Stranger in a Strange Land Read online

  “If you vouch for them, Jubal,” van Tromp assured him, “admit them and tyle the door. But let’s drink to the girls. Sven, what’s that toast to the flickas?”

  “The one to pretty girls everywhere? Let’s drink to the four who are here. Skaal!” They drank to their female water brothers and Nelson continued, “Jubal, where do you find them?”

  “Raise ’em in my own cellar. Then when I’ve got ’em trained, some city slicker comes along and marries them. It’s a losing game.”

  “I see how you suffer,” Nelson said sympathetically.

  “I do. I trust all you gentlemen are married?”

  Two were, Mahmoud was not. Jubal looked at him bleakly. “Would you have the grace to discorporate? After lunch—I wouldn’t want you to do it on an empty stomach.”

  “I’m no threat, I’m a permanent bachelor.”

  “Come, sir! I saw Dorcas making eyes at you . . . and you were purring.”

  “I’m safe, I assure you.” Mahmoud thought of telling Jubal that he would never marry out of his faith, decided that a gentile would take it amiss. “But, Jubal, don’t make a suggestion like that to Mike. He wouldn’t grok that you were joking—and you might have a corpse on your hands. I don’t know that Mike can think himself dead. But he would try.”

  “I’m sure he can,” Nelson said firmly. “Doctor—‘Jubal’ I mean—have you noticed anything odd about Mike’s metabolism?”

  “Uh, let me put it this way. I haven’t noticed anything about his metabolism that is not odd.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jubal turned to Mahmoud. “Don’t worry that I might invite Mike to suicide. I grok that he doesn’t grok joking.” Jubal blinked. “But I don’t grok ‘grok.’ Stinky, you speak Martian.”

  “A little.”

  “You speak it fluently, I heard you. Do you grok ‘grok’?”

  Mahmoud looked thoughtful. “No. ‘Grok’ is the most important word in the language—and I expect to spend years trying to understand it. But I don’t expect to be successful. You need to think in Martian to grok the word ‘grok.’ Perhaps you have noticed that Mike takes a veering approach to some ideas?”

  “Have I! My throbbing head!”

  “Mine, too.”

  “Food,” announced Jubal. “Lunch, and about time! Girls, put it where we can reach it and maintain a respectful silence. Go on, Doctor. Or does Mike’s presence make it better to postpone it?”

  “Not at all.” Mahmoud spoke in Martian to Mike. Mike answered, smiled sunnily; his expression became blank again and he applied himself to food. “I told him what I was trying to do and he told me that I would speak rightly; this was not opinion but a fact, a necessity. I hope that if I fail to, he will notice and tell me. But I doubt if he will. Mike thinks in Martian—and this gives him a different ‘map.’ You follow me?”

  “I grok it,” agreed Jubal. “Language itself shapes a man’s basic ideas.”

  “Yes, but—Doctor, you speak Arabic?”

  “Eh? Badly,” admitted Jubal. “Put in a while as an army surgeon in North Africa. I still read it because I prefer the words of the Prophet in the original.”

  “Proper. The Koran cannot be translated—the ‘map’ changes no matter how one tries. You understand, then, how difficult I found English. It was not alone that my native language has simpler inflections; the ‘map’ changed. English is the largest human tongue; its variety, subtlety, and irrational idiomatic complexity make it possible to say things in English which cannot be said in any other language. It almost drove me crazy . . . until I learned to think in it—and that put a new ‘map’ of the world on top of the one I grew up with. A better one, perhaps—certainly a more detailed one.

  “But there are things which can be said in Arabic that cannot be said in English.”

  Jubal nodded. “That’s why I’ve kept up my reading.”

  “Yes. But Martian is so much more complex than is English—and so wildly different in how it abstracts its picture of the universe—that English and Arabic might as well be one language. An Englishman and an Arab can learn to think each other’s language. But I’m not certain that it will ever be possible for us to think in Martian (other than the way Mike learned it)—oh, we can learn ‘pidgin’ Martian—that is what I speak.

