joined him.
«Mike's helping. I think he's going to be a butler when he grows up.»
«I thought you had left. Send him in anyhow; Dr. Nelson wants to examine him.»
«No hurry,» put in the ship's surgeon. «Jubal, this is excellent Scotch — but what was the toast?»
«Sorry. Polynesian. “May our friendship be everlasting”. Call it a footnote to the water ceremony. By the way, gentlemen, Larry and Duke are water brothers to Mike, too, but don't let it fret you. They can't cook … but they're the sort to have at your back in a dark alley.»
«If you vouch for them, Jubal,» van Tromp assured him, «admit them and tyle the door. But let's drink to the girls. Sven, what's that toast to the flickas?»
«The one to pretty girls everywhere? Let's drink to the four who are here.
«Raise 'em in my own cellar. Then when I've got 'em trained, some city slicker comes along and marries them. It's a losing game.»
«I see how you suffer,» Nelson said sympathetically.
«I do. I trust all you gentlemen are married?»
Two were, Mahmoud was not. Jubal looked at him bleakly. «Would you have the grace to discorporate? After lunch — I wouldn't want you to do it on an empty stomach.»
«I'm no threat, I'm a permanent bachelor.»
«Come, sir! I saw Dorcas making eyes at you … and you were purring.»
«I'm safe, I assure you.» Mahmoud thought of telling Jubal that he would never marry out of his faith, decided that a gentile would take it amiss. «But, Jubal, don't make a suggestion like that to Mike. He wouldn't grok that you were joking — and you might have a corpse on your hands. I don't
«I'm sure he can,» Nelson said firmly. «Doctor — “Jubal” I mean — have you noticed anything odd about Mike's metabolism?»
«Uh, let me put it this way. I haven't noticed anything about his metabolism that is
«Exactly.»
Jubal turned to Mahmoud. «Don't worry that I might invite Mike to suicide. I grok that he doesn't grok joking.» Jubal blinked. «But I don't grok “grok”. Stinky, you speak Martian.»
«A little.»
«You speak it fluently, I heard you. Do
Mahmoud looked thoughtful. «No. “Grok” is the most important word in the language — and I expect to spend years trying to understand it. But I don't expect to be successful. You need to
«Have I! My throbbing head!»
«Mine, too.»
«Food,» announced Jubal. «Lunch, and about time! Girls, put it where we can reach it and maintain a respectful silence. Go on, Doctor. Or does Mike's presence make it better to postpone it?»
«Not at all.» Mahmoud spoke in Martian to Mike. Mike answered, smiled sunnily; his expression became blank again and he applied himself to food. «I told him what I was trying to do and he told me that I would speak rightly; this was not opinion but a fact, a necessity. I hope that if I fail to, he will notice and tell me. But I doubt if he will. Mike thinks in Martian — and this gives him a different “map”. You follow me?»
«I grok it,» agreed Jubal. «Language itself shapes a man's basic ideas.»
«Yes, but — Doctor, you speak Arabic?»
«Eh? Badly,» admitted Jubal. «Put in a while as an army surgeon in North Africa. I still read it because I prefer the words of the Prophet in the original.»
«Proper. The Koran cannot be translated — the “map” changes no matter how one tries. You understand, then, how difficult
«But there are things which can be said in Arabic that cannot be said in English.»
Jubal nodded. «That's why I've kept up my reading.»
«Yes. But Martian is so much
«Take this word: “grok”. Its literal meaning, one which I suspect goes back to the origin of the Martian race as thinking creatures — and which throws light on their whole “map” — is easy. “Grok” means “to drink”.»
«Huh?» said Jubal. «Mike never says “grok” when he's just talking about drinking. He — »
«Just a moment.» Mahmoud spoke to Mike in Martian.
Mike looked faintly surprised. «“Grok” is drink.»
«But Mike would have agreed,» Mahmoud went on, «if I had named a hundred other English words, words which we think of as different concepts, even antithetical concepts. “Grok” means
Mahmoud screwed up his face. «“Grok” means “identically equal”. The human clichй. “This hurts me worse than it does you” has a Martian flavor. The Martians seem to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer interacts with observed through the process of observation. “Grok” means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed — to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science-and it means as little to us as color means to a blind man.» Mahmoud paused. «Jubal, if I chopped you up and made a stew, you and the stew, whatever was in it, would grok — and when I ate you, we would grok together and nothing would be lost and it would not matter which one of us did the eating.»
«It would to me!» Jubal said firmly.
«You aren't a Martian.» Mahmoud stopped to talk to Mike in Martian.
Mike nodded. «You spoke rightly, my brother. Dr. Mahmoud. I am been saying so. Thou art God.»
Mahmoud shrugged helplessly. «You see how hopeless it is? All I got was a blasphemy. We don't think in Martian. We
«Thou art God,» Mike said agreeably. «God groks.»
«Let's change the subject! Jubal, could I impose on brotherhood for more gin?»
«I'll get it!» said Dorcas.
It was a family picnic, made easy by Jubal's informality, plus the fact that the newcomers were the same sort — each learned, acclaimed, and with no need to strive. Even Dr. Mahmoud, rarely off guard with those who did not share the one true faith in submission to the Will of God, always beneficent, merciful, found himself relaxed. It had pleased him greatly that Jubal read the words of the Prophet … and, now that he stopped to notice, the women of Jubal's household were plumper than he had thought. That dark one — He put the thought out of his mind; he was a guest.
But it pleased him that these women did not chatter, did not intrude into sober talk of men, but were quick
