Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

Most shortly thereafter the tattooed lady had disappeared, replaced by a rather mousy housewife in high neck, long sleeves and gloves. “I won’t cry,” she said soberly, “and it’s not good-by; there are no good-bys in eternity. But I will be waiting.” She kissed them both, briefly, left without looking back.

“BLASPHEMY!”

Foster looked up. “Something bite you, Junior?” This temporary annex had been run up in a hurry and things did get in—swarms of almost invisible imps usually … harmless, of course, but a bite from one left an itch on the ego.

“Uh… you’d have to see it to believe it—here, I’ll run the omniscio back a touch.”

“You’d be surprised at what I can believe, Junior.” Nevertheless Digby’s supervisor shifted a part of his attention. Three temporals—humans, he saw they were; a man and two women—speculating about the eternal. Nothing odd about that. “Yes?”

“You heard what she said! The ‘Archangel Michael’ indeed!”

“What about it?”

“‘What about it?’ Oh, for God’s sake!”

“Very possibly.”

Digby was so indignant that his halo quivered. “Foster, you must not have taken a good look. She meant that over-age juvenile delinquent that sent me to the showers. Scan it again.”

Foster let the gain increase, noted that the angel-in-training had spoken rightly—and noticed something else and smiled his angelic smile. “How do you know he isn’t, Junior?”

“Huh?”

“I haven’t seen Mike around the Club lately and I recall that his name has been scratched on the Millennial Solipsist Tournament—that’s a Sign that he’s likely away on detached duty, as Mike is one of the most eager Solipsism players in this sector.”

“But the notion’s obscene!”

“You’d be surprised how many of the Boss’s best ideas have been called ‘obscene’ in some quarters—or, rather, you should not be surprised, in view of your field work. But ‘obscene’ is a concept you don’t need; it has no theological meaning. ‘To the pure all things are pure.’”

“But—”

“I’m still Witnessing, Junior. You listen. In addition to the fact that our brother Michael seems to be away at this micro-instant—and I don’t keep track of him; we’re not on the same watch list—that tattooed lady who made that oracular pronouncement is not likely to be mistaken; she’s a very holy temporal herself.”

“Who says?”

“I say. I know.” Foster smiled again with angelic sweetness. Dear little Patricia! Getting a little long in the tooth now but still Earthily desirable—and shining with an inner light that made her look like a stained glass window. He noted without temporal pride that George had finished his great dedication since he had last looked at Patricia—and that picture of his being called up to Heaven wasn’t bad, not bad at all, in the Higher sense. He must remember to look up George and compliment him on it, and tell him he had seen Patricia—hmm, where was George? A creative artist in the universe design section working right under the Architect, as he recalled—no matter, the master file would dig him out in a split millennium.

What a delicious little butterball Patricia had been and such holy frenzy! If she had had just a touch more assertiveness and a touch less humility he could have made her a priestess. But such was Patricia’s need to accept God according to her own nature that she could have qualified only among the Lingayats… where she wasn’t needed. Foster considered scanning back and seeing her as she had been, decided against it with angelic restraint; there was work to be done—“Forget the omniscio, Junior. I want a word with you.” Digby did so and waited. Foster twanged his halo, an annoying habit he had when he was meditating. “Junior, you aren’t shaping up too angelically.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorrow is not for eternity. But the Truth is you’ve been preoccupied with that young fellow who may or may not be our brother Michael. Now wait—in the first place it is not for you to judge the instrument used to call you from the pasture. In the second place it is not he who vexes you—you hardly knew him—what’s bothering you is that little brunette secretary you had. She had earned my kiss quite some temporal period before you were called. Hadn’t she?”

“I was still testing her.”

“Then no doubt you have been angelically pleased to note that Supreme Bishop Short, after giving her a most thorough examination himself—oh, very thorough; I told you he would measure up—has passed her and she now enjoys the wider Happiness she deserves. Mmmm, a shepherd should take joy in his work… but when he’s promoted, he should take joy in that, too. Now it just happens I know there is a spot open for a Guardian-in-Training in a new sector being opened up—a job under your nominal rank, I concede, but good angelic experience. This planet—well, you can think of it as a planet; you’ll see—is occupied by a race of tripolarity instead of bipolarity and I have it on High Authority that Don Juan himself could not manage to take Earthly interest in any of their three polarities… that’s not an opinion; he was borrowed as a test. He screamed, and prayed to be returned to the solitary hell he has created for himself.”

“Going to send me out to Flatbush, huh? So I won’t interfere!”

“Tut, tut! You can’t interfere—the one impossibility that permits all else to be possible; I tried to tell you that when you arrived. But don’t let it fret you; you are eternally permitted to try. Your orders will include a loop so that you will check back at here—now without any loss of temporality. Now fly away and get cracking; I have work to do.” Foster turned back to where he had been interrupted. Oh, yes, a poor soul temporally designated as “Alice Douglas”—to be a goad was a hard assignment at best and she had met it unflaggingly. But her job was complete and now she would need rest and rehabilitation from the inescapable battle fatigue… she’d be kicking and screaming and foaming ectoplasm at all orifices.

Oh, she would need a thorough exorcism after a job that rough! But they were all rough; they couldn’t be anything else. And “Alice Douglas” was an utterly reliable field operative; she could take any left-hand assignment as long as it was essentially virginal—burn her at the stake or put her in a nunnery; she always delivered.

Not that he cared much for virgins, other than with professional respect for any job well done. Foster sneaked a quick last look at Mrs. Paiwonski. There was a fellow worker he could appreciate. Darling little Patricia! What a blessed, lusty benison—

AS THE DOOR OF THEIR SUITE closed itself behind Patricia Paiwonski, Jill said, “What now, Mike?”

“We’re leaving. Jill, you’ve read some abnormal psychology.”

“Yes, of course. In training. Not as much as you have, I know.”

“Do you know the symbolism of tattooing? And snakes?”

“Of course. I knew that about Patty as soon as I met her. I had been hoping that you would find a way.”

“I couldn’t, until we were water brothers. Sex is necessary, sex is a helpful goodness—but only if it is sharing and growing closer. I grok that if I did it without growing closer—well, I’m not sure.”

“I grok that you would learn that you couldn’t, Mike. That is one of the reasons—one of the many reasons—I love you.”

He looked worried. “I still don’t grok ‘love.’ Jill, I don’t grok ‘people.’ Not even you. But I didn’t want to send Pat away.”

“Stop her. Keep her with us.”

(“Waiting is, Jill.”)