The Man from Mars shook his head. “My failures so greatly out-number my successes that I wonder if full grokking will show that I am on the wrong track—that this race must be split up, hating each other, fighting, constantly unhappy and at war even with their own individual selves . . . simply to have that weeding out that every race must have. Tell me, Father? You must tell me.”
“Mike, what in hell led you to believe that I was infallible?”
“Perhaps you are not. But every time I have needed to know something, you have always been able to tell me—and fullness always showed that you spoke rightly.”
“Damn it, I refuse this apotheosis! But I do see one thing, son. You have always urged everyone else never to hurry—‘waiting will fill,’ you say.”
“That is right.”
“Now you are violating your own rule. You have waited only a little—a very short time by Martian standards—and you want to throw in the towel. You’ve proved that your system works for a small group—and I’m glad to confirm it; I’ve never seen such happy, healthy, cheerful people. That ought to be enough for the short time you’ve put in. Come back when you have a thousand times this number, all working and happy and unjealous, and we’ll talk it over again. Fair enough?”
“You speak rightly, Father.”
“I ain’t through. You’ve been fretting that since you failed to hook ninety-nine out of a hundred, the race couldn’t get along without its present evils, had to have them for weeding out. But damn it, lad, you’ve been doing the weeding—or rather, the failures have been doing it by not listening to you. Had you planned to eliminate money and property?”
“Oh, no! Inside the Nest we don’t need it, but—”
“Nor does any healthy family. But outside you need it in dealing with other people. Sam tells me that our brothers, instead of getting unworldly, are slicker with money than ever. Right?”
“Oh, yes. Money making is a simple trick once you grok.”
“You’ve just added a new beatitude: ‘Blessed is the rich in spirit, for he shall make dough.’ How do our people stack up in other fields? Better or worse than average?”
“Oh, better, of course. You see, Jubal, it’s not a faith; the discipline is simply a method of efficient functioning in anything.”
“You’ve answered yourself, son. If all you say is true—and I’m not judging; I’m asking, you’re answering—then competition, far from being eliminated, is rougher than ever. If one tenth of one percent of the population is capable of getting the news, then all you have to do is show them—and in a matter of some generations the stupid ones will die out and those with your discipline will inherit the Earth. Whenever that is—in a thousand years or ten thousand—will be soon enough to worry about some new hurdle to make them jump higher. But don’t get faint-hearted because only a handful have turned into angels overnight. I never expected any to manage it. I thought you were making a damn fool of yourself by pretending to be a preacher.”
Mike sighed and smiled. “I was beginning to be afraid I was—worrying that I had let my brothers down.”
“I still wish you had called it ‘Cosmic Halitosis’ or some such. But the name doesn’t matter. If you’ve got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn’t prove it. Show people.”
Mike did not answer. His eyelids drooped, he held perfectly still, his face was without expression. Jubal stirred restlessly, afraid that he had said too much, crowded the lad into a need to withdraw.
Then Mike’s eyes opened, he grinned merrily. “You’ve got me all squared away, Father. I’m ready to show them now—I grok the fullness.” the Man from Mars stood up. “Waiting is ended.”
XXXVII.
JUBAL and the Man from Mars strolled into the room with the big stereo tank. The entire Nest was gathered, watching it. It showed a dense and turbulent crowd, somewhat restrained by policemen. Mike glanced at it and looked serenely happy. “They come. Now is the fullness.” The sense of ecstatic expectancy Jubal had felt growing ever since his arrival swelled greatly, but no one moved.
“It’s a might big tip, sweetheart,” Jill agreed.
“And ready to turn,” added Patty.
“I’d better dress for it,” Mike commented. “Have I got any clothes around this dump? Patty?”
“Right away, Michael.”
Jubal said, “Son, that mob looks ugly to me. Are you sure this is time to tackle them?”
“Oh, sure,” said Mike. “They’ve come to see me . . . so now I go down to meet them.” He paused while some clothing got out of the way of his face; he was being dressed at break-neck speed with the unnecessary help of several women—each garment seemed to know where to go and how to drape itself. “This job has obligations as well as privileges—the star has to show up for the show . . . grok me? The marks expect it.”
