Robert Heinlein - A Stranger in a Strange Land

Except (Jubal reminded himself) on one point: Mike still did not laugh. He could smile at a joke and sometimes did not ask to have them explained to him. Mike was cheerful, even merry - but he never laughed.

Jubal decided that it was not important. This patient was sane, healthy� and human. Short weeks earlier Jubal would have given odds against the cure taking place. He was honest and humble enough as a physician not to claim credit; the girls had had more to do with it. Or should he say "girl?"

From the first week of his stay Jubal had told Mike almost daily that he was welcome to stay� but that he should stir out and see the world as soon as he felt able. In view of this Jubal should not have been surprised when Mike announced one breakfast that he was leaving. But he was both surprised and, to his greater surprise, hurt.

He covered it by using his napkin unnecessarily before answering, "So? When?"

"We're leaving today."

"Um- Plural." Jubal looked around the table. "Are Larry and Duke and I going to have to put up with our own cooking until I can dig up more help?"

"We've talked that over," Mike answered. "Jill is going with me - nobody else. I do need somebody with me, Jubal; I know quite well that I don't know, as yet, how people do things out in the world. I still make mistakes; I need a guide, for a time. I think it ought to be Jill, because she wants to go on learning Martian - and the others think so, too. But if you want Jill to stay, then it could be someone else. Duke and Larry are each willing to help me, if you can't spare one of the girls."

"You mean I get a vote?"

"What? Jubal, it has to be your decision. We all know that."

(Son, you're a gent - and you've probably just told your first lie - I doubt if I could hold even Duke if you set your mind against it.) "I guess it ought to be Jill. But look, kids - This is still your home. The latch string is out."

"We know that - and we'll be back. Again we will share water."

"We will, son."

"Yes, Father."

"Huh?"

"Jubal, there is no Martian word for 'father.' But lately I have grokked that you are my father. And Jill's father."

Jubal glanced at Jill. "Mmm, I grok. Take care of yourselves."

"Yes. Come, Jill." They were gone before he left the table.

IT WAS THE USUAL SORT OF CARNIVAL in the usual sort of town. The rides were the same, the cotton candy tasted the same, the flat joints practiced a degree of moderation acceptable to the local law in separating the marks from their half dollars, whether with baseballs thrown at targets, with wheels of fortune, or what - but the separation took place just the same. The sex lecture was trimmed to suit local opinions concerning Charles Darwin's opinions, the girls in the posing show wore that amount of gauze that local mores required, and the Fearless Fentons did their Death-Defying (in sober truth) Double Dive just before the last bally each night.

The ten-in-one show was equally standard. It did not have a mentalist, it did have a magician; it did not have a bearded lady, it did have a half-man half-woman; it did not have a sword swallower, it did have a fire eater. In place of a tattooed man the show had a tattooed lady who was also a snake charmer - and for the blow-off (at another half dollar per mark) she appeared "absolutely nude!� clothed only in bare living flesh in exotic designs!"-and any mark who could find one square inch below her neckline untattooed would be awarded a twenty dollar bill.

That twenty dollars had gone unclaimed all season, because the blowoff was honestly ballyhooed. Mrs. Paiwonski stood perfectly still and completely unclothed - other than in "bare, living flesh"� in this case a fourteen-foot boa constrictor known as "Honey Bun." Honey Bun was looped around Mrs. P. so strategically that even the local ministerial alliance could find no real excuse to complain, especially as some of their own daughters wore not nearly as much and covered still less while attending the carnival. To keep the placid, docile Honey Bun from being disturbed, Mrs. P. took the precaution of standing on a small platform in the middle of a canvas tank - on the floor of which were more than a dozen cobras.

The occasional drunk who was certain that all snake charmer's snakes were defanged and so tried to climb into the tank in pursuit of that undecorated square inch invariably changed his opinion as soon as a cobra noticed him, lifted and spread its hood.

Besides, the lighting wasn't very good.

However, the drunk could not have won the twenty dollars in any case. Mrs. P's claim was much sounder than the dollar. She and her late husband had had for many years a tattooing studio in San Pedro; when trade was slack they had decorated each other - and, eventually, at some minor inconvenience to herself, the art work on her was so definitively complete from her neck down that there was no possible room for an encore. She took great pride both in the fact that she was the most completely decorated woman in the world (and by the world's greatest artist, for such was her humbly grateful opinion of her late husband) and also in the certainty that every dollar she earned was honest.

She associated with grifters and sinners and did not hold herself aloof from them. But her own integrity was untouched. She and her husband had been converted by Foster himself, she kept her membership in San Pedro and attended services at the nearest branch of the Church of the New Revelation no matter where she was.

Patricia Paiwoush would gladly have dispensed with the protection of Honey Bun in the blow-off not merely to prove that she was honest (that needed no proof, since she knew it was true) but because she was serene in her conviction that she was the canvas for religious art greater than any on the walls or ceilings of the Vatican. When she and George had seen the light. there was still about three square feet of Patricia untouched before he died she carried a complete pictorial life of Foster, from his crib with the angels hovering around to the day of glory when he had taken his appointed place among the archangels.

Regrettably (since it might have turned many sinners into seekers of the light) much of this sacred history had to be covered up. the amount depending on the local lawmen. But she could show it in closed Happiness meetings of the local churches she attended, if the shepherd wanted her to, which he almost always did. But, while it was always good to add to Happiness, the saved did not need it; Patricia would rather have saved sinners. She couldn't preach, she couldn't sing, and she had never been called to speak in tongues but she was a living witness to the light.

In the ten-in-one, her act came next to last, just before the magician; this gave her time to put away unsold photographs of herself (a quarter for black amp; white, half a dollar in color, a set of special photographs for five dollars in a sealed envelope sold only to marks who signed a printed form alleging that they were doctors of medicine, psychology, sociology, or other such entitled to professional material not available to the general public - and such was Patricia's integrity that she would not sell these even for ten dollars if the mark did not look the part; she would then ask to see his business card - no dirty dollars were going to put her kids through school - and also gave her time to slip behind the rear canvas and get herself and her snakes ready for the blow-off.

The magician, Dr. Apollo, performed on the last platform nearest to the canvas fly leading to the blow-off. He started by passing out to his audience a dozen shiny steel rings, each as wide as a plate; he invited them to convince themselves that each ring was solid and smooth. Then he had them hold the rings so that they overlapped. Dr. Apollo walked along the platform, reached out with his wand and tapped each overlap - the solid steel links formed a chain.