Stranger in a Strange Land

Jubal refrained from saying that the only times he had ever felt that he could read minds was precisely in that situation … and then not thoughts, but emotions. He simply regretted without bitterness that he was not half a century younger — in which case Dawn would have had that «Miss» taken off her name and he would have boldly risked another marriage, despite his scars. Also that he would not trade the preceding night for all the years that might be left him. In essence, Mike was right. «Go on, sir.»

«That's what sexual union should be. But that's what I slowly grokked it rarely was. Instead it was indifference and acts mechanically performed and rape and seduction as a game no better than roulette but less honest and prostitution and celibacy by choice and by no choice and fear and guilt and hatred and violence and children brought up to think that sex was “bad” and 'shameful' and “animal” and something to be hidden and always distrusted. This lovely perfect thing, male-femaleness, turned upside down and inside out and made horrible.

«And every one of those wrong things is a corollary of “jealousy”. Jubal, I couldn't believe it. I still don't grok “jealousy” in fullness, it seems insanity to me. When I first learned what this ecstasy was, my first thought was that I wanted to share it, share it at once with all my water brothers — directly with those female, indirectly by inviting more sharing with those male. The notion of trying to keep this never-failing fountain to myself would have horrified me, had I thought of it. But I was incapable of thinking it. And in perfect corollary I had no slightest wish to attempt this miracle with anyone I did not already cherish and trust — Jubal, I am physically unable even to attempt love with a female who has not shared water with me. And this runs all through the Nest. Psychic impotence — unless spirits blend as flesh blends.»

Jubal was thinking mournfully that it was a fine system — for angels — when a sky car landed on the private flat diagonally in front of him. He turned his head to see and, as its skids touched, it vanished.

«Trouble?» he asked.

«No,» Mike denied. «They are beginning to suspect that we are here — that I am, rather; they think the rest are dead. The Innermost Temple, I mean. The other circles aren't being bothered…» He grinned. «We could get a good price for these rooms; the city is filling up with Bishop Short's shock troops.»

«Isn't it about time to get the family elsewhere?»

«Jubal, don't worry. That car never had a chance to report, even by radio. I'm guarding us. It's no trouble, now that Jill is over her misconceptions about “wrongness” in discorporating persons who have wrongness in them. I used to have to use complicated expedients to protect us. But now Jill knows that I do it only as fullness is grokked.» The Man from Mars grinned boyishly. «Last night she helped me with a hatchet job … nor was it her first time.»

«What sort of a job?»

«Oh, just a follow-up on the jail break. Some few I couldn't release; they were vicious. So I got rid of them before I got rid of bars and doors. But I have been slowly grokking this whole city for months … and quite a few of the worst were not in jail. I have been waiting, making a list, making sure of fullness in each case. So, now that we are leaving this city — they don't live here any more. They were discorporated and sent back to the foot of the line to try again. Incidentally, that was the grokking that changed Jill's attitude from squeamishness to hearty approval: when she finally grokked in fullness that it is impossible to kill a man — that all we were doing was much like a referee removing a player for “unnecessary roughness”.»

«Aren't you afraid of playing God, lad?»

Mike grinned with unashamed cheerfulness. «I am God. Thou art God … and any jerk I remove is God, too. Jubal, it is said that God notes each sparrow that falls. And so He does. But the closest it can be said in English is that God cannot avoid noting the sparrow because the Sparrow is God. And when a cat stalks a sparrow both of them are God, carrying out God's thoughts.»

Another sky car started to land and vanished; Jubal did not comment. «How many did you toss out of the game last night?»

«Oh, about four hundred and fifty — I didn't count. This is a largish city. But for a while it is going to be an unusually decent one. No cure, of course — there is no cure, short of the discipline.» Mike looked unhappy. «And that is what I must ask you about, Father. I'm afraid I have misled our brothers.»

«How, Mike?»

«They're too optimistic. They see how well it works for us, they know how happy they are, how strong and healthy and aware — how deeply they love each other. And now they think they grok that it is just a matter of time until the whole human race will reach the same beatitude. Oh, not tomorrow — some of them grok that two thousand years is but a moment for such a mission. But eventually.