Duke said, “Mike knows what he’s doing, Boss.”
“Well . . . I don’t trust mobs.”
“That crowd is mostly curiosity seekers, they always are. Oh, there are some Fosterites and some others with grudges—but Mike can handle any crowd. You’ll see. Right, Mike?”
“Keerect, Cannibal. Pull in a tip, then give ’em a show. Where’s my hat? Can’t walk in the noonday sun without a hat.” An expensive Panama with a sporty colored bank glided out and settled itself on his head; he cocked it jauntily. “There! Do I look all right?” He was dressed in his usual outer-services mufti, a smartly tailored, sharply creased, white business suit, shoes to match, snowy shirt, and luxurious dazzling scarf.
Ben said, “All you lack is a brief case.”
“You grok I need one? Patty, do we have one?”
Jill stepped up to him. “Ben was kidding, dear. You look just perfect.” She straightened his tie and kissed him—and Jubal felt kissed. “Go talk to them.”
“Yup. Time to turn the tip. Anne? Duke?”
“Ready, Mike.” Anne was wearing her Fair Witness cloak, wrapping her in dignity; Duke was just the opposite, being sloppily dressed, with a lighted cigarette dangling from his face, an old hat on the back of his head with a card marked “PRESS” stuck in its band, and himself hung about with cameras and kit.
They headed for the door to the foyer common to the four penthouse suites. Only Jubal followed; all the others, thirty and more, stayed around the stereo tank. Mike paused at the door. There was a hall table there, with a pitcher of water and glasses, a dish of fruit and a fruit knife. “Better not come any farther,” he advised Jubal, “or Patty would have to escort you back through her pets.”
Mike poured himself a glass of water, drank part of it. “Preaching is thirsty work.” He handed the glass to Anne, then took the fruit knife and sliced off a chunk of apple.
It seemed to Jubal that Mike sliced off one of his fingers . . . but his attention was distracted as Duke passed the glass to him. Mike’s hand was not bleeding and Jubal had grown somewhat accustomed to legerdemain. He accepted the glass and took a sip, finding that his own throat was very dry.
Mike gripped his arm and smiled. “Quit fretting. This will take only a few minutes. See you later, Father.” They went out through the guardian cobras and the door closed. Jubal went back to the room where the others were, still carrying the glass. Someone took it from him; he did not notice, as he was watching images in the big tank.
The mob seemed denser, surging about and held back by police armed only with night sticks. There were a few shouts but mostly just the unlocalized muttering of the crowd.
Someone said, “Where are they now, Patty?”
“They’ve dropped down the tube. Michael is a little ahead, Duke stopped to catch Anne. They’re entering the lobby. Michael has been spotted, pictures are being taken.”
The scene in the tank resolved into enormous head and shoulders of a brightly cheerful newscaster: “This is NWNW New World Networks’ mobile newshound on the spot while it’s hot—your newscaster, happy Holliday. We have just learned that the fake messiah, sometimes known as the Man from
Mars, has crawled out of his hide-out in a hotel room here in beautiful St. Petersburg the City that Has Everything to Make You Sing. Apparently Smith is about to surrender to the authorities. He crashed out of jail yesterday, using high explosives smuggled in to him by his fanatic followers. But the tight cordon placed around this city seems to have been too much for him. We don’t know yet—I repeat, we don’t know yet—so stay with the chap who covers the map—and now a word from your local sponsor who has given you this keyhole peep at the latest leap—”
“Thank you, Happy Holiday and all you good people watching via NWNW! What Price Paradise? Amazingly Low! Come out and see for yourself at Elysian Fields, just opened as home-sites for a restricted clientele. Land reclaimed from the warm waters of the glorious Gulf and every lot guaranteed at least eighteen inches above mean high water and only a small down payment on a Happy—oh, oh, later, friends—phone Gulf nine-two eight two eight!”