  “Take this word: ‘grok.’ Its literal meaning, one which I suspect goes back to the origin of the Martian race as thinking creatures—and which throws light on their whole ‘map’—is easy. ‘Grok’ means ‘to drink.’ ”

  “Huh?” said Jubal. “Mike never says ‘grok’ when he’s just talking about drinking. He—”

  “Just a moment.” Mahmoud spoke to Mike in Martian.

  Mike looked faintly surprised. “ ‘Grok’ is drink.”

  “But Mike would have agreed,” Mahmoud went on, “if I had named a hundred other English words, words which we think of as different concepts, even antithetical concepts. ‘Grok’ means all of these. It means ‘fear,’ it means ‘love,’ it means ‘hate’—proper hate, for by the Martian ‘map’ you cannot hate anything unless you grok it, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you—then can you hate. By hating yourself. But this implies that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate—and (I think) Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste.”

  Mahmoud screwed up his face. “ ‘Grok’ means ‘identically equal.’ The human cliché. ‘This hurts me worse than it does you’ has a Martian flavor. The Martians seem to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer interacts with observed through the process of observation. ‘Grok’ means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us as color means to a blind man.” Mahmoud paused. “Jubal, if I chopped you up and made a stew, you and the stew, whatever was in it, would grok—and when I ate you, we would grok together and nothing would be lost and it would not matter which one of us did the eating.”

  “It would to me!” Jubal said firmly.

  “You aren’t a Martian.” Mahmoud stopped to talk to Mike in Martian.

  Mike nodded. “You spoke rightly, my brother. Dr. Mahmoud. I am been saying so. Thou art God.”

  Mahmoud shrugged helplessly. “You see how hopeless it is? All I got was a blasphemy. We don’t think in Martian. We can’t.”

  “Thou are God,” Mike said agreeably. “God groks.”

  “Let’s change the subject! Jubal, could I impose on brotherhood for more gin?”

  “I’ll get it!” said Dorcas.

  It was a family picnic, made easy by Jubal’s informality, plus the fact that the newcomers were the same sort—each learned, acclaimed, and with no need to strive. Even Dr. Mahmoud, rarely off guard with those who did not share the one true faith in submission to the Will of God, always beneficent, merciful, found himself relaxed. It had pleased him greatly that Jubal read the words of the Prophet . . . and, now that he stopped to notice, the women of Jubal’s household were plumper than he had thought. That dark one—He put the thought out of his mind; he was a guest.

  But it pleased him that these women did not chatter, did not intrude into sober talk of men, but were quick with food and drink in warm hospitality. He had been shocked at Miriam’s disrespect toward her master—then recognized it: a liberty permitted cats and favorite children in the privacy of the home.

  Jubal explained that they were simply waiting on the Secretary General. “If he means business, we will hear from him soon. If we had stayed in the Palace, he might have been tempted to dicker. Here we can refuse to dicker.”

  “Dicker for what?” asked Captain van Tromp. “You gave him what he wanted.”

  “Not all he wanted. Douglas would rather have it be irrevocable . . . instead of on good beha
vior, with the power reverting to a man he detests—namely that scoundrel with the innocent smile, our brother Ben. But others would want to dicker, too. That bland buddha Kung—hates my guts, I snatched the rug out from under him. But if he could figure a deal that might tempt us, he would offer it. So we stay out of his way, too. Kung is one reason why we are eating and drinking nothing that we did not fetch.”

  “You feel that’s something to worry about?” asked Nelson. “Jubal, I assumed that you were a gourmet who demanded his own cuisine. I can’t imagine being poisoned in a hotel such as this.”

  Jubal shook his head sorrowfully. “Sven, nobody wants to poison you—but your wife might collect your insurance because you shared a dish with Mike.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Sven, I’ll call room service for anything you want. But I won’t touch it and won’t let Mike touch it. They know where we are and they’ve had a couple of hours in which to act—so I must assume that any waiter is on Kung’s payroll . . . and maybe two or three others. My prime worry is to keep this lad alive while we sterilize the power he represents.”

