price for bringing fire to mankind."

"And don't think that Mike doesn't! He pays with twenty-four hours of work every day, seven days a week, trying to teach a few of us how to play with matches without getting burned. Jill and Patty lowered the boom on him, started making him take one night a week off, long before I joined up." Caxton smiled. "But you can't stop Mike. This burg is loaded with gambling joints, no doubt you know, and most of them crooked since it's against the law here. Mike usually spends his night off bucking crooked games - and winning. Picks up ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars a night. They tried to mug him, they tried to kill him, they tried knock-out drops and muscle boys - nothing worked; he simply ran up a reputation as the luckiest man in town… which brought more people into the Temple; they wanted to see this man who always won. So they tried to shut him out of the games - which was a mistake. Their cold decks froze solid, their wheels wouldn't spin, their dice would roll nothing but box cars. At last they started putting up with him… and requesting him politely to please move along after he had won a few grand. Mike would always do so, if asked politely."

Caxton added, "Of course that's one more power bloc we've got against us. Not just the Fosterites and some of the other churches - but the gambling syndicate and the city political machine. I rather suppose that job done on the Temple was by professionals brought in from out of town - I doubt if the Fosterite goon squads touched it. Too professional."

While they talked, people came in, went out again, formed groups themselves or joined Jubal and Ben. Jubal found in them a most unusual feeling, an unhurried relaxation that at the same time was a dynamic tension. No one seemed excited, never in a hurry… yet everything they did seemed purposeful, even gestures as apparently accidental and unpremeditated as encountering one another and marking it with a kiss or a greeting - or sometimes not. It felt to Jubal as if each move had been planned by a master choreographer… yet obviously was not.

The quiet and the increasing tension - or rather "expectancy," he decided; these people were not tense in any morbid fashion - reminded Jubal of something he had known in the past. Surgery? With a master at work, no noise, no lost motions? A little.

Then he recalled it. Once, many years earlier when gigantic chemically powered rockets were used for the earliest probing of space from the third planet, he had watched a count-down in a block house… and he recalled now the same low voices, the same relaxed, very diverse but coordinated actions, the same rising exultant expectancy as the count grew ever smaller. They were "waiting for fullness," that was certain. But for what? Why were they so happy? Their Temple and all they had built had just been destroyed… yet they seemed like kids on the night before Christmas.

Jubal had noted in passing, when he arrived, that the nudity Ben had been so disturbed by on his abortive first visit to the Nest did not seem to be the practice in this surrogate Nest, although private enough in location. Then Jubal realized later that he had failed to notice such cases when they did appear; he had himself become so much in the unique close-family mood of the place that being dressed or not had become an unnoticeable irrelevancy.

When he did notice, it was not skin but the thickest, most beautiful cascade of black hair he had ever seen, gracing a young woman who came in, spoke to someone, threw Ben a kiss, glanced gravely at Jubal, and left. Jubal followed her with his eyes, appreciating that flowing mass of midnight plumage. Only after she left did he realize that she had not been dressed other than in her queenly crowning glory… and then realized, too, that she was not the first of his brothers in that fashion.

Ben noticed his glance. "That's Ruth," he said. "New high priestess. She and her husband have been away, clear on the other coast - their mission was to prepare a branch temple, I think. I'm glad they're back. It's beginning to look as if the whole family will be home at once - like an oldfashioned Christmas dinner."

"Beautiful head of hair. I wish she had tarried."

"Then why didn't you call her over?"

"Eh?"

"Ruth almost certainly found an excuse to come in here just to catch a glimpse of you - I suppose they must have just arrived. But haven't you noticed that we have been left pretty much alone, except for a few who sat down with us, didn't say much, then left?"

"Well… yes." Jubal had noticed and had been a touch disappointed, as he had been braced, by all that he had heard, to ward off undue intimacy - and had found that he had stepped on a top step that wasn't there. He had been treated with hospitality and politeness, but it was more like the politeness of a cat than that of an over-friendly dog.

"They are all terribly interested in the fact that you are here and are very anxious to see you… but they are a little bit afraid of you, too."

"Me?"

"Oh, I told you this last summer. You're a venerable tradition of the church, not quite real and a bit more than life size. Mike has told them that you are the only human being he knows of who can 'grok in fullness' without needing to learn Martian first. Most of them suspect that you can read minds as perfectly as Mike does."

"Oh, what poppycock! I hope you disabused them?"

"Who am I to destroy a myth? Perhaps you do read minds - I'm sure you wouldn't tell me. They are just a touch afraid of you - YOU eat babies for breakfast and when you roar the ground trembles. Any of them would be delighted to have you call them over… but they won't force themselves on you. They know that even Mike stands at attention and says 'sir' when you speak."

Jubal dismissed the whole idea with one short, explosive word.

"Certainly," Ben agreed. "Even Mike has his blind spots - I told you he was only human. But that's how it is. You're the patron saint of this church - and you're stuck with it."

"Well… there's somebody I know, just came in. Jill! Jill! Turn around, dear!"

The woman turned rather hesitantly. "I'm Dawn. But thank you." She came over, however, and Jubal thought for an instant that she was going to kiss him… and decided not to duck it. But she either had not that intention, or changed her mind. She dropped to one knee, took his hand and kissed it. "Father Jubal. We welcome you and drink deep of you."

Jubal snatched his hand away. "Oh, for heaven's sake, child! Get up from there and sit with us. Share water."

"Yes, Father Jubal."

"Uh… and call me Jubal - and pass the word around that I don't appreciate being treated like a leper. I'm in the bosom of my family - I hope."

"You are… Jubal."

"So I expect to be called Jubal and treated as a water brother - no more, no less. The first one who treats me with respect will be required to stay in after school. Grok?"

"Yes, Jubal," she answered demurely. "I've told them. They will."

"Huh?"

"Dawn means," explained Ben, "that she's told Patty, probably, since Mike is withdrawn at the moment… and that Patty is telling everybody who can hear easily - with his inner ear - and they are passing the word to any who are still a bit deaf, like myself."

"Yes," agreed Dawn, "except that I told Jill - Patty has gone outside for something Michael wants. Jubal, have you been watching any of what is showing in the stereo tank? It's very exciting."

"Eh? No."

"You mean the jail break, Dawn?"

"Yes, Ben"

"We hadn't discussed that - and Jubal doesn't like stereo. Jubal, Mike didn't merely crush out and come home when he felt like it; he gave them a dilemma to sit on. Here he has just been arrested for everything but raping the Statue of Liberty, with Bigmouth Short denouncing him as the Antichrist on the same day. So he gave 'em miracles to chew on. He threw away every bar and door in the county jail as he left… did the same at the state prison just out of town for good measure, and disarmed all the police forces, city, county, and state. Partly to keep 'em busy and interested… and partly because Mike just purely despises locking a man up for any reason at all. He groks a great wrongness in it."

"That fits," Jubal agreed. "Mike is gentle, always. It would hurt him to have anybody locked up. I agree."

Ben shook his head. "Mike isn't gentle, Jubal. Killing a man wouldn't worry him. But he's the ultimate anarchist - locking a man up is a wrongness. Freedom of self-and utter personal responsibility for self. Thou art God."

"Wherein lies the conflict, sir? Killing a man might be necessary. But confining him is an offense against his integrity - and your own."

Ben looked at him. "I grok Mike was right. You do grok in fullness - his way. I don't quite - I'm still learning." He added, "How are they taking it, Dawn?"

She giggled slightly. "Like a stirred-up hornets' nest. The mayor has been on… and he's frothing at the mouth. He's demanded help from the state and from the Federation - and he's getting it; we've seen lots of troop carriers landing. But as they pour out, Mike is stripping them - not just their weapons. even their shoes - and as soon as the troop carrier is empty, it goes, too."

Ben said, "I grok he'll stay withdrawn until they get tired and give up. Handling that many details he would almost have to stay in it and on eternal time."

Dawn looked thoughtful. "No, I don't think so, Ben. Of course I would have to, in order to handle even a tenth so much. But I grok Michael could do it riding a bicycle while standing on his head."

"Mmm… I wouldn't know, I'm still making mud pies." Ben stood up. "Sometimes you miracle workers give me a slight pain, honey child. I'm going to go watch the tank for a while." He stopped to kiss her. "You entertain old Pappy Jubal; he likes little girls." Caxton left and a package of cigarettes he had left on a coffee table got up, followed him, and placed themselves in one of his pockets.

Jubal said, "Did you do that? Or Ben?"

"Ben did. I don't smoke, unless the man I'm with wants to smoke. But he's always forgetting his cigarettes; they chase him all over the Nest."

"Hmmm… pretty fair-sized mud pies he makes these days."

"Ben is advancing much more rapidly than he will ever admit. He's a very holy person - but he hates to admit it. He's shy."

"Umph. Dawn, you are the Dawn Ardent I met at Foster Tabernacle about two and half years ago, aren't you?"

"Oh, you remember!!" She looked as if he had handed her a lollipop.

"Of course I remember. But I was slightly puzzled. You've changed some. All for the better. You seem much more beautiful."

"That's because I am more beautiful," she said simply. "You mistook me for Gillian. And she is more beautiful, too."

"Where is that child? I haven't seen her… and I expected to see her at once."

"She's been working." Dawn paused. "But I told her and she says she's coming in." She paused again. "And I am to take her place. If you will excuse me."

"Oh, certainly. Run along, child."

"There's no hurry." But she did get up and leave almost at once as Dr. Mahmoud sat down.

Jubal looked at him sourly. "You might at least have had the common courtesy to let me know that you were in this country instead of letting me meet my goddaughter for the first time through the good offices of a snake."

"Oh, Jubal, you're always in such a bloody hurry,"

"Sir, when one is of-" Jubal was interrupted by two hands placed over his eyes from behind. A well-remembered voice demanded:

"Guess who?"

"Beelzebub?"

"Try again."

"Lady Macbeth?"

"Much closer. Third guess, or a forfeit."

"Gillian, stop that and come around here and sit beside me."

"Yes, Father." She obeyed.

