Stranger in a Strange Land

She participated in another miracle. They were seated on the rug; Jill lay back and suggested it to Mike in her mind. With no patter, no props, Mike lifted her. Patricia watched with serene happiness. «Pat,» Mike then said. «Lie flat.»

She obeyed as readily as if he had been Foster. Jill turned her head. «Hadn't you better put me down, Mike?»

«No, I can do it.»

Mrs. Paiwonski felt herself gently lifted. She was not frightened; she felt overpowering religious ecstasy like heat lightning in her loins, making tears come to her eyes; such power she had not felt since Holy Foster had touched her. Mike moved them closer and Jill hugged; her tears increased with gentle sobs of happiness.

Mike lowered them to the floor and was not tired — he could not recall when last he had been tired.

Jill said, «Mike … we need water.»

(«????»)

(«Yes,»her mind answered.)

(«And?»)

(«Of elegantnecessity. Why do you think she came here?»)

( «Iknew. I was not sure that you knew … or would approve. My brother. My self.»)

(«My brother.»)

Mike sent a glass into the bathroom, had the tap fill it, return it to Jill. Mrs Paiwonski watched with interest; she was beyond being astonished. Jill said to her, «Aunt Patty this is like being baptized … and like getting married. It's … a Martian thing. It means you trust us and we trust you … we can tell you anything and you can tell us anything … and that we are partners, now and forever. But once done it can never be broken. If you broke it, we would die — at once. Saved or not. If we broke it — But we won't. But don't share water with us if you don't want to — we'll still be friends. If this interferes with your faith, don't do it. We don't belong to your church. We may never belong. “Seekers” is the most you can call us. Mike?»

«We grok,» he agreed. «Pat, Jill speaks rightly. I wish we could tell you in Martian, it would be clearer. But this is everything that getting married is — and much more. We are free to offer water … but if there is any reason, in your religion or your heart, not to accept — don't drink it!»

Patricia Paiwonski took a deep breath. She had made such a decision before… with her husband watching … had not funked it. Who was she to refuse a holy man? And this blessed bride? «I want it,» she said firmly.

Jill took a sip. «We grow ever closer.» She passed the glass to Mike.

«I thank you for water, my brother.» He took a sip. «Pat, I give you the water of life. May you always drink deep.» He passed the glass to her.

Patricia took it. «Thank you. Thank you, oh my dears! The “water of life” — I love you both!» She drank thirstily.

Jill took the glass, finished it. «Now we grow closer, my brothers.»

(«Jill?»)

(«Now!!!»)

Michael lifted his new brother, wafted her in and placed her gently on the bed.

Valentine Michael Smith grokked that physical human love — very human and very physical — was not simply a quickening of eggs, nor was it ritual through which one grew closer; the act itself was a growing-closer. He was still grokking it, trying at every opportunity to grok its fullness. He had long since quit shying away from his strong suspicion that even the Old Ones did not know this ecstasy — he grokked that his new people held spiritual depths unique. Happily he tried to sound them, with no childhood inhibitions to cause him guilt nor reluctance of any sort.

His human teachers, gentle and generous, had instructed his innocence without bruising it. The result was as unique as he was.

Jill was unsurprised to find that Patty accepted with forthright fullness that sharing water with Mike in a very ancient Martian ceremony led at once to sharing Mike himself in an ancient human rite. Jill was somewhat surprised at Pat's calm acceptance when Mike proved capable of miracles here, too. But Jill did not know that Patricia had met a holy man before — she expected more of holy men. Jih was serenely happy that a cusp had been met with right action … then was ecstatically happy to grow closer herself.

When they rested, Jill had Mike treat Patty to a bath by telekinesis, and squealed and giggled when the older woman did. Mike had done it playfully for Jill on the initial occasion; it had become a family custom, one that Jill knew Patty would like. It tickled Jill to see Patty's face when she found herself scrubbed by invisible hands, then dried with neither towel nor air blast.

Patricia blinked. «After that I need a drink.»

«Certainly, darling.»

«And I still want to show you kids my pictures.» They went into the living room and Patty stood in the middle of the rug. «First look at me. At me, not my pictures. What do you see?»

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