Stranger in a Strange Land (24 page)

“I wouldn't advise it.”

“Why are
you
to advise? If I am hurt in attempting to enforce this my right, your action becomes constructive assault—with deadly weapons, if the things those mules are toting are guns, as they appear to be. Civil and criminal, both—why, my man, I'll have your hide for a door mat!” Jubal drew back a skinny arm and clenched a fist. “
Off
my property!”

“Hold it, Doctor. We'll do it your way.” Heinrich had turned red, but he kept his voice under tight control. He offered his identification, which Jubal glanced at, then handed back for Heinrich to show to Anne. He then stated his full name, said that he was a captain of police, Federation Special Service Bureau, and recited his pay number. One by one, the other troopers and the driver went through the rigmarole at Heinrich's frozen-faced orders.

When they were done, Jubal said sweetly, “And now, Captain, how may I help you?”

“I have a warrant for Gilbert Berquist, which warrant names this property, its buildings and grounds.”

“Show it to me, then show it to the Witness.”

“I will do so. I have another warrant, similar to the first, for Gillian Boardman.”

“Who?”

“Gillian Boardman. The charge is kidnapping.”

“My goodness!”

“And another for Hector C. Johnson . . . and one for Valentine Michael Smith . . . and one for
you,
Jubal Harshaw.”

“Me? Taxes again?”

“No. Accessory to this and that . . . and material witness on other things . . . and I'd take you in on my own for obstructing justice if the warrant didn't make it unnecessary.”

“Oh, come, Captain! I've been most cooperative since you identified yourself and started behaving in a legal manner. And I shall continue to be. Of course, I shall still sue you—and your immediate superior and the government—for your illegal acts
before
that time . . . and I am not waiving any rights or recourses with respect to anything any of you may do hereafter. Mmm . . . quite a list of victims. I see why you brought an extra wagon. But—dear me!—something odd here. This, uh, Mrs. Barkmann?—I see that she is charged with kidnapping this Smith fellow . . . but in this other warrant
he
seems to be charged with fleeing custody. I'm confused.”

“It's both. He escaped—and she kidnapped him.”

“Isn't that difficult to manage? Both, I mean? And on what charge was he being held? The warrant does not seem to state?”

“How the devil do I know? He escaped, that's all. He's a fugitive.”

“Gracious me! I think I shall have to offer my services as counsel to each of them. Interesting case. If a mistake has been made—or mistakes—it could lead to other matters.”

Heinrich grinned coldly. “You won't find it easy. You'll be in the pokey, too.”

“Oh, not for long, I trust.” Jubal raised his voice and turned his head toward the house. “I think, if Judge Holland were listening, habeas corpus proceedings—for all of us—might be rather prompt. And, if the Associated Press happened to have a courier car nearby, there would be no time lost in knowing
where
to serve such writs.”

“Always the shyster, eh, Harshaw?”

“Slander, my dear sir. I take notice.”

“A fat lot of good it will do you. We're alone.”

“Are we?”

VALENTINE MICHAEL SMITH swam through murky water to the deepest part, under the diving board, and settled on the bottom. He did not know why his water brother had told him to hide; he did not know he was hiding. Jubal had told him to do this and remain until Jill came for him; that was sufficient.

He curled up, let air out of his lungs, swallowed his tongue, rolled his eyes up, slowed his heart, and became effectively “dead” save that he was not discorporate. He elected to stretch his time sense until seconds flowed past like hours, as he had much to meditate.

He had failed again to achieve the perfect understanding, the mutually merging rapport—the grokking—that should exist between water brothers. He knew the failure was his, caused by his using wrongly the oddly variable human language, because Jubal had become upset.

He knew that his human brothers could suffer intense emotion without damage, nevertheless Smith was wistfully sorry to have caused upset in Jubal. It had seemed that he had at last grokked a most difficult human word. He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words rarely changed their meanings but short words were slippery, changing without pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife.

This had been a very short word.

Smith still felt that he grokked rightly the human word “God”—confusion had come from his failure in selecting other words. The concept was so simple, so basic, so necessary, that a nestling could explain it—in Martian. The problem was to find human words that would let him speak rightly, make sure that he patterned them to match in fullness how it would be said in his own people's language.

He puzzled over the fact that there should be any difficulty in saying it, even in English, since it was a thing everