Robert Heinlein - A Stranger in a Strange Land

There was one field in which man was unsurpassed; he showed unlimited ingenuity in devising bigger and more efficient ways to kill off, enslave, harass, and in all ways make an unbearable nuisance of himself to himself. Man was his own grimmest joke on himself. The very bedrock of humor was-

"Man is the animal who laughs," Jubal answered.

Mike considered this seriously. "Then I am not a man."

"Huh?"

"I do not laugh. I have heard laughing and it frighted me. Then I grokked that it did not hurt. I have tried to learn-" Mike threw his head back and gave out a raucous cackle, more nerve-racking than the idiot call of a kookaburra.

Jubal covered his ears. "Stop! Stop!"

"You heard," Mike agreed sadly. "I cannot rightly do it. So I am not man."

"Wait a minute, son. Don't give up so quickly. You simply haven't learned to laugh yet� and you'll never learn just by trying. But you will learn, I promise you. If you live among us long enough, one day you will see how funny we are - and you will laugh."

"I will?"

"You will. Don't worry about it and don't try to grok it; just let it come. Why, son, even a Martian would laugh once he grokked us."

"I will wait," Smith agreed placidly.

"And while you are waiting, don't ever doubt that you are a man. You are. Man born of woman and born to trouble� and some day you will grok its fullness and you will laugh - because man is the animal that laughs at himself. About your Martian friends, I do not know. I have never met them, I do not grok them. But I grok that they may be 'man.'"

"Yes, Jubal."

Harshaw thought that the interview was over and felt relieved. He decided that he had not been so embarrassed since a day long gone when his father had undertaken to explain to him the birds and the bees and the flowers - much too late.

But the Man from Mars was not quite done. "Jubal my brother, you were ask me, 'Who made the World?' and I did not have words to say why I did not rightly grok it to be a question. I have been thinking words."

"So?"

"You told me, 'God made the World.'"

"No, no!" Harshaw said hastily. "I told you that, while all these many religions said many things, most of them said, 'God made the World.' I told you that I did not grok the fullness, but that 'God' was the word that was used."

"Yes, Jubal," Mike agreed. "Word is 'God'" He added. "You grok."

"No, I must admit I don't grok."

"You grok," Smith repeated firmly. "I am explain. I did not have the word. You grok. Anne groks. I grok. The grass under my feet groks in happy beauty. But I needed the word. The word is God."

Jubal shook his head to clear it. "Go ahead."

Mike pointed triumphantly at Jubal. "Thou art God!"

Jubal slapped a hand to his face. "Oh, Jesus H. - What have I done? Look, Mike, take it easy! Simmer down! You didn't understand me. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry! Just forget what I've been saying and we'll start over again on another day. But-"

"Thou art God," Mike repeated serenely. "That which groks. Anne is God. I am God. The happy grass are God, Jill groks in beauty always. Jill is God. All shaping and making and creating together-." He croaked something in Martian and smiled.

"All right, Mike. But let it wait. Anne, have you been getting all this?"

"You bet I have, Boss!"

"Make me a tape. I'll have to work on it. I can't let it stand. I must-" Jubal glanced up, said, "Oh, my God! General Quarters, everybody! Anne! Set the panic button on 'dead-man' setting - and for God's sake keep your thumb on it; they may not be coming here." He glanced up again, at two large air cars approaching from the south. "But I'm afraid they are. Mike! Hide in the pool! Remember what I told you - down in the deepest part, stay there, hold still - and don't come up until I send Jill to get you."

"Yes, Jubal."

"Right now! Move!"

"Yes, Jubal." Mike ran the few steps, cut the water and disappeared. He remembered to keep his knees straight, his toes pointed and his feet together.

"Jill!" Jubal called out. "Dive in and climb out. You too, Larry. If anybody saw that, I want 'em confused as to how many are using the pool. Dorcast climb out fast, child, and dive in again. Anne- No, you've got the panic button; you can't."

"I can take my cloak and go to the edge of the pool. Boss, do you want some delay on this 'dead-man' setting?"

"Uh, yes, thirty seconds. If they land here, put on your Witness cloak at once and get your thumb back on the button. Then wait - and if I call you over to me, let the balloon go up. But I don't dare shout 'Wolf!' on this unless-" He shielded his eyes. "One of them is certainly going to land and it's got that Paddy-wagon look to it, all right. Oh, damn, I had thought they would parley first."

The first car hovered, then dropped vertically for a landing in the garden area around the pool; the second started slowly circling the house at low altitude. The cars were black, squad carriers in size, and showed only a small, inconspicuous insignia: the stylized globe of the Federation.

Anne put down the radio relay link that would let "the balloon go up," got quickly into her professional garb, picked the link up again and put her thumb back on the button. The door of the first car started to open as it touched and Jubal charged toward it with the cocky belligerence of a Pekingese. As a man stepped out, Jubal roared, "Get that God damned heap off my rose hushes!"

The man said, "Jubal Harshaw?"

"You heard me! Tell that oaf you've got driving for you to raise that bucket and move it back! Off the garden entirely and onto the grass! Anne!"

"Coming, Boss."

"Jubal Harshaw, I have a warrant here for-"

"I don't care if you've got a warrant for the King of England; first you'll move that junk heap off my flowers! Then, so help me, I'll sue you for - " Jubal glanced at the man who had landed, appeared to see him for the first time. "Oh, so it's you," he said with bitter contempt. "Were you born stupid, Heinrich, or did you have to study for it? And when did that uniformed jackass working for you learn to fly? Earlier today? Since I talked to you?"

"Please examine this warrant," Captain Heinrich said with careful patience. "Then-"

"Get your go-cart out of my flower beds at once or I'll make a civil rights case out of this that will cost you your pension!"

Heinrich hesitated. 'Now!" Jubal screamed. "And tell those other yokels getting out to pick up their big feet! That idiot with the buck teeth is standing on a prize Elizabeth M. Hewitt!"

Heinrich turned his head. "You men - careful of those flowers. Paskin, you're standing on one. Rogers! Raise the car and move it back about fifty feet, clear of the garden." He turned his attention back to Harshaw. "Does that satisfy you?"

"Once he actually moves it - but you'll still pay damages. Let's see your credentials� and show them to the Fair Witness and state loud and clearly to her your name, rank, organization, and pay number."

"You know who I am. Now I have a warrant to-"

"I have a common-law warrant to part your hair with a shotgun unless you do things legally and in order! I don't know who you are. You look remarkably like a stuffed shirt I saw over the telephone earlier today - but that's not evidence and I don't identify you. You must identify yourself, in the specified legal fashion, World Code paragraph 1602, part II, before you can serve a warrant. And that goes for all those other apes, too, and that pithecan parasite piloting for you."

"They are police officers, acting under my orders."

"I don't know that they are anything of the sort. They might have hired those ill-fitting clown suits at a costumer's. The letter of the law, sir! You've come barging into my castle. You say you are a police officer - and you allege that you have a warrant for this intrusion. But I say you are trespassers until you prove otherwise� which invokes my sovereign right to use all necessary force to eject you - which I shall start to do in about three seconds."