«I guarantee it ain't,» Jubal assured him. «My taxes are due.»
«Still, that doesn't affect
«And take these houris — Even if we stipulate that they are of adequate beauty — after all, beauty is in the eye of the be-holder — »
«They pass.»
«And you'll pay for that, Boss,» Miriam added.
« — there still remains,» Jubal pointed out, «one requisite attribute of houris.»
«Mmmm — » said Mahmoud, «we need not go into that. In Paradise, rather than a temporary physical condition, it would be a permanent spiritual attribute. Yes?»
«In that case,» Jubal said emphatically, «I am
Mahmoud sighed. «Then I'll have to convert one.»
«Why one? There are places where you can have the full quota.»
«No, my brother. In the wise words of the Prophet, while the Legislations permit four, it is impossible to deal justly with more than one.»
«That's some relief. Which one?»
«We'll see. Maryam, are you feeling spiritual?»
«You go to hell! “Houris” indeed!»
«Jill?»
«Give me a break,» Ben protested. «I'm working on Jill.»
«Later, Jill. Anne?»
«Sorry. I've got a date.»
«Dorcas? You're my last chance.»
«Stinky,» she said softly, «just how spiritual do you want me to feel?»
Mike went upstairs to his room, closed the door, got on the bed, assumed the foetal position, rolled up his eyes, swallowed his tongue, and slowed his heart. Jill did not like him to do this in the daytime but did not object as long as he did not do it publicly — so
He had done something that Jill had told him not to —
He felt a human urge to tell himself that it had been forced on him, but his Martian training did not permit this escape. He had arrived at cusp, right action had been required, the choice had been his. He grokked that he had chosen correctly. But his water brother Jill had forbidden this choice —
But that would have left
Would Jill have approved had he taken other action, not wasting food?
No, he grokked that Jill's injunction covered that variant.
At this point the being sprung from human genes and shaped by Martian thought, who could never be either, completed one stage of his growth, burst out and ceased to be a nestling. The solitary loneliness of predestined free will was then his and with it Martian serenity to embrace, cherish, savor its bitterness, accept its consequences. With tragic joy he knew that this cusp was his, not Jill's. His water brother could teach, admonish, guide — but choice at cusp was not shared. Here was «ownership» beyond sale, gift, hypothecation; owner and owned grokked inseparable. He eternally
Now that he knew himself to be self he was free to grok ever closer to his brothers, merge without let. Self's integrity was and is and ever had been. Mike stopped to cherish all his brother selves, the many threes- fulfilled on Mars, corporate and discorporate, the precious few on Earth — the unknown powers of three on Earth that would be his to merge with and cherish now that at last long waiting he grokked and cherished himself.
Mike remained in trance; there was much to grok, loose ends to puzzle over and fit into his growing — all that he had seen and heard and been at the Archangel Foster Tabernacle (not just cusp when he and Digby had come face to face alone) … why Bishop Senator Boone made him warily uneasy, how Miss Dawn Ardent tasted like a water brother when she was not, the smell of goodness he had incompletely grokked in the jumping up and down and wailing —
Jubal's conversations coming and going — Jubal's words troubled him most; he studied them, compared them with what he had been taught as a nestling, struggling to bridge between languages, the one he thought with and the one he was learning to think in. The word «church» which turned up over and over again among Jubal's words gave him knotty difficulty; there was no Martian concept to match it — unless one took «church» and «worship» and «God» and «congregation» and many other words and equated them to the totality of the only world he had known during growing-waiting … then forced the concept back into English in that phrase which had been rejected (by each differently) by Jubal, by Mahmoud, by Digby.
«
Before midnight he speeded his heart, resumed normal breathing, ran down his check list, uncurled and sat up. He had been weary; now he felt light and gay and clear-headed, ready for the many actions he saw spreading out before him.
He felt a puppyish need for company as strong as his earlier necessity for quiet. He stepped out into the hall, was delighted to encounter a water brother.«
«Oh. Hello, Mike. My, you look chipper.»
«I feel fine! Where is everybody?»
«Asleep. Ben and Stinky went home an hour ago and people started going to bed.»
«Oh.» Mike felt disappointed that Mahmoud had left; he wanted to explain his new grokking.
«I ought to be asleep, too, but I felt like a snack. Are you hungry?»
«Sure, I'm hungry!»
«Come on, there's some cold chicken and we'll see what else.» They went downstairs, loaded a tray lavishly. «Let's take it outside. It's plenty warm.»
«A fine idea,» Mike agreed.
«Warm enough to swim — real Indian summer. I'll switch on the floods.»
«Don't bother,» Mike answered. «I'll carry the tray.» He could see in almost total darkness. Jubal said that his night-sight probably came from the conditions in which he had grown up, and Mike grokked this was true but grokked that there was more to it; his foster parents had taught him to see. As for the night being warm, he would have been comfortable naked on Mount Everest but his water brothers had little tolerance for changes in temperature and pressure; he was considerate of their weakness, once he learned of it. But he was looking forward to snow — seeing for himself that each tiny crystal of the water of life was a unique individual, as he had read — walking barefoot, rolling in it.
In the meantime he was pleased with the warm night and the still more pleasing company of his water brother.
«Okay, take the tray. I'll switch on the underwater lights. That'll be plenty to eat by.»
«Fine.» Mike liked having light up through the ripples; it was a goodness, beauty. They picnicked by the pool, then lay back on the grass and looked at stars.
«Mike, there's Mars. It is Mars, isn't it? Or Antares?»
«It is Mars.»
«Mike? What are they doing on Mars?»
He hesitated; the question was too wide for the sparse English language. «On the side toward the horizon — the southern hemisphere — it is spring; plants are being taught to grow.»
«“Taught to grow”?»
He hesitated. «Larry teaches plants to grow. I have helped him. But my people — Martians, I mean; I now grok you are my people — teach plants another way. In the other hemisphere it is growing colder and nymphs,
