Robert Heinlein - A Stranger in a Strange Land

This letter enclosed a picture which managed not only to leave nothing to the imagination, but started over by stimulating fresh imaginings. Jill said, "Look at this, Boss! I ask you!"

Jubal read the letter, then looked at the picture. "She seems to know what she wants. What does Mike think of it?"

"He hasn't seen it. That's why I brought it to you."

Jubal glanced again at the picture. "A type which, in my youth, we referred to as 'stacked.' Well, her sex is not in doubt, nor her agility. But why are you showing it to me? I've seen better, I assure you."

"But what should I do with it? The letter is bad enough� but that disgusting picture - should I tear it up? Before Mike sees it?"

"Oh- Siddown, Nurse. What does it say on the envelope?"

"Nothing. Just the address and the return address."

"How does the address read?"

"Huh? 'Mr. Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from-"

"Oh. Then it's not addressed to you."

"Why, no, of course-"

"That's all I wanted to be sure of. Now let's get something straight. I am not Mike's guardian. You are neither his mother nor his chaperon. I've simply co-opted you as his secretary. If Mike wants to read everything that comes in here addressed to him, including third class junk mail, he is free to do so."

"Well, he does read almost all of those ads. But surely you don't want him to see filth? Jubal, Mike doesn't know what the world is like. He's innocent.

"So? How many men has he killed so far, Jill?"

Jill did not answer; she looked unhappy. Jubal went on: "If you want to help him, you will concentrate on teaching him that casual killing is frowned on in this society. Otherwise he is bound to be unpleasantly conspicuous when he goes out into the world."

"Uh, I don't think he wants to 'go out into the world.'"

"Well, I'm damned well going to push him out of the nest as soon as I think he can fly. He can come back later, if he wishes - But I shan't make it possible for him to live out his life here, as an arrested infant. For one thing, I can't even if I wanted to� because Mike will probably outlive me by sixty or seventy years and this nest will be gone. But you are correct; Mike is innocent our standards. Nurse, have you ever seen that sterile laboratory at Notre Dame?"

"No. I've read about it."

"Healthiest animals in the world but they can't ever leave the laboratory. Child, I'm not running a sterile laboratory. Mike has got to get acquainted with 'filth,' as you call it - and get immunized to it. One day he's going to meet the gal who wrote this letter, or her spiritual twin sister - in fact he's going to meet her by the dozens and hundreds, shucks, with his notoriety and his looks he can spend his life skipping from one warm bed to another, if he likes. You can't stop it, I can't stop it; it's up to Mike. Furthermore, I wouldn't want to stop it, although for my taste it's a silly way to spend one's life - doing the same monotonous exercises over and over again, I mean - what do you think?"

"I-" Jill stopped and blushed.

"I withdraw the question. Maybe you don't find them monotonous but none of my business, either way. But if you don't want Mike's feet kicked out from under him by the first five hundred women that get him alone and I don't regard it as a good idea, either; he should have other interests as well - then don't try to intercept his mail. Letters like that may vaccinate him a little� or at least tend to put him on guard. Don't make a thing out of it; just pass it along in the stack, cum 'filthy' picture. Answer his questions if he asks them� and try not to blush."

"Uh, all right. Boss, you're infuriating when you're logical."

"Yes, a most uncouth way to argue. Now run along."

"All right. But I'm going to tear up that picture after Mike has seen it."

"Oh, don't do that!"

"What? Do you want it, Boss?"

"Heaven forbid! I told you I had seen much better. But Duke is not as jaundiced as I am; he collects such pictures. If Mike doesn't want it - and five-to-one he doesn't give it to Duke - he'll be delighted."

"Duke collects such trash? But he seems such a nice person.

"He is. A very nice person indeed. Or I'd kick him out."

"But- I don't understand it"

Jubal sighed. "And I could sit here all day explaining it and you still wouldn't understand it. My dear, there are aspects of sex on which it is impossible to communicate between the two sexes of our race. They are sometimes grokked by intuition across the gulf that separates us, by a few exceptionally gifted individuals. But words are useless, so I won't try. Just take my word for it: Duke is a perfect knight, sans peur et sans reproche - and he would like to have that picture."

"All right, he can have it if Mike doesn't keep it. But I'll just pass it along to you. I won't give it to Duke myself - he might get ideas."

"Sissy. You might enjoy his ideas- Anything startling in the mail otherwise?"

"No. The usual crop of people who want Mike to endorse this and that, or peddle 'Official Man-from-Mars this's and that's-one character had the nerve to ask for a five-year monopoly royalty free, on the name, but wants Mike to finance it as well."

"I admire that sort of whole-hearted thief. Encourage him. Tell him that Mike is so rich that he makes crepes suzettes with Napoleon brandy and needs some tax losses - so how much guarantee would he like?"

"Are YOU serious, Boss? I'll have to dig it out of the group already sacked for Mr. Douglas."

"Of course I'm not serious. The gonif would show up here tomorrow, with his family. But you've given me a fine idea for a story, so run along. Front!"

Mike was not uninterested in the "disgusting" picture. He grokked correctly (if only theoreticly) what the letter and the picture symbolized - and studied the picture with the clear-eyed delight With which he studied each passing butterfly. He found both butterflies and women tremendously interesting - in fact, all the grokking world around him was enchanting and he wanted to drink so deep of it all that his own grokking would be perfect.

He understood, intellectually, the mechanical and biological processes being offered to him in these letters but he wondered why these strangers wanted his help in quickening their eggs? Mike understood (without grokking it) that these people made ritual of this simple necessity, a "growing closer" possibly almost as important and precious as the water ceremony. He was eager to grok it.

But he was not in a hurry, "hurry" being one human concept he had failed to grok at all. He was sensitively aware of the key importance of correct timing in all acts - but with the Martian approach: correct timing was accomplished by waiting. He had noticed, of course, that his human brothers lacked his own fine discrimination of time and often were forced to wait a little faster than a Martian would - but he did not hold their innocent awkwardness against them; he simply learned to wait faster himself to cover their lack.

In fact, he sometimes waited faster so efficiently that a human would have concluded that he was hurrying at breakneck speed. But the human would have been mistaken - Mike was simply adjusting his own waiting in warm consideration for the needs of others.

So he accepted Jill's edict that he was not to reply to any of these brotherly offers from female humans, but he accepted it not as a final veto but as a waiting - possibly a century hence would be better; in any case now was not the correct time since his water brother Jill spoke rightly.

Mike readily assented when Jill suggested, quite firmly, that he give this picture to Duke. He went at once to do so and would have done so anyhow; Mike knew about Duke's collection, he had seen it, looked through it with deep interest, trying to grok why Duke said, "That one ain't much in the face, but look at those legs - brother!" It always made Mike feel good to be called "brother" by one of his water brothers but legs were just legs, save that his own people had three each while humans each had only two - without being crippled thereby, he reminded himself, two legs were proper for humans, he must always grok that this was correct.