"And knock off calling me 'Father' anywhere but home. Sir, I was saying that when one is of my age, one is necessarily in a hurry about some things. Each sunrise is a precious jewel… for it may never be followed by its sunset. The world may end at any moment."

Mahmoud smiled at him. "Jubal, are you under the impression that if you stop cranking, the world stops going around?"

"Most certainly, sir - from my viewpoint." Miriam joined them silently, sat down on Jubal's free side; he put an arm around her. "While I might not be honing to see your ugly face again… nor even to gaze on the somewhat more acceptable one of my former secretary-"

Miriam whispered, "Boss, are you honing for a kick in the stomach? I'm exquisitely beautiful; I have it on highest authority."

"Quiet. -new goddaughters are in another category. Through your failure to drop me so much as a postcard, I might have missed seeing Fatima Michele. In which case I would have returned to haunt you."

"In which case," Miriam pointed out, "you could take a took at Micky at the same time… rubbing strained carrots in her hair. A disgusting sight."

"I was speaking metaphorically."

"I wasn't. She's a sloppy trencherman."

"Why," asked Jill quietly, "were you speaking metaphorically, Boss?"

"Eh? The concept 'ghost' is one I feel no need for, other than as a figure of speech."

"It's more than a figure of speech," insisted Jill.

"Uh… as may be. I prefer to meet baby girls in the flesh, including my own."

Dr. Malmoud said, "But that is what I was saying, Jubal. You aren't about to die; you aren't even close to it. Mike has grokked you to be certain. He says you have a long stretch of years ahead of you."

Jubal shook his head. "I set a top limit of three figures years ago. No more."

"Which three figures, Boss?" Miriam inquired innocently. "The three Methuselah used?"

He shook her shoulders. "Don't be obscene!"

"Stinky says women should be obscene but not heard."

"Your husband speaks rightly. So pipe down. The day my machine first shows three figures on its mileage meter is the day I discorporate, whether Martian style or by my own crude methods. You can't take that away from me. Going to the showers is the best part of the game."

"I grok you speak rightly, Jubal," Jill said slowly, "about its being the best part of the game. But I wouldn't count on it any time soon. Your fullness is not yet. Allie cast a horoscope on you just last week."

"A horoscope? Oh, my God! Who is 'Ailie?' And how dare she cast a horoscope on me! Show her to me! Swelp me, I'll turn her in to the Better Business Bureau."

"I'm afraid you can't, Jubal," Mahmoud put in, "just now, as she is working on our dictionary. As to who she is, she's Madame Alexandra Vesant."

Jubal sat up and looked pleased. "Becky? Is she in this nut house, too? I should have known it. Where is she?"

"Yes, Becky. But we call her 'Allie' because we've got another Becky. But you'll have to wait. And don't scoff at her horoscopes, Jubal; she has the Sight."

"Oh, balderdash, Stinky. Astrology is nonsense and you know it."

"Oh, certainly. Even Allie knows it. And a percentage of astrologers are clumsy frauds. Nevertheless Allie practices it even more assiduously than she used to, when she did it for the public - using Martian arithmetic now and Martian astronomy - much fuller than ours. But it's her device for grokking, It could be gazing into a pool of water, or a crystal ball, or examining the entrails of a chicken. The means she uses to get into the mood do not matter and Mike has advised her to go on using the symbols she is used to. The point is: she has the Sight."

"What the hell do you mean by 'the Sight,' Stinky?"

"The ability to grok more of the universe than that little piece you happen to be sitting on at the moment. Mike has it from years of Martian discipline; Allie was an untrained semi-adept. The fact that she used as meaningless a symbol as astrology is beside the point. A rosary is meaningless, too - I speak of a Muslim rosary, of course; I'm not criticizing our competitors across the street." Mahmoud reached into his pocket, got out one, started fingering it. "If it helps to turn your hat around during a poker game - then it helps. It is irrelevant that the hat has no magic powers and cannot grok."

Jubal looked at the Islamic device for meditation and ventured a question he had hesitated to put before. "Then I take it you are still one of the Faithful? I had thought perhaps that you had joined Mike's church all the way."

Mahmoud put away the beads. "I have done both."

"Huh? Stinky, they're incompatible. Or else I don't grok either one."

Mahmoud shook his head. "Only on the surface. You could say, I suppose, that Maryam took my religion and I took hers; we consolidated. But, Jubal my beloved brother, I am still God's slave, submissive to His will… and nevertheless can say: 'Thou art God, I am God, all that groks is God.' The Prophet never asserted that he was the last of all prophets nor did he claim to have said all there was to say - only fanatics after his lifetime insisted on those two very misleading fallacies. Submission to God's will is not to become a blind robot, incapable of free decision and thus of sin - and the Koran does not say that. Submission can include - and does include - utter responsibility for the fashion in which I, and each of us, shape the universe. It is ours to turn into a heavenly garden or to rend and destroy." He smiled. "'With God all things are possible,' if I may borrow for a moment - except one thing… the one Impossible. God cannot escape Himself, He cannot abdicate His own total responsibility - He forever must remain submissive to His own will. Islam remains - He cannot pass the buck. It is His - mine… yours Mike's."

