A Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert A. Heinlein

  The two married men asked for, and received, rain checks; Dr. Mahmoud accepted. The signing took rather long, mostly because Mike enjoyed signing his name, drawing each letter with great care and artistic satisfaction. The salvageable remains of the picnic (mostly unopened bottles) had been sent up and loaded by the time all copies were signed and sealed, and the hotel bill had arrived.

  Jubal glanced at the fat total and did not bother to add it. Instead he wrote on it: "Approved for payment - J. Harshaw for V. M. Smith," and handed it to Bradley.

  "This is your boss's worry now," he told Bradley.

  Bradley blinked. "Sir?"

  "Oh, just to keep it 'via channels.' Mr. Douglas will doubtless turn it over to the Chief of Protocol. Isn't that the usual procedure? I'm rather green about these things."

  Bradley accepted the bill. "Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, that's right. LaRue will voucher it - I'll give it to him."

  "Thank you, Mr. Bradley. Thanks for everything!"

  PART THREE:

  His Eccentric Education

  XXII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  But the mail always comes through.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Nothing. Just the address and the return address."

  "How does the address read?"

  "Huh? 'Mr. Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from-"

  "Oh. Then it's not addressed to you."

  "Why, no, of course-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "No. I've read about it."

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

  "I-" Jill stopped and blushed.

  "I withdraw the question. Maybe you don't find them monotonous but none of my business, either way. But if you don't want Mike's feet kicked out from under him by the first five hundred women that get him alone and I don't regard it as a good idea, either; he should have other interests as well - then don't try to intercept his mail. Letters like that may vaccinate him a little ... or at least tend to put him on guard. Don't make a thing out of it; just pass it along in the stack, cum 'filthy' picture. Answer his questions if he asks them... and try not to blush."

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

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

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

  "Oh, don't do that!"

  "What? Do you want it, Boss?"

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

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

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

  "But- I don't understand it"

  Jubal sighed. "And I could sit here all day explaining it and you still wouldn't understand it. My dear, there are aspects of sex on which it is impossible to communicate between the two sexes of our race. They are sometimes grokked by intuition across the gulf that separates us, by a few exceptionally gifted individuals. But words are useless, so I won't try. Just take my word for it: Duke is a perfect knight, sans peur et sans reproche - and he would like to have that picture."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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