  Jubal frowned. “Consider the black widow spider. A timid little beastie, useful, and the prettiest of the arachnids, with its patent-leather finish and its hourglass trademark. But the poor thing has the misfortune of too much power for its size. So everybody kills it.

  “The black widow can’t help it, it has no way to avoid its venomous power.”

  “Mike is in the same dilemma. He isn’t as pretty as a black widow—”

  “Why, Jubal!” Dorcas said indignantly. “What a mean thing to say! And how untrue!”

  “Child, I don’t have your glandular bias. Pretty or not, Mike can’t get rid of that money, nor is it safe for him to have it. Not just Kung. The High Court is not as ‘non-political’ as it might be . . . although their methods would make a prisoner out of him rather than kill him—a fate which, for my taste, is worse. Not to mention other interested parties, in and out of office, who have turned over in their minds how it would affect their fortunes if Mike were guest of honor at a funeral. I—”

  “Telephone, Boss.”

  “Anne, you hail from Porlock.”

  “No, Dallas.”

  “I will not answer the phone.”

  “She said to tell you it was Becky.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Jubal hurried out of the room, found Madame Vesant’s face in the screen. “Becky! I’m glad to see you, girl!”

  “Hi, Doc. I caught your act.”

  “How’d it look?”

  “I’ve never seen a tip turned more expertly. Doc, the profession lost a great talker when you weren’t born twins.”

  “That’s high praise, Becky.” Jubal thought rapidly. “But you set up the act; I just cashed in on it—and there’s plenty of cash. So name your fee, Becky.”

  Madame Vesant frowned. “You’ve hurt my feelings.”

  “Becky! Anybody can clap and cheer—but applause worth while will be found in a pile of soft, green folding money. The Man from Mars picks up this tab and, believe me, he can afford it.” He grinned. “All you’ll get from me is a hug and kiss that will crack your ribs.”

  She relaxed and smiled. “I remember how you used to pat my fanny while you assured me that the Professor was sure to get well—you always could make a body feel better.”

  “Surely I never did anything so unprofessional.”

  “You know you did. You weren’t fatherly about it, either.”

  “Maybe it was the treatment you needed. I’ve given up fanny-patting-but I’ll make an exception in your case.”

  “You’d better.”

  “And you’d better figure out that fee. Don’t forget the zeroes.”

  “Doc, there are more ways of collecting a fee than by making a fast count on the change. Have you been watching the market today?”

  “No, and don’t tell me. Come have a drink instead.”

  “Uh, I’d better not. I promised, well, a rather important client that I would be available.”

  “I see. Becky, would the stars show that this matter would turn out best for everybody if it were signed and sealed today? Maybe just after the market closes?”

  She looked thoughtful. “I’ll look into it.”

  “Do. And come visit us. You’ll like the boy. He’s as weird as snake’s suspenders but sweet as a stolen kiss.”

  “Uh . . . I will. Thanks, Doc.”

  They said good-by. Jubal found that Dr. Nelson had taken Mike into a bedroom to examine him. The surgeon was looking baffled. “Doctor,” Nelson said, “I saw this patient only ten days ago. Tell me where he got those muscles?”

  “Why, he sent in a coupon from ‘Rut: The Magazine for He-Men.’ You know, the ad that tells how a ninety-pound weakling can—”

  “Doctor, please!”

  “Why not ask him?”

  Nelson did so. “I thinked them,” Mike answered.

  “That’s right,” Jubal agreed. “He ‘thinked’ ’em. When I got him, last week, he was a mess, slight, flabby, and pale. Looked as if he had been raised in a cave—I gather he was. So I told him to grow strong. He did.”

  “Exercises?” Nelson said doubtfully.

  “Some swimming.”

  “A few days’ swimming won’t make a man look as if he had been sweating over bar bells for years!” Nelson frowned. “I know Mike has control of the so-called ‘involuntary’ muscles. But that has precedent. This, however, requires one to assume—”

  “Doctor,” Jubal said gently, “why not admit you don’t grok it?”