Jubal heaved a sigh. "Stinky, theology always gives me the pip. Where's Becky? Can't she knock off this dictionary work and say hello to an old friend? I've seen her only once in the last twenty-odd years; that's too long."

"You'll see her. But she can't stop now, she's dictating. Let me explain the technique, so that you won't insist. Up to now, I've been spending part of each day in rapport with Mike - just a few moments although it feels like an eight-hour day. Then I would immediately dictate all that he had poured into me onto tape. From those tapes several other people, trained in Martian phonetics but not necessarily advanced students, would make long-hand phonetic transcriptions. Then Maryam would type them out, using a special typer - and this master copy Mike or I - Mike by choice, but his time is choked - would correct by hand.

"But our schedule has been disturbed now, and Mike groks that he is going to send Maryam and me away to some Shangri-la to finish the job - or, more correctly, he has grokked that we will grok such a necessity. So Mike is getting months and years of tape completed in order that I can take it away and unhurriedly break it into a phonetic script that humans can learn to read. Besides that, we have stacks of tapes of Mike's lectures - in Martian - that need to be transcribed into print when the dictionary is finished… lectures that we understood at the time with his help but later will need to be printed, with the dictionary.

"Now I am forced to assume that Maryam and I will be leaving quite soon, because, busy as Mike is with a hundred other things, he's changed the method. There are eight bedrooms here equipped with tape recorders. Those of us who can do it best - Patty, Jill, myself; Maryam, your friend Allie, some others - take turns in those rooms. Mike puts us into a short trance, pours language - definitions, idioms, concepts - into us for a few moments that feel like hours… then we dictate at once just what he has poured into us, exactly, while it's still fresh. But it can't be just anybody, even of the Innermost Temple. It requires a sharp accent and the ability to join the trance rapport and then spill out the results. Sam, for example, has everything but the clear accent - he manages, God knows how, to speak Martian with a Bronx accent. Can't use him, it would cause endless errata in the dictionary. And that is what Allie is doing now - dictating. She's still in the semi-trance needed for total recall and, if you interrupt her, she'll lose what she still hasn't recorded."

"I grok," Jubal agreed, "although the picture of Becky Vesey as a Martian adept shakes me a little. Still, she was once one of the best mentalists in show business; she could give a cold reading that would scare any mark right out of his shoes - and loosen his pocketbook. Say, Stinky, if you are going to be sent away for peace and quiet while you unwind all this data, why don't you and Maryam come home? Plenty of room for a study amp; bedroom suite in the new wing."

"Perhaps we shall. Waiting still is."

"Sweetheart," Miriam said earnestly, "that's a solution I would just plain love if Mike pushes us out of the Nest."

"If we grok to leave the Nest, you mean."

"Same thing… you grok."

"You speak rightly, my dear. But when do we eat around here? I feel a most un-Martian urgency inside. The service was better in the Nest."

"You can't expect Patty to work on your dratted old dictionary, see to it that everyone who arrives is comfortable, run errands for Mike, and still have food on the table the instant you get hungry, my love. Jubal, Stinky will never achieve priesthood - he's a slave to his stomach."

"Well, so am I."

"And you girls might give Patty a hand," her husband added.

"That sounds like a crude hint. You know we do, dear, all she will let us - and Tony will hardly allow anyone in his kitchen… even this kitchen." She stood up. "Come on, Jubal, and let's see what's cooking. Tony will be very flattered if you visit his kitchen."

Jubal went with her, was a bit bemused to see telekinesis used in preparing food, met Tony, who scowled until he saw who was with her, then was beamingly proud to show off his workshop, accompanied by a spate of invective in mixed English and Italian at the scoundrels who had destroyed "his" kitchen in the Nest. In the meantime a spoon, unassisted, continued to keel a big pot of spaghetti sauce.

Shortly thereafter Jubal declined to be jockeyed into a seat at the head of a long table, grabbed one elsewhere. Patty sat at one end; the head chair remained vacant… except for an eerie feeling which Jubal suppressed that the Man from Mars was sitting there and that everyone present but himself could see him which was true only in some cases.

Across the table from him was Dr. Nelson.

Jubal discovered that he would have been surprised only if Dr. Nelson had not been present. He nodded and said, "Hi, Sven."

"Hi, Doc. Share water."

"Never thirst. What are you around here? Staff physician?" Nelson shook his bead. "Medical student."

"So. Learn anything?"

"I've learned that medicine isn't necessary."

"If youda ast me, I coulda told yah. Seen Van?"

"He ought to be in sometime late tonight or early tomorrow. His ship grounded today."

"Does he always come here?" inquired Jubal.

"Call him an extension student. He can't spend much time here."

"Well, it will be good to see him. I haven't laid eyes on him for a year and half, about." Jubal picked up a conversation with the man on his right while Nelson talked with Dorcas on his right. Jubal noticed the same tingling expectancy at the table which he had felt before, but reinforced. Yet there was still nothing he could put his finger on, just a quiet family dinner in relaxed intimacy. Once, a glass of water was passed all around the table, but, if there was ritual of words with it, they were spoken too low to carry. When it reached Jubal's placer he took a sip and passed it along to the girl on his left - round-eyed and too awed to make chit-chat with him - and himself said in a low voice, "I offer you water."