“And thank you, Jick Morris and the developers of Elysian Fields! I think we’ve got something, folks! Yes, sir, I think we do—”
(“They’re coming out the front entrance,” Patty said quietly. “The crowd hasn’t spotted Michael yet.”)
“Maybe not yet . . . but soon. You are now looking at the main entrance of the magnificent Sans Souci Hotel, Gem of the Gulf, whose management is in no way responsible for this hunted fugitive and who have cooperated with the authorities throughout according to a statement just issued by Police Chief Davis. And while we’re waiting to see what will happen, a few high lights in the strange career of this half-human monster raised on Mars—”
The live scene was replaced by quick cuts of stock shots: The Envoy blasting off years earlier, the Champion floating upwards silently and effortlessly under Lyle Drive, Martians on Mars, the triumphant return of the Champion, a quick of the first faked interview with the “Man from Mars”—“What do you think of the girls here on Earth?” . . . Gee!“—a quicker shot of the conference in the Executive Palace and the much-publicized awarding of a doctorate in philosophy, all with rapid-fire commentary.
“See anything, Patty?”
“Michael is at the top of the steps, the crowd is at least a hundred yards away, being kept off the hotel grounds. Duke has grabbed some pix and Mike is waiting to let him change lenses. No hurry.”
Happy Holliday went on, as the tank shifted to the crowd, semi-close and panning: “You understand, friends, that this wonderful community is in a unique condition today. Something strange has been going on and these people are in no mood to trifle. Their laws have been flouted, their security forces treated with comtempt, they are angry, righteously so. The fanatic followers of this alleged antichrist have stopped at nothing to create turmoil in a futile effort to let their leader escape the closing net of justice. Anything can happen—anything!”
The announcer’s voice climbed: “Yes, he’s coming out now—he’s walking toward the people!” The scene cut to reverse; Mike was walking directly toward camera. Anne and Duke were behind and dropping farther behind. “This is it! This is it! This is the blow-off!”
Mike continued to walk unhurriedly toward the crowd until he loomed up in the stereo tank in life size, as if he were in the room with his water brothers. He stopped on the grass verge in front of the hotel, a few feet from the crowd. “You called me?”
He was answered with a growl.
The sky held scattered clouds; at that instant the sun came out from behind one and a shaft of light hit him.
His clothes vanished. He stood before them, a golden youth, clothed only in beauty—beauty that made Jubal’s heart ache, thinking that Michaelangelo in his ancient years would have climbed down from his high scaffolding to record it for generations unborn. Mike said gently, “Look at me. I am a son of man.”
The scene cut for a ten-second plug, a line of can-can dancers singing:“Come on, ladies, do your duds!
In the smoothest, yummiest suds!
Lover Soap is kind to hands—
But be sure you save the bands!”
The tank filled with foamy suds amid girlish laughter and the scene cut back to newscast:
“God damn you!” a half brick caught Mike in the ribs. He turned his face toward his assailant. “But you yourself are God. You can damn only yourself . . . and you can never escape yourself.”
“Blasphemer!” A rock caught him over his left eye and blood welled forth.
Mike said calmly, “In fighting me, you fight yourself . . . for Thou art God . . . and I am God . . . and all that groks is God—there is no other.”
More rocks hit him, he began to bleed in several places. “Hear the Truth. You need not hate, you need not fight, you need not fear. I offer you the water of life—” Suddenly his hand held a tumbler of water, sparkling in sunlight. “—and you may share it whenever you so will . . . and walk in peace and love and happiness together.”
A rock caught the glass and shattered it. Another struck him in the mouth.
Through bruised and bleeding lips he smiled at them, looking straight into the camera with an expression of yearning tenderness on his face. Some trick of sunlight and stereo formed a golden halo back of his head. “Oh my brothers, I love you so! Drink deep. Share and grow closer without end. Thou art God.”
Jubal whispered it back to him. The scene made a five-second cut: “Cahuenga Cave! The night club with real Los Angeles smog, imported fresh every day. Six exotic dancers.”
