A Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert A. Heinlein

  "And shall I," agreed Mahmoud.

  "-and if they want to make trouble for me, they know what they can do with my reserve commission. What business has the government, telling us we can't talk? Those chair-warmers didn't go to Mars. We did."

  "Stow it, Sven. I intended to talk - these are our water brothers. But, Ben, I would rather not see this in your column. I would like to command a space ship again."

  "Captain, I know the meaning of 'off the record.' But if you'll feel easier, I'll join Mike and the girls for a while - I want to see Jill anyhow."

  "Please don't leave. But... this is among water brothers. The government is in a stew about that nominal colony we left behind. Every man in it joined in signing away his so-called Larkin rights - assigned them to the government - before we left Earth. Mike's presence when we got to Mars confused things enormously. I'm no lawyer, but I understood that, if Mike did waive his rights, whatever they might be, that would put the administration in the driver's seat when it came to parceling out things of value."

  "What things of value?" demanded Caxton. "Other than pure science, I mean. Look, Skipper, I'm not running down your achievement, but from all I've seen and heard, Mars isn't exactly valuable real estate for human beings. Or are there assets that are still classified 'drop dead before reading'?"

  Van Tromp shook his head. "No, the scientific and technical reports are all declassified, I believe. But, Ben, the Moon was a worthless hunk of rock when we first got it. Now look at it."

  "Touché," Caxton admitted. "I wish my grandpappy had bought Lunar Enterprises instead of Canadian uranium. I don't have Jubal's objections to being rich." He added, "But, in any case, Mars is already inhabited."

  Van Tromp looked unhappy. "Yes. But- Stinky, you tell him."

  Mahmoud said, "Ben, there is plenty of room on Mars for human colonization... and, so far as I was ever able to find out, the Martians would not interfere. They did not object when we told them we intended to leave a colony behind. Nor did they seem pleased. Not even interested. We're flying our flag and claiming extraterritoriality right now. But our status may be more like that of one of those ant cities under glass one sometimes sees in school rooms. I was never able to grok it."

  Jubal nodded. "Precisely. Myself, too. This morning I did not have the slightest idea of the true situation... except that I knew that the government was anxious to get those so-called Larkin rights from Mike. Beyond that I was ignorant. So I assumed that the government was equally ignorant and went boldly ahead. 'Audacity, always audacity' - soundest principle of strategy. In practicing medicine I learned that when you are most at loss is the time when you must appear confident. In law I had learned that, when your case seems hopeless, you must impress the jury with your relaxed certainty."

  Jubal grinned. "Once, when I was a kid in high school, I won a debate on shipping subsidies by quoting an overwhelming argument from the files of the British Colonial Shipping Board. The opposition was totally unable to refute me - because there never was a 'British Colonial Shipping Board.' I had made it up, whole cloth.

  "I was equally shameless this morning. The administration wanted Mike's 'Larkin rights' and was scared silly that we might make a deal with Kung or somebody. So I used their greed and worry to wring out of them that ultimate logical absurdity of their fantastic legal theory, a public acknowledgment in unmistakable diplomatic protocol that Mike was a sovereign equal of the Federation itself - and must be treated accordingly!" Jubal looked smug.

  "Thereby," Ben said dryly, "putting yourself up the well-known creek without a paddle."

  "Ben, Ben," Jubal said chidingly. "Wrong metaphor. Not a canoe, but a tiger. Or a throne. By their own logic they had publicly crowned Mike. Need I point out that, despite the old saw about uneasy heads and crowns, it is nevertheless safer to be publicly a king than it is to be a pretender in hiding? A king can usually abdicate to save his neck; a pretender may renounce his pretensions but it makes his neck no safer - less so, in fact; it leaves him naked to his enemies. No, Ben, Kung saw that Mike's position had been enormously strengthened by a few bars of music and an old sheet, even if you did not - and Kung did not like it a bit.

  "But I acted through necessity, not choice, and, while Mike's position was improved, it was still not an easy one. Mike was, for the nonce, the acknowledged sovereign of Mars under the legalistic malarky of the Larkin precedent... and, as such, was empowered to hand out concessions, trading rights, enclaves, ad nauseam. He must either do these things himself... and thus be subjected to pressures even worse than those attendant on great wealth and for which he is even less fitted - or he must abdicate his titular position and allow his Larkin rights to devolve on those twenty-three men now on Mars, i.e., to Douglas."