She managed to answer, "I thank you for water, Fa- Jubal." That was almost the only word be got out of her. When the glass completed the circuit, reaching the vacant chair at the head of the table, there was perhaps a half inch of water in it. It raised itself, poured, and the water disappeared, then the tumbler placed itself on the cloth. Jubal decided, correctly, that he had taken part in a group Sharing Water of the Innermost Temple… and probably in his honour - although it certainly was not even slightly like the Bacchallalhan revels he had thought accompanied such formal welcome of a brother. Was it because they were in strange surroundings? Or had he read into unexplicit reports what his own id wanted to find in those reports?

Or had they simply toned it down to an ascetic formality out of deference to his age and opinions?

The last seemed the most likely theory - and he found that it vexed him. Of course, he told himself, he was glad to be spared the need to refuse an invitation that he certainly did not want - and would not have relished at any age, his tastes being what they were.

But just the same, damn it - "Don't anybody mention ice skating because Grandmaw is too old and frail for ice skating and it wouldn't be polite. Hulda, you suggest that we play checkers and we'll all chime in - Grandmaw likes checkers. And we'll go ice skating some other time. Okay, kids?"

Jubal resented the respectful consideration, if that was what it was - he would almost have preferred to have gone ice skating anyhow, even at the cost of a broken hip.

But he decided to forget the matter, put it entirely out of mind, which he did with the help of the man on his right, who was as talkative as the girl on his left was not. His name, Jubal learned, was Sam, and presently he learned that Sam was a man of broad and deep scholarship, a trait Jubal valued in anyone when it was not mere parrot learning - and he grokked that in Sam it was not.

"This setback is only apparent," Sam assured him. "The egg was ready to hatch and now we'll spread out. Of course we've had trouble; we'll go on having trouble - because no society, no matter how liberal its law may appear to be, will allow its basic concepts to be challenged with impunity. Which is exactly what we are doing. We are challenging everything from the sanctity of property to the sanctity of marriage."

"Property, too?"

"Property the way it rules today. So far Michael has merely antagonized a few crooked gamblers. But what happens when there are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and more, of people who can't be stopped by bank vaults and who have only their self-discipline to restrain them from taking anything they want? To be sure, that discipline is stronger than any possible legal restraint - but no banker can grok that until he himself travels the thorny road to achieve that discipline… and he'll wind up no longer a banker. What happens to the stock market when the illuminati know which way a stock will move - and the brokers don't?"

"Do you know?"

Sam shook his head. "Not interested. But Saul over there - that other big Hebe; he's my cousin - gives it grokking, along with Allie. Michael has them be very cautious about it, no big killings, and they use a dozen-odd dummy accounts - but the fact remains that any of the disciplined can make any amount of money at anything - real estate, stocks, horse races, gambling, you name it - when competing with the half awake. No, I don't think that money and property will disappear - Michael says that both concepts are useful - but I do say that they're going to be turned upside down and inside out to the point where people will have to learn new rules (and that means learn the hard way, just as we have) or be hopelessly outclassed. What happens to Lunar Enterprises when the common carrier between here and Luna City is teleportation?"

"Should I buy? Or sell?"

"Ask Saul. He might use the present corporation, or he might bankrupt it. Or it might be left untouched for a century or two. But besides bankers and brokers, consider any other occupation. How can a school teacher teach a child who knows more than she does and won't hold still for mistaken teaching? What becomes of physicians and dentists when people are truly healthy? What happens to the cloak amp; suit industry and to the I.L.G.W.U. when clothing isn't really needed at all and women aren't so endlessly interested in dressing up (they'll never lose interest entirely) - and nobody gives a damn if he's caught with his arse bare? What shape does 'the Farm Problem' take when weeds can be told not to grow and crops can be harvested without benefit of International Harvester or John Deere? Just name it; it changes beyond recognition when the discipline is applied. Take just one change that will shake both the sanctity of marriage - in its present form - and the sanctity of property. Jubal, do you have any idea how much is spent each year in this country on Malthusian drugs and devices?"

"I have a fairly exact idea, Sam. Almost a billion dollars on oral contraceptives alone this last fiscal year… more than half of which was for patent nostrums about as useful as corn starch."

"Oh, yes, you're a medical man."

"Only in passing. A pack rat mind."

"Either way. What happens to that big industry - and to the shrill threats of moralists - when a female can conceive only when she elects to as an act of volition, when also she is immune to disease, cares only for the approval of her own sort… and has her orientation so changed that she desires intercourse with a whole-heartedness that Cleopatra never dreamed of - but any male who tried to rape her would die so quickly, if she so grokked, that he wouldn't know what hit him? When women are free of guilt and fear - but invulnerable other than by decision of self? Hell, the pharmaceutical industry will be just a passing casualty - what other industries, laws, institutions, attitudes, prejudices, and nonsense must give way?"

"I don't grok its fullness," admitted Jubal. "It concerns a subject that has been of little direct interest to me in quite a while."

"One institution won't be damaged by it. Marriage."