“Lynch him! Give the bastard a nigger necktie!” A heavy gauge shotgun blasted at close range and Mike’s right arm was struck off at the elbow and fell. It floated gently down, then came to rest on the cool grasses, its hand curved open in invitation.
“Give him the other barrel, Shortie—and aim closer!” The crowd laughed and applauded. A brick smashed Mike’s nose and more rocks gave him a crown of blood.
“The Truth is simple but the Way of Man is hard. First you must learn to control your self. The rest follows. Blessed is he who knows himself and commands himself, for the world is his and love and happiness and peace walk with him wherever he goes.” Another shotgun blast was followed by two more shots. One short, a forty-five slug, hit Mike over the heart, shattering the sixth rib near the sternum and making a large wound; the buckshot and the other slug sheered through his left tibia five inches below the patella and left the fibula sticking out at an angle, broken and white against the yellow and red of the wound.
Mike staggered slightly and laughed, went on talking, his words clear and unhurried. “Thou art God. Know that and the Way is opened.”
“God damn it—let’s stop this taking the Name of the Lord in vain!”—“Come on, men! Let’s finish him!” The mob surged forward, led by one bold with a club; they were on him with rocks and fists, and then with feet as he went down. He went on talking while they kicked his ribs in and smashed his golden body, broke his bones and tore an ear loose. At last someone called out, “Back away so we can get the gasoline on him!”
The mob opened up a little at that warning and the camera zoomed to pick up his face and shoulders. The Man from Mars smiled at his brothers, said once more, softly and clearly, “I love you.” An incautious grasshopper came whirring to a landing on the grass a few inches from his face; Mike turned his head, looked at it as it stared back at him. “Thou art God,” he said happily and discorporated.
XXXVIII.
FLAME AND billowing smoke came up and filled the tank. “Golly!” Patty said reverently. “That’s the best blow-off ever used.”
“Yes,” agreed Becky judicially, “the Professor himself never dreamed up a better one.”
Van Tromp said very quietly, apparently to himself: “In style. Smart and with style—the lad finished in style.”
Jubal looked around at his brothers. Was he the only one who felt anything? Jill and Dawn were seated each with an arm around the other—but they did that whenever they were together; neither seemed disturbed. Even Dorcas was dry-eyed and calm.
The inferno in t
he tank cut to smiling Happy Holliday who said, “And now, folks, a few moments for our friends at Elysian Fields who so graciously gave up their—” Patty cut him off.
“Anne and Duke are on their way back up,” she said. “I’ll let them through the foyer and then we’ll have lunch.” She started to leave.
Jubal stopped her. “Patty? Did you know what Mike was going to do?”
She seemed puzzled. “Huh? Why, of course not, Jubal. It was necessary to wait for fullness. None of us knew.” She turned and left.
“Jubal—” Jill was looking at him. “Jubal our beloved father . . . please stop and grok the fullness. Mike is not dead. How can he be dead when no one can be killed? Nor can he ever be away from us who have already grokked him. Thou art God.”
“ ‘Thou art God,’ ” he repeated dully.
“That’s better. Come sit with Dawn and me—in the middle.”
“No. No, just let me be.” He went blindly to his own room, let himself in and bolted the door after him, leaned heavily with both hands gripping the foot of the bed. My son, oh my son! Would that I had died for thee! He had had so much to live for . . . and an old fool that he respected too much had to shoot off his yap and goad him into a needless, useless martyrdom. If Mike had given them something big—like stereo, or bingo—but he gave them the Truth. Or a piece of the Truth. And who is interested in Truth? He laughed through his sobs.
After a while he shut them off, both heart-broken sobs and bitter laugh, and pawed through his traveling bag. He had what he wanted with him; he had kept a supply in his toilet kit ever since Joe Douglas’s stroke had reminded him that all flesh is grass.
Now his own stroke had come and he couldn’t take it. He prescribed three tablets to make it fast and certain, washed them down with water, and lay quickly on the bed. Shortly the pain went away.
From a great distance the voice reached him. “Jubal—”
“ ’M resting. Don’t bother me.”
Stranger in a Strange Land Page 51