Stranger in a Strange Land

Mike stripped off her tattoos in his mind and looked at his new brother without her decorations. He liked her tattoos; they set her apart and made her a self. They gave her a slightly Martian flavor, she did not have the bland sameness of most humans. He thought of having himself tattooed all over, once he grokked what should be pictured. The life of his father, water brother Jubal? He would ponder it. Jill might wish to be tatooed, too. What designs would make Jill more beautifully Jill?

What he saw when he looked at Pat without tattoos pleased him not as much; she looked as a woman must look to be woman. Mike still did not grok Duke's collection of pictures; they had taught him that there was variety in sizes, shapes, and colors of women and some variety in the acrobatics of love — but beyond this he seemed to grok nothing to learn from Duke's prized pictures. Mike's training had made him an exact observer, but that same training had left him unresponsive to the subtle pleasures of voyeurism. It was not that he did not find women (including, emphatically, Patricia Paiwonski) sexually stimulating, but it lay not in seeing them. Smell and touch counted more — in which he was quasi-human, quasi-Martian; the parallel Martian reflex (as unsubtle as a sneeze) was triggered by those senses but could activate only in season — «sex» in a Martian was as romantic as intravenous feeding.

With her pictures gone, Mike noted more sharply one thing: Patricia had her own face, marked in beauty by her life. She had, he saw with wonder, her own face even more than Jill had. It made him feel toward Pat even more of an emotion he did not as yet call love.

She had her own odor, too, and her own voice. Her voice was husky, he liked hearing it even when he did not grok her meaning; her odor was mixed with a trace of bitter muskiness from handling snakes. Mike liked her snakes and could handle the poisonous ones — not alone by stretching time to avoid their strikes. They grokked with him; he savored their innocent merciless thoughts — they reminded him of home. Mike was the only other person who could handle Honey Bun with pleasure to the boa constrictor. Her torpor was such that others could handle her — but Mike she accepted as a substitute for Pat.

Mike let the pictures reappear.

Jill wondered why Aunt Patty had let herself be tattooed? She would look rather nice — if she weren't a living comic strip. But she loved Patty herself, not the way she looked-and it did give her a steady living … until she got so old that marks wouldn't pay to see her even if those pictures had been by Rembrandt. She hoped that Patty was tucking away plenty in the grouch bag — then remembered that Aunt Patty was now a water brother and shared Mike's endless fortune. Jill felt warmed by it.

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

«I don't know.»

«Guess.»

«I can't, Pat.»

«Oh, go ahead!»

«Patty,» Jill put in, «he really can't. He hasn't learned to judge ages — you know how short a time he's been on Earth. And Mike thinks in Martian years and Martian arithmetic. If it's time or figures, I do it for him.»

«Well… you guess, hon. Be truthful.»

Jill looked Patty over, noting her trim figure but also hands and throat and eyes — then discounted by five years despite the honesty owed a water brother. «Mmm, thirtyish, give or take a year.»

Mrs. Paiwonski chortled. «That's one bonus of the True Faith, my dears! Jill hon, I'm crowding fifty.»

«You don't look it!»

«That's what Happiness does, dearie. After my first kid, I let my figure go to pot — they invented the word “broad” just for me. My belly looked like six months gone. My busts hung down — and I've never had 'em lifted. You can see for yourself — sure, a good surgeon doesn't leave a scar … but on me it would show, dear; it would chop holes in two pictures.

«Then I seen the light! Nope, not exercise, not diet — I eat like a pig. Happiness, dear. Perfect Happiness in the Lord through the help of Blessed Foster.»

«It's amazing,» said Jill. Aunt Patty certainly had not dieted nor exercised during the time she had known her, and Jill knew what was excised in breast-lifting; those tatoos had never known a knife.

Mike assumed that Pat had learned to think her body as she wished it, whether she attributed it to Foster or not. He was teaching this control to Jill, but she would have to perfect her knowledge of Martian before it could be perfect. No hurry, waiting would do it. Pat went on:

«I wanted you to see what Faith can do. But the real change is inside. Happiness. The good Lord knows I'm not gifted with tongues but I'll try to tell you. First you've got to realize that all other so-called churches are traps of the Devil. Our dear Jesus preached the True Faith, so Foster said and I truly believe. But in the Dark Ages his words were twisted and changed until Jesus wouldn't recognize 'em. So Foster was sent to proclaim a New Revelation and make it clear again.»