"So?"

"Very much so. Instead it will be purged, strengthened, and made endurable. Endurable? Ecstatic! See that wench down there with the long black hair?"

"Yes. I was delighting in its beauty earlier."

"She knows it's beautiful and it's grown a foot and a half longer since we joined the church. That's my wife. Not much over a year ago we lived together about like bad-tempered dogs. She was jealous… and I was inattentive. Bored. Hell, we were both bored and only our kids kept us together - that and her possessiveness; I knew she would never let me go without a fight and a scandal… and I didn't have any stomach for trying to put together a new marriage at my age, anyhow. So I got a little on the side, when I could get away with it - a college professor has many temptations, few safe opportunities - and Ruth was quietly bitter. Or sometimes not so quiet. And then we joined up." Sam grinned happily. "And I fell in love with my own wife. Number-one gal friend."

Sam's words had been very quiet, an intimate conversation walled by noise of eating and cheerful company. His wife was far down the table. She looked up and said clearly, "That's an exaggeration, Jubal. I think I'm about number six."

Her husband called out, "Stay out of my mind, beautiful! - we're talking men talk. Give Larry your undivided attention." He picked up a hard roll, threw it at her.

She stopped it in mid-trajectory, threw it back at him while continuing to talk; Sam caught it and buttered it. "I'm giving Larry all the attention he wants… until later, maybe. Jubal, that brute didn't let me finish. Number-six place is wonderful! Because my name wasn't even on the list till we joined the church. I hadn't rated as high as six with Sam in the past twenty years." She did then turn her attention back to Larry.

"The real point," Sam said quietly, "is that we two are now partners, much more than we ever were even at the best period in our outside marriage - and we got that way through the training, culminating in sharing and growing closer with others who had the same training. We all wind up in twosome partnerships inside the larger group - usually, but not necessarily, with our own spouses-of-record. Sometimes not… and if not, the readjustment takes place with no heartache and a warmer, closer, better relationship between the soidisant 'divorced' couple than ever, both in bed and out. No loss and all gain. Shucks, this pairing as partners needn't even be between man and woman. Dawn and Jill for example - they work together like an acrobatic team."

"Hmm… I suppose," Jubal said thoughtfully, "that I had thought of those two as being Mike's wives."

"No more so than they are to any of us. Or than Mike is to all the rest. Mike is too busy, has been, I should say, until the Temple burned - to do more than make sure that he shared himself all the way around." Sam added, "If anybody is Mike's wife, it's Patty, although she keeps so busy herself that the relation is more spiritual than physical. Actually, you could say that both Mike and Patty are short-changed when it comes to mauling the mattress."

Patty was not quite as far away as Ruth, but far enough. She looked up and said, "Sam dear, I don't feel short-changed."

"Huh?" Sam then announced, loudly and bitterly, "The only thing wrong with this church is that a man has absolutely no privacy!"

This brought a barrage of food in his direction, all from distaff members. He handled it all and tossed it back without lifting a hand… until the complexity of it apparently got to be too much and a plateful of spaghetti caught him full in the face-thrown, Jubal noticed, by Dorcas.

For a moment Sam looked like a particularly ghastly crash victim. Then suddenly his face was clean and even the sauce that had spattered on Jubal's shirt was gone. "Don't give her any more, Tony. She wasted it; let her go hungry."

"Plenty more in the kitchen," Tony answered. "Sam, you look good in spaghetti. Pretty good sauce, huh?" Dorcas's plate sailed out to the kitchen, returned, loaded. Jubal decided that Dorcas had not been concealing talents from him - the plate was much more heavily filled than she would have chosen herself; he knew her appetite.

"Very good sauce," agreed Sam. "I salvaged some that hit me in the mouth. What is it? Or shouldn't I ask?"

"Chopped policeman," Tony answered.

Nobody laughed. For a queasy instant Jubal wondered if the joke was a joke. Then he recalled that these his water brothers smiled a lot but rarely laughed - and besides, policeman should be good healthy food. But the sauce couldn't be "long pig" in any case, or it would taste like pork. This sauce had a distinct beef flavor to it.

He changed the subject. "The thing I like best about this religion-"

"Is it a religion?" Sam inquired.

"Well, church. Call it a church. You did."

"It is a church," agreed Sam. "It fills every function of a church, and its quasi-theology does, I admit, match up fairly well with some real religions. Faiths. I jumped in because I used to be a stalwart atheist - and now I'm a high priest and I don't know what I aim"

"I understood you to say you were Jewish."

"I am. From a long line of rabbis. So I wound up atheist. Now look at me. But my cousin Saul and my wife Ruth are both Jews in the religious sense - and talk to Saul; you'll find it's no handicap to this discipline. A help, probably… as Ruth, once she broke past the first barrier, progressed faster than I did; she was a priestess quite a while before I became a priest. But she's the spiritual sort; she thinks with her gonads. Me, I have to do it the hard way, between my ears."

