Stranger in a Strange Land

What he saw when he looked at Pat without her tattoos pleased him but not as much; she looked as a woman necessarily must look to be woman. Mike still did not grok Duke’s collection of pictures; the pictures were interesting and had taught Mike that there was more variety in the sizes, shapes, proportions and colors of women than he had known up to then and that there was some variety in the acrobatics involving physical love—but having learned these simple facts he seemed to grok that there was nothing more to be learned from Duke’s prized pictures. Mike’s early training had made of him a very exact observer, by eye (and other senses), but that same training had left him unresponsive to the subtle pleasures of voyeurism, it was not that be did not find women (including, most emphatically Patricia Paiwonski) sexually stimulating, but it lay not in seeing them. Of his senses, smell and touch counted much higher—in which he was quasi-human, quasi-Martian; the parallel Martian reflex (as unsubtle as a sneeze) was triggered by those two, but could activate only in season—what must be termed “sex” in a Martian is as romantic as intravenous feeding.

But, having been invited to see her without her pictures, Mike did notice more sharply one thing about Patricia that he already knew: she had her own face, marked in beauty by her life. She had, he saw with gentle wonder, her own face even more than Jill had, and it made him feel toward Pat even more of an emotion he did not as yet call love but for which he used a Martian concept more discriminating.

She had her own odor, too, and her own voice, as all humans did. Her voice was husky and he liked to hear it even when he did not grok her meaning; her odor was mixed (he knew) with an unscrubbed trace of bitter muskiness from daily contact with snakes. It did not put him off; Pat’s snakes were part of Pat as were her tattoos. Mike liked Pat’s snakes and could handle the poisonous ones with perfect safety—and not alone by stretching time to anticipate and avoid their strikes. They grokked with him; he savored their innocent merciless thoughts—they reminded him of home. Other than Pat, Mike was the only person who could handle Honey Bun with pleasure to the boa constrictor. Her torpor was usually such that others could, if necessary, handle her—but Mike she accepted as a substitute for Pat.

Mike let the pictures reappear.

Jill looked at her and wondered why Aunt Patty had ever let herself be tattooed in the first place? She would really look rather nice—if she weren’t a living comic strip. But she loved Aunt Patty for what she was, not the way she looked—and, of course, it did give her a steady living at least until she got so old and haggard that the marks wouldn’t pay to look at her even if all those pictures had been signed by Rembrandt. She hoped that Patty was tucking away plenty in the grouch bag then she remembered that Aunt Patty was now one of Mike’s water brothers (and her own, of course) and Mike’s endless fortune gave Patty certain old-age insurance; Jill felt warmed by it.

“Well?” repeated Mrs. Paiwonski. “What do you see? How old am I, Michael?”

“I don’t know,” he said simply.

“Guess.”

“I can’t guess, Pat.”

“Oh, go ahead. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

“Patty,” Jill put in, “he really does mean that he can’t guess. He hasn’t had much chance to learn to judge ages—you know how short a time he’s been on Earth. And besides that, Mike thinks of things in Martian years and Martian arithmetic. If it’s time or figures, I keep track of it for him.”

“Well… you guess, hon. Be truthful.”

Jill looked Patty over again, noting her trim figure but also noting her hands and throat and the corners of her eyes—then discounted her guess by five years despite the Martian honesty she owed a water brother. “Mmm, thirtyish, give or take a year.”

Mrs. Paiwonski laughed triumphantly. “That’s just one bonus from the True Faith, my dears! Jill hon, I’m ’way into my forties. Just how far in we won’t say; I’ve quit counting.”

“You certainly don’t look it.”

“I know I don’t. That’s what Happiness does for you, dear. After my first kid, I let my figure go to pot. I got quite a can on me—they invented the word ‘broad’ just to fit me. My belly always looked like four months gone, or worse. My busts hung down—and I’ve never had ’em lifted. You don’t have to believe me; sure, I know a good plastic surgeon doesn’t leave a scar… but on me it would show, dear; it would chop chunks out of two of my pictures.

“Then I seen the light! I got converted. Nope, not exercise, not diet—I still eat like a pig and you know it. Happiness, dear. Perfect Happiness in the Lord through the help of Blessed Foster.”