  Nelson sighed. “I might as well. Put on your clothes, Michael.”

  Later, Jubal unburdened himself privately to the three officers of the Champion. “The financial end was simple: just tie up Mike’s money so that a struggle couldn’t take place. Not even if he dies, because I’ve told Douglas that Mike’s death ends his stewardship whereas a rumor from a usually reliable source—me—has reached Kung and others that Mike’s death gives Douglas permanent control. Of course, if I had magic powers, I would have stripped the boy of every penny. That—”

  “Why, Jubal?” the Captain interrupted.

  Harshaw stared. “Are you wealthy, Skipper? I mean rich.”

  “Me?” Van Tromp snorted. “I’ve my salary, a pension someday, a mortgaged house—and two girls in college. I’d like to be wealthy!”

  “You wouldn’t like it.”

  “Huh! You wouldn’t say that if you had daughters in school.”

  “I put four through college—and went in debt to my armpits. One is a star in her profession . . . under her married name because I’m an old bum instead of a revered memory. The others remember my birthday and don’t bother me; education didn’t harm them. I mention my offspring only to prove that I know that a father often needs more than he has. But you can go with some firm that will pay you several times what you’re getting just for your name on their letterhead. You’ve had offers?”

  “That’s beside the point,” Captain van Tromp answered stiffly. “I’m a professional man.”

  “Meaning that money can’t tempt you into giving up commanding space ships.”

  “I wouldn’t mind having money, too!”

  “A little is no good. Daughters can spend ten percent more than a man can make in any usual occupation. That’s a law of nature, to be known henceforth as ‘Harshaw’s Law.’ But, Captain, real wealth, on the scale that calls for a battery of finaglers to hold down taxes, would ground you as certainly as resigning would.”

  “Nonsense! I’d put it into bonds and just clip coupons.”

  “Not if you were the type who acquires great wealth in the first place. Big money isn’t hard to come by. All it costs is a lifetime of devotion. But no ballerina ever works harder. Captain, that’s not your style; you don’t want to make money, you simply want to spend money.”

  “Correct, sir! So I can’t see why you would want to take Mike’s wealth away from him.”
/>   “Because great wealth is a curse—unless you enjoy money-making for its own sake. Even then it has serious drawbacks.”

  “Oh, piffle! Jubal, you talk like a harem guard trying to sell a whole man on the advantages of being a eunuch.”

  “Possibly,” agreed Jubal. “The mind’s ability to rationalize its own shortcomings is unlimited; I am no exception. Since I, like yourself, sir, have no interest in money other than to spend it, it is impossible for me to get rich. Conversely, there has never been any danger that I would fail to scrounge the modest amount needed to feed my vices, since anyone with the savvy not to draw to a small pair can do that. But great wealth? You saw that farce. Could I have rewritten it so that I acquired the plunder—become its manager and defacto owner while milking off any income I coveted—and still have rigged it so that Douglas would have supported the outcome? Mike trusts me; I am his water brother. Could I have stolen his fortune?”

  “Uh . . . damn you, Jubal, I suppose so.”

  “A certainty. Because our Secretary General is no more a money-seeker than you are. His drive is power—a drum whose beat I do not hear. Had I guaranteed (oh, gracefully!) that the Smith estate would continue to bulwark his administration, then I would have been left with the boodle.”

  Jubal shuddered. “I thought I was going to have to do that, to protect Mike from vultures—and I was panic-stricken. Captain, you don’t know what an Old Man of the Sea great wealth is. Its owner is beset on every side, like beggars in Bombay, each demanding that he invest or give away part of his wealth. He becomes suspicious—honest friendship is rarely offered him; those who could have been friends are too fastidious to be jostled by beggars, too proud to risk being mistaken for one.

  “Worse yet, his family is always in danger. Captain, have your daughters ever been threatened with kidnapping?”

  “What? Good Lord, no!”