"The discipline," repeated Jubal. "That's what I like best about it. The faith I was reared in didn't require anybody to know anything. Just confess your sins and be saved, and there you were, safe in the arms of Jesus. A man could be too stupid to hit the floor with his hat… and yet he could be conclusively presumed to be one of God's elect, guaranteed au eternity of bliss, because he had been 'converted.' He might or might not become a Bible student; even that wasn't necessary… and he certainly didn't have to know, or even try to know, anything else. This church doesn't accept 'conversion' as I grok it-"

"You grok correctly."

"A person must start with a willingness to learn and follow it with some long, hard study. I grok that is salutary, in itself."

"More than salutary," agreed Sam. "Indispensable. The concepts can't be thought about without the language, and the discipline that results in this horn-of-plenty of benefits - from how to live without fighting to how to please your wife - all derive from the conceptual logic… understanding who you are, why you're here, how you tick - and behaving accordingly. Happiness is a matter of functioning the way a human being is organized to function… but the words in English are a mere tautology, empty. In Martian they are a complete set of working instructions. Did I mention that I had a cancer when I came here?"

"Eh? No, you didn't."

"Didn't know it myself. Michael grokked it, sent me out for the usual X rays and so forth so that I would be sure. Then we got to work on it together. 'Faith' healing. A miracle. The clinic called it 'spontaneous remission' which I grok means 'I got well.'"

Jubal nodded. "Professional double-talk. Some cancers go away, we don't know why."

"I know why this one went away. By then I was beginning to control my own body. With Mike's help I repaired the damage. Now I can do it without his help. Want to feel a heart stop beating?"

"Thanks, I have observed it in Mike, many times. My esteemed colleague, Croaker Nelson, would not be sitting across from us if what you are talking about was 'faith healing.' It's voluntary control of the body. I grok."

"Sorry. We all know that you do. We know."

"Mmm… I dislike to call Mike a liar because he isn't. But the lad happens to be prejudiced in my case."

Sam shook his head. "I've been talking with you all through dinner. I wanted to check it myself, despite what Mike said. You grok. I'm wondering what new things you could disclose to us if you troubled to learn the language?"

"Nothing. I'm an old man with little to contribute to anything."

"I insist on reserving my opinion. All the rest of the First Called have had to tackle the language to make any real progress. Even the three you've kept with you have had some powerful coaching, being kept in trance during most of the short days and the few occasions we've had them with us. All but you… and you don't really need it. Unless you want to wipe spaghetti from your face without a towel, which I grok you aren't interested in anyhow."

"Only to observe it."

Most of the others had left the table, leaving quietly and without formality when they wished. Ruth came over and stood by them. "Are you two going to sit here all night? Or shall we move you out with the dishes?"

"I'm henpecked. Come on, Jubal." Sam stopped to kiss his wife.

They stopped only momentarily in the room with the stereo tank. "Anything new?" asked Sam.

"The county attorney," someone said, "has been orating in an attempt to prove that all of today's disasters are our doing… without admitting that he doesn't have the slightest notion how any of it was done."

"Poor fellow. He's bitten a wooden leg and his teeth hurt." They went on through and found a quieter living room; Sam said, "I had been saying that these troubles can be expected - and they will get much worse before we can expect to control enough public opinion to be tolerated. But Mike is in no hurry. So we close down the Church of All Worlds - it is closed down. So we move and open the congregation of the One Faith - and we get kicked out again. Then we reopen elsewhere as the Temple of the Great Pyramid - that one will bring flocking the foolish fat and fatuous females, and some of them will end up neither fat nor foolish - and when we have the Medical Association and the local bar and the newspapers and the boss politicos snapping at our heels there - why, we open the Brotherhood of Baptism somewhere else. Each one means solid progress, a hard core of disciplined who can't be hurt - Mike started here hardly over a year ago, uncertain himself, and with only the help of three untrained priestesses-by-courtesy. Now we've got a solid Nest… plus a lot of fairly advanced pilgrims we can get in touch with later and let rejoin us. And someday, someday, we'll be too strong to persecute."

"Well," agreed Jubal, "it could work. Jesus made quite a splash with only twelve disciples. In due course."

Sam grinned happily. "A Jew boy. Thanks for mentioning Him. He's the outstanding success story of my tribe - and we all know it, even though many of us don't talk about Him. But He was a Jew boy that made good and I'm proud of Him, being a Jew boy myself. Please to note that Jesus didn't try to get it all done by next Wednesday. He was patient. He set up a sound organization and let it grow. Mike is patient, too. Patience is so much part of the discipline that it isn't even patience; it's automatic. No sweat. Never any sweat."

"A sound attitude at any time."

"Not an attitude. The functioning of the discipline. Jubal? I grok you are tired. Would you wish to become untired? Or would you rather go to bed? If you don't, our brothers will keep you up all night, talking. Most of us don't sleep much, you know."

Jubal yawned. "I think I'll choose a long, hot soak and about eight hours of sleep. I'll visit with our brothers tomorrow… and other days."

"And many other days," agreed Sam.

Jubal found his own room, was immediately joined by Patty, who again insisted on drawing his tub, then turned back his bed, neatly, without touching it, placed his setup for drinks (fresh ice cubes) by his bed, and fixed one and placed it on the shelf of the tub. Jubal did not try to hurry her out; she had arrived displaying all her pictures. He knew enough about the syndrome which can lead to full tattooing to be quite sure that if he did not now remark on them and ask to be allowed to examine them, she would be very hurt even though she might conceal it.