  Jubal looked pained. "I disliked these alternatives almost equally, since each was based on the detestable doctrine that the Larkin Decision could apply to inhabited planets. Gentlemen, I have never met any Martians, I have no vocation to be their champion - but I could not permit a client of mine to be trapped into such a farce. The Larkin Decision itself had to be rendered void, and all 'rights' under it, with respect to the planet Mars - while the matter was still in our hands and without giving the High Court a chance to rule."

  Jubal grinned boyishly. "So I appealed to a higher court for a decision that would nullify the Larkin precedent - I cited a mythical 'British Colonial Shipping Board.' I lied myself blue in the face to create a new legal theory. Sovereign honors had been rendered Mike; that was fact, the world had seen it. But sovereign honors may be rendered to a sovereign... or to a sovereign's alter ego, his viceroy or ambassador. So I asserted that Mike was no cardboard sovereign under a silly human precedent not in point - but in awful fact the ambassador of the great Martian nation!"

  Jubal sighed. "Sheer bluff... and I was scared silly that I would be required to prove my claims. But I was staking my bluff on my hope and strong belief that others - Douglas, and in particular, Kung - would be no more certain of the facts than was I." Jubal looked around him. "But I ventured to risk that bluff because you three were sitting with us, were Mike's water brethren. If you three sat by and did not challenge my lies, then Mike must be accepted as the Martian equivalent of ambassador - and the Larkin Decision was a dead issue."

  "I hope it is," Captain van Tromp said soberly, "but I did not take your statements as lies, Jubal; I took them as simple truth."

  "Eh? But I assure you they were not. I was spinning fancy words, extemporizing."

  "No matter. Inspiration or deduction - I think you told the truth." The skipper of the Champion hesitated. "Except that I would not call Mike an ambassador - I think he's an expeditionary force."

  Caxton's jaw dropped. Harshaw did not dispute him but answered with equal soberness. "In what way, sir?"

  Van Tromp said, "I'll amend that. It would be better to say that I think he's a scout for an expeditionary force, reconnoitering us for his Martian masters. It is even possible that they are in telepathic contact with him at all times, that he doesn't even need to report back. I don't know - but I do know that, after visiting Mars, I find such ideas much easier to swallow... and I know this: everybody seems to take it for granted that, finding a human being on Mars, we would of course bring him home and that he would be anxious to come home. Nothing could be further from the truth. Eh, Sven?"

  "Mike hated the idea," agreed Nelson. "We couldn't even get close to him at first; he was afraid of us. Then he was ordered to go back with us and from then on he did exactly what we told him to do. He behaved like a soldier carrying out with perfect discipline orders that scared him silly."

  "Just a moment," Caxton protested. "Captain, even so - Mars attack us? Mars? You know more about these things than I do, but wouldn't that be about like us attacking Jupiter? I mean to say, we have about two and a half times the surface gravity that Mars has, just as Jupiter has about two and a half times our surface gravity. Somewhat analogous differences, each way, on pressure, temperature, atmosph
ere, and so forth. We couldn't stay alive on Jupiter... and I don't see how Martians could stand our conditions. Isn't that true?"

  "Close enough," admitted van Tromp.

  "Then tell me why we should attack Jupiter? Or Mars attack us?"

  "Mmm... Ben, have you seen any of the proposals to attempt a beach head on Jupiter?"

  "Yes, but- Well, nothing has ever gotten beyond the dream stage. It isn't practical."

  "Space flight wasn't practical less than a century ago. Go back in the files and see what your own colleagues said about it - oh, say about 1940. These Jupiter proposals are, at best, no farther than drawing board - but the engineers working on them are quite serious. They think that, by using all that we've learned from deep ocean exploration, plus equipping men with powered suits in which to float, it should be possible to put human beings on Jupiter. And don't think for a moment that the Martians are any less clever than we are. You should see their cities."

  "Uh-" said Caxton. "Okay, I'll shut up. I still don't see why they would bother."

