Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

But Mike treated him as a friend, so “friend” he was, until proved otherwise.

To Mahmoud, Harshaw looked like a museum exhibit of what he thought of as a “Yank”—vulgar, dressed too informally for the occasion, loud, probably ignorant and almost certainly provincial. A professional man, too, which made it worse, as in Dr. Mahmoud’s experience most American professional men were under-educated and narrow, mere technicians. He held a vast but carefully concealed distaste for all things American. Their incredible polytheistic babel of religions, of course, although they were hardly to be blamed for that… their cooking (cooking!), their manners, their bastard architecture and sickly arts… and their blind, pathetic, arrogant belief in their superiority long after their sun had set. Their women. Their women most of all, their immodest, assertive women, with their gaunt, starved bodies which nevertheless reminded him disturbingly of houris. Four of them here, crowded around Valentine Michael—at a meeting which certainly should be all male. But Valentine Michael had offered him all these people—including these ubiquitous female creatures—offered them proudly and eagerly as his water brothers, thereby laying on Mahmoud a family obligation closer and more binding than that owed to the sons of one’s father’s brother—since Mahmoud understood the Martian term for such accretive relationships from direct observation of what it meant to Martians and did not need to translate it clumsily and inadequately as “catenative assemblage,” nor even as “things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” He had seen Martians at home; he knew their extreme poverty (by Earth standards); he had dipped into—and had guessed at far more—of their cultural extreme wealth; and had grokked quite accurately the supreme value that Martians place on interpersonal relationships.

Well, there was nothing else for it—he had shared water with Valentine Michael and now he must justify his friend’s faith in him… he simply hoped that these Yanks were not complete bounders.

So he smiled warmly and shook hands firmly. “Yes. Valentine Michael has explained to me—most proudly—that you are all in—” (Mahmoud used one word of Martian.) “—to him.”

“Eh?”

“Water brotherhood. You understand?”

“I grok it.”

Mahmoud strongly doubted if Harshaw did, but he went on smoothly, “Since I myself am already in that relationship to him, I must ask to be considered a member of the family. I know your name, and I have guessed that this must be Mr. Caxton—in fact I have seen your face pictured at the head of your column, Mr. Caxton; I read it when I have opportunity—but let me see if I have the young ladies straight. This must be Anne.”

“Yes. But she’s cloaked at the moment.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll pay my respects to her when she is not busy professionally.”

Harshaw introduced him to the other three… and Jill startled him by addressing him with the correct honorific for a water brother, pronouncing it about three octaves higher than any adult Martian would talk but with sore-throat purity of accent. It was one of the scant dozen Martian words she could speak out of the hundred-odd that she was beginning to understand—but this one she had down pat because it was used to her and by her many times each day.

Dr. Mahmoud’s eyes widened slightly—perhaps these people would turn out not to be mere uncircumcised barbarians after all… and his young friend did have strong intuitions. Instantly he offered Jill the correct honorific in response and bowed over her hand.

Jill saw that Mike was obviously delighted; she managed, slurringly but passably, to croak the shortest of the nine forms by which a water brother may return the response—although she did not grok it fully and would not have considered suggesting (in English) the nearest human biological equivalent… certainly not to a man she had just met!

However, Mahmoud, who did understand it, took it in its symbolic meaning rather than its (humanly impossible) literal meaning, and spoke rightly in response. But Jill had passed the limit of her linguistic ability; she did not understand his answer at all and could not reply, even in pedestrian English.

But she got a sudden inspiration. At intervals around the huge table were placed the age-old furniture of human palavers—water pitchers each with its clump of glasses. She stretched and got a pitcher and a tumbler, filled the latter.

She looked Mahmoud in the eye, said earnestly, “Water. Our nest is yours.” She touched it to her lips and handed it to Mahmoud.

He answered her in Martian, saw that she did not understand him and translated, “Who shares water shares all.” He took a sip and started to hand the glass back to Jill—checked himself, looked at Harshaw and offered him the glass.

Jubal said, “I can’t speak Martian, son—but thanks for water. May you never be thirsty.” He took a sip, then drank about a third of it. “Ak!” He passed the glass to Ben.

Caxton looked at Mahmoud and said very soberly, “Grow closer. With the water of life we grow closer.” He wet his lips with it and passed it to Dorcas.

In spite of the precedents already set, Dorcas hesitated. “Dr. Mahmoud? You do know how serious this is to Mike?”

“I do, Miss.”

“Well… it’s just as serious to us. You understand? You grok?”

“I grok its fullness… or I would have refused to drink.”

“All right. May you always drink deep. May our eggs share a nest.” Tears started down her cheeks: she drank and passed the glass hastily to Miriam.

Miriam whispered, “Pull yourself together, kid,” then spoke to Mike, “With water we welcome our brother,”—then added to Mahmoud, “Nest, water, life.” She drank. “Our brother.” She offered him the glass.

Mahmoud finished what was left in it and spoke, neither in Martian nor English, but Arabic: “‘And if ye mingle your affairs with theirs, then they are your brothers.’”

“Amen,” Jubal agreed.

Dr. Mahmoud looked quickly at him, decided not to enquire just then whether Harshaw had understood him, or was simply being polite; this was neither the time nor the place to say anything which might lead to unbottling his own troubles, his own doubts. Nevertheless he felt warmed in his soul—as always—by water ritual… even though it smelled of heresy.

His thoughts were cut short by the assistant chief of protocol bustling up to them. “You’re Dr. Mahmoud. You belong over on the far side of the table, Doctor. Follow me.”

Mahmoud looked at him, then looked at Mike and smiled. “No, I belong here, with my friends. Dorcas, may I pull a chair in here and sit between you and Valentine Michael?”

“Certainly, Doctor. Here, I’ll scrunch over.”

The a.c. of p. was almost tapping his foot in impatience. “Dr. Mahmoud, please! The chart places you over on the other side of the room! The Secretary General will be here any moment—and the place is still simply swarming with reporters and goodness knows who else who doesn’t belong here… and I don’t know what I’m going to do!”

“Then go do it someplace else, bub,” Jubal suggested.

“What? Who are you? Are you on the list?” He worriedly consulted the seating chart he carried.

“Who are you?” Jubal answered. “The head waiter? I’m Jubal Harshaw. If my name is not on that list, you can tear it up and start over. And look, buster, if the Man from Mars wants his friend Dr. Mahmoud to sit by him, that settles it.”

“But he can’t sit here! Seats at the main conference table are reserved for High Ministers, Chiefs of Delegations, High Court Justices, and equal ranks—and I don’t know how I can squeeze them all in if any more show up—and the Man from Mars, of course.”