Nor did he display or feel any of the fret that Ben had felt on an earlier, similar occasion; he went right ahead and undressed, making nothing of it - and discovered with wryly bitter pride that it did not matter to him in the least even though it had been many years since the last time he had allowed anyone, man or woman, to see him naked. It seemed to matter not at all to Patty and even less to him. She simply made sure that the tub was just right before allowing him to step into it.

Then she remained and told him what each picture was and in what sequence to view them.

Jubal was properly awed and appropriately complimentary, while completely the impersonal art critic. But it was, he admitted to himself, the goddamdest display of virtuosity with a needle he had ever seen - it made his fully decorated Japanese friend look like a cheap carpet as compared with the finest Princess Bokhara.

"They've been changing a little," she told him. "Take the holy birth scene here - that rear wall is beginning to look curved… and the bed looks almost like a hospital table. Of course I have been changing, too, quite a lot. I'm sure George doesn't mind. There hasn't been a needle touched to me since he went to Heaven… and if some miraculous changes take place, I'm sure he knows about them and has a finger in it somehow."

Jubal decided that Patty was a little dotty but quite nice… on the whole, he preferred people who were a little dotty; "the salt of the earth" citizen left him cold. Not too dotty, he amended; Patty had let him undress himself, then had whisked his clothes into his wardrobe without coming near them. She was probably a clear proof that one didn't have to be sane, whatever that was, to benefit by this remarkable Martian discipline that the boy apparently could teach to anyone.

Presently he sensed that she was ready to leave and suggested it by asking her to kiss his goddaughters goodnight - he had forgotten to. "I was tired, Patty."

She nodded. "And I am called for dictionary work." She leaned over and kissed him, warmly but quickly. "I'll take that one to our babies."

"And a pat for Honey Bun."

"Yes, of course. She groks you, Jubal. She knows you like snakes."

"Good. Share water, brother."

"Thou art God, Jubal." She was gone. Jubal settled back in the tub, was surprised to find that he did not seem tired now and his bones no longer ached. Patty was a tonic… serene happiness on the hoof. He wished that he himself had no doubts - then admitted that he didn't want to be anybody but himself, old and cranky and self-indulgent.

Finally he soaped and showered and decided to shave so that he wouldn't have to before breakfast. After a leisurely time he bolted the door of his room, turned out the overhead light, and got into bed.

He had looked around for something to read, found nothing to his annoyance, being addicted to this vice above all else and not wishing to go out again and scare up something. He sipped part of a drink instead and turned out the bed light.

He did not go right to sleep. His pleasant chat with Patty seemed to have wakened and rested him. He was still awake when Dawn came in.

He called out, "Who's there?"

"It's Dawn, Jubal."

"It can't be dawn yet; it was only- Oh."

"Yes, Jubal. Me."

"Damn it, I thought I bolted that door. Child, march straight out of - Hey! Get out of this bed. Git!"

"Yes, Jubal. I will. But I want to tell you something first."

"Huh?"

"I have loved you a long time. Almost as long as Jill has."

"Why, the very- Quit talking nonsense and shake your little fanny out that door."

"I will, Jubal," she said very humbly. "But I want you to listen to something first. Something about women."

"I don't want to hear it now. Tell me in the morning."

"Now, Jubal."

He sighed. "Talk. Stay where you are."

"Jubal… my beloved brother. Men care very much how we women look. So we try to be beautiful and that is a goodness. I used to be a peeler, as I know you know. It was a goodness, too, to let men enjoy the beauty I was for them. It was a goodness for me, to know that they needed what I had to give.

"But, Jubal, women are not men. We care about what a man is. It can be something as silly as: Is he wealthy? Or it can be: Will he take care of my children and be good to them? Or, sometimes, it can be: Is he good? - as you are good, Jubal. But the beauty we see in you is not the beauty you see in us. You are beautiful, Jubal."

"For God's sake!"

"I think you speak rightly. Thou art God and I am God - and I need you. I offer you water. Will you let me share and grow closer?"

"Now, look, little girl, if I understood what you are offering-"

"You grokked, Jubal. To share together all that we have. Ourselves. Selves."

"I thought so. My dear, you have plenty to share - but… myself - well, you arrived some years too late. I am sincerely regretful, believe me. Thank you. Deeply. Now go away and let an old man get his sleep."

"You will sleep, when waiting is filled. Jubal… I could lend you strength. But I grok clearly that it is not necessary."

(Goddamit - it wasn't necessary!) "No, Dawn. Thank you, dear."

She got to her knees and bent over him. "Just one more word, then. Jill told me, that if you argued, I was to cry. Shall I get my tears all over your chest? And share water with you that way?"

"I'm going to spank Jill!"

"Yes, Jubal. I'm starting to cry." She made no sound, but in only a second or two a warm, full tear splashed on his chest - was followed quickly by another… and another - and still more. She sobbed almost silently.

Jubal cursed and reached for her… and cooperated with the inevitable.