  "Captain?"

  "Yes, Jubal?"

  "I see another objection - a cultural one. You know the rough division of cultures into 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian.'"

  "I know in general what you mean."

  "Well, it seems to me that even the Zuni culture would be called 'Dionysian' on Mars. Of course, you've been there and I haven't - but I've been talking steadily with Mike. That boy was raised in an extremely Apollonian culture - and such cultures are not aggressive."

  "Mmm... I see your point - but I wouldn't count on it."

  Mahmoud said suddenly, "Skipper, there's strong evidence to support Jubal's conclusion. You can analyse a culture from its language, every time - and there isn't any Martian word for 'war.'" He stopped and looked puzzled. "At least, I don't think there is. Nor any word for 'weapon' nor for 'fighting.' If a word for a concept isn't in a language, then its culture simply doesn't have the referent the missing word would symbolize."

  "Oh, twaddle, Stinky! Animals fight - and ants even conduct wars. Are you trying to tell me they have to have words for it before they can do it?"

  "I mean exactly that," Mahmoud insisted, "when it applies to any verbalizing race. Such as ourselves. Such as the Martians - even more highly verbalized than we are. A verbalizing race has words for every old concept... and creates new words or new definitions for old words whenever a new concept comes along. Always! A nervous system that is able to verbalize cannot avoid verbalizing; it's automatic. If the Martians know what 'war' is, then they have a word for it."

  "There is a quick way to settle it," Jubal suggested. "Call in Mike.

  "Just a moment, Jubal," van Tromp objected. "I learned years ago never to argue with a specialist; you can't win. But I also learned that the history of progress is a long, long list of specialists who were dead wrong when they were most certain - sorry, Stinky."

  "You're quite right, Captain - only I'm not wrong this time."

  "As may be, all Mike can settle is whether or not he knows a certain word... which might be like asking a two-year-old to define 'calculus.' Proves nothing. I'd like to stick to facts for a moment. Sven? About Agnew?"

  Nelson answered, "It's up to you, Captain"

  "Well... this is still private conversation among water brothers, gentlemen. Lieutenant Agnew was our junior medical officer. Quite brilliant in his line, Sven tells me, and I had no complaints about him otherwise; he was well-enough liked. But he had an unsuspected latent xenophobia. Not against humans. But he couldn't stand Martians. Now I had given orders against going armed outside the ship once it appeared that the Martians were peaceful - too much chance of an incident.

  "Apparently young Agnew disobeyed me - at least we were never able to find his personal side arm later and the two men who last saw him alive say that he was wearing it. But all my log shows is: 'Missing and presumed dead.'

  "Here is why. Two crewmen saw Agnew go into a sort of passage between two large rocks rather scarce on Mars; mostly it's monotonous. Then they saw a Martian enter the same way... whereupon they hurried, as Dr. Agnew's peculiarity was well known.

  "Both say that they heard a shot. One says that he reached this opening in time to glimpse Agnew past the Martian, who pretty well filled the space between the rocks; they're so big. And then he didn't see him. The second man says that when he got there the Martian was just exiting, simply sailed on past them and went his way - which is characteristically Martian; if he has no business with you, he simply ignores you. With the Martian out of the way they could both see the space between the two rocks... and it was a dead end, empty.

  "That's all, gentlemen... except to say that Agnew might have jumped that rock wall, under Mars' low surface gravity and the impetus of fear - but I could not and I tried - and to mention that these two crewmen were wearing breathing gear - have to, on Mars - and hypoxia can make a man's senses quite unreliable. I don't know that the first crewman was drunk through oxygen shortage; I just mention it because it is an explanation easier to believe than what he reported... which is that Agnew simply disappeared in the blink of an eye. In fact I suggested as much to him and ordered him to check the demand valve and the rest of his breather gear before he went outside again.

  "You see, I thought Agnew would show up presently... and I was looking forward to chewing him out and slapping him under hack for going armed (if he was) and for going alone (which seemed certain), both being flagrant breaches of discipline.

