Stranger in a Strange Land

«I don't mean details that would interest Duke; I mean the general scheme. They orbit around the globe, picking up data and storing it. At a particular point, the Sky-Eye is keyed and it pours out all that it has seen. That is what they did with me. You know that we of the nest use what is called telepathy.»

«I've been forced to believe it.»

«We do. But this conversation is private — and besides, no one would attempt to read you; I'm not sure we could. Even last night the link was through Dawn's mind, not yours.»

«Well, that is some comfort.»

«I am “only an egg” in this art; the Old Ones are masters. They linked with me but left me on my own, ignored me — then triggered me, and all I had seen and heard and done and felt and grokked poured out and into their records. I don't mean that they wiped my mind of it; they simply played the tape, so to speak, made a copy. But the triggering I could feel — and it was over before I could stop it. Then they cut off the linkage; I couldn't even protest.»

«Well … it seems to me that they used you shabbily — »

«Not by their standards. Nor would I have objected — I would have been happy to volunteer — had I known it before I left Mars. But they didn't want me to know; they wanted me to grok without interference.»

«I was going to add,» Jubal said, «that if you are free of this damnable invasion of your privacy now, then what harm has been done? It seems to me that you could have had a Martian at your elbow all these past two and a half years, with no harm other than attracting stares.»

Mike looked very sober. «Jubal, listen to a story. Listen all the way through.» Mike told him of the destruction of the missing Fifth Planet of Sol, whose ruins are asteroids. «Well, Jubal?»

«It reminds me of the myths about the Flood.»

«No, Jubal. The Flood you aren't sure about. Are you sure about the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum?»

«Oh, yes. Those are established facts.»

«Jubal, the destruction of the Fifth Planet by the Old Ones is as certain as that eruption of Vesuvius — and is recorded in much greater detail. No myth. Fact.»

«Uh, stipulate it. Do I understand that you fear that the Old Ones of Mars will give this planet the same treatment? Will you forgive me if I say that is hard for me to swallow?»

«Why, Jubal, it wouldn't take the Old Ones to do it. It merely takes knowledge of physics, how matter is put together — and the same control you have seen me use time and again. Simply necessary first to grok what you want to manipulate. I can do it, right now. Say a piece near the core of Earth about a hundred miles in diameter — much bigger than necessary but we want to make this fast and painless, if only to please Jill. Feel out its size and place, grok carefully how it is put together — » His face lost all expression and his eyeballs started to turn up.

«Hey!» broke in Harshaw. «Stop it! I don't know whether you can or not but I don't want you to try!»

The face of the Man from Mars became normal. «Why, I would never do it. For me, it would be a wrongness — I am human.»

«But not for them?»

«Oh, no. The Old Ones might grok it as beauty. I don't know. Oh, I have the discipline to do it … but not the volition. Jill could do it — that is, she could contemplate the exact method. But she could never will to do it; she is human, too; this is her planet. The essence of the discipline is, first, self-awareness, and then, self control. By the time a human is able to destroy this planet by this method — instead of by clumsy things like cobalt bombs — it is not possible, I grok fully, for him to entertain the volition. He would discorporate. And that would end any threat; our Old Ones don't hang around the way they do on Mars.»

«Mmmm … son, as long as we are checking you for bats in your belfry, clear up something else. You've always spoken of these “Old Ones” as casually as I speak of the neighbor's dog — but I find ghosts hard to swallow. What does an “Old One” look like?»

«Why, just like any other Martian.»

«Then how do you know it's not just an adult Martian? Does he walk through walls, or such?»

«Any Martian can do that. I did, yesterday.»

«Uh … shimmers? Or anything?»

«No. You see, hear, feel them — everything. It's like an image in a stereo tank, only perfect and put right into your mind. But — Look, Jubal, the whole thing would be a silly question on Mars, but I realize it isn't, here. If you were present at the discorporation — death — of a friend, then helped eat his body … and then you saw his ghost, talked with it, touched it, anything — would you then believe in ghosts?»

«Well, either that, or I had slipped my leash.»