Stranger in a Strange Land

“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.

In fact, he sometimes waited faster so efficiently that a human would have concluded that he was hurrying at breakneck speed. But the human would have been mistaken—Mike was simply adjusting his own waiting in warm consideration for the needs of others.

So he accepted Jill’s edict that he was not to reply to any of these brotherly offers from female humans, but he accepted it not as a final veto but as a waiting—possibly a century hence would be better; in any case now was not the correct time since his water brother Jill spoke rightly.

Mike readily assented when Jill suggested, quite firmly, that he give this picture to Duke. He went at once to do so and would have done so anyhow; Mike knew about Duke’s collection, he had seen it, looked through it with deep interest, trying to grok why Duke said, “That one ain’t much in the face, but look at those legs—brother!” It always made Mike feel good to be called “brother” by one of his water brothers but legs were just legs, save that his own people had three each while humans each had only two—without being crippled thereby, he reminded himself, two legs were proper for humans, he must always grok that this was correct.

As for faces, Jubal had the most beautiful face Mike had ever seen, clearly and distinctly his own. It seemed to Mike that these human females in Duke’s picture collection could hardly be said to have grown faces as yet, so much did one look like the other in the face. All young human females had much the same face—how could it be otherwise? Of course he had never had any trouble recognizing Jill’s face; she was not only the first woman he had ever seen but, most important, his first female water brother—Mike knew every pore on her nose, every incipient wrinkle in her face and had praised each one in happy meditation.

But, while he now knew Anne from Dorcas and Dorcas from Miriam by their faces alone, it had not been so when first he came here. For several days Mike had distinguished between them by size and coloration—and, of course, by voice, since no two voices were ever alike. But, as sometimes did happen, all three females would be quiet at once and then it was well that Anne was so much bigger, Dorcas so small, and that Miriam, who was bigger than Dorcas but smaller than Anne, nevertheless need not be mistaken for the missing one if either Anne or Dorcas was absent because Miriam had unmistakable hair called “red,” even though it was not the color called “red” when speaking of anything but hair.

This special meaning for “red” did not trouble Mike; he knew before he reached Earth that every English word held more than one meaning. It was a fact one could get used to, without grokking, just as the sameness of all girl faces could be gotten used to… and, after waiting, they were no longer quite the same. Mike now could call up Anne’s face in his mind and count the pores in her nose as readily as with Jill’s. In essence, even an egg was uniquely itself, different from all other eggs any where and when—Mike had always known that. So each girl had her own face, no matter how small those differences might be.