  "But he never returned, we never found him nor his body. I do not know what happened. But my own misgivings about Martians date to that incident. They never again seemed to me to be just big, gentle, harmless, rather comical creatures, even though we never had any trouble with them and they always gave us anything we wanted, once Stinky figured out how to ask for it. I played down the incident - can't let men panic when you're a hundred million miles from home. Oh, I couldn't play down the fact that Dr. Agnew was missing and the whole ship's company searched for him. But I squelched any suggestion that there had been anything mysterious about it - Agnew had gotten lost among those rocks. had eventually died, no doubt, when his oxygen ran out... and was buried under sand drift or something. You do get quite a breeze both at sunrise and sundown on Mars; it does cause the sand to drift. So I used it as a reason to clamp down ever harder on always traveling in company, always staying in radio contact with the ship, always checking breather gear... with Agnew as a horrible example. I did not tell that crewman to keep his mouth shut; I simply hinted that his story was unbelievable, especially as his mate was not able to back it up. I think the official version prevailed."

  Mahmoud said slowly, "It did with me, Captain - this is the first time I've heard that there was any mystery about Agnew. And truthfully, I prefer your 'official' version - I'm not inclined to be superstitious."

  Van Tromp nodded. "That's what I had hoped for. Only Sven and myself heard that crewman's wild tale - and we kept it to ourselves. But, just the same-" The space ship captain suddenly looked old. "-I still wake up in the night and ask myself: 'What became of Agnew?'"

  Jubal listened to the story without comment. He was still wondering what he should add to it when it ended. He wondered, too, if Jill had told Ben about Berquist and that other fellow - Johnson. He knew that he had not. There hadn't been time the night Ben had been rescued... and in the sober light of the following dawn it had seemed better to let such things ride.

  Had the kids told Ben about the battle of the swimming pool? And the two carloads of cops who were missing afterwards? Again, it seemed most unlikely; the kids knew that the "official" version was that the first task force had never showed up - they had all heard his phone call with Douglas. All Jubal's family were discreet; whether guests or employees, gossipy persons were quickly ousted - Jubal regarded gossip as his own prerogative, solely. But Jill might have told Ben. Well, if she had, she must have bound him to silence; Ben had not mentioned disappearances to Jubal... and he wasn't trying
to catch Jubal's eye now.

  Damn it, the only thing to do was to keep quiet and go on trying to impress on the boy that he simply must not go around making unpleasant strangers disappear!

  Jubal was saved from further soul-searching (and the stag conversation was broken up) by Anne's arrival. "Boss, that Mr. Bradley is at the door. The one who called himself 'senior executive assistant to the Secretary General.'

  "You didn't let him in?"

  "No. I looked at him through the one-way and talked to him through the speakie. He says he has papers to deliver to you, personally, and that he will wait for an answer."

  "Have him pass them through the flap. And you tell him that you are my 'senior executive assistant' and that you will fetch my receipt acknowledging personal delivery if that is what he wants. This is still the Martian Embassy - until I check what's in those papers."

  "Just let him stand in the corridor?"

  "I've no doubt that Major Bloch can find him a chair. Anne, I am aware that you were gently reared - but this is a situation in which rudeness pays off. We don't give an inch, nor a kind word, until we get exactly what we want."

  "Yes, Boss."

  The package was bulky because there were many copies; there was one document only. Jubal called in everyone and passed them around. "Girls, I am offering one lollipop for each loophole, boobytrap, or ambiguity - prizes of similar value to males. Now everybody keep quiet."

  Presently Jubal broke the silence. "He's an honest politician - he stays bought."

  "Looks that way," admitted Caxton.

  "Anybody?" No one claimed a prize; Douglas had kept it simple and straightforward, merely implementing the agreement reached earlier. "Okay," said Jubal, "everybody is to witness every copy, after Mike signs it - especially you, Skipper, and Sven and Stinky. Get your seal, Miriam. Hell, let Bradley in now and have him witness, too - then give the poor guy a drink. Duke, call the desk and tell 'em to send up the bill; we're checking out. Then call Greyhound and tell 'em we want our go-buggy. Sven, Skipper, Stinky - we're getting out of here the way Lot left Sodom...why don't you three come up in the country with us, take off your shoes, and relax? Plenty of beds, home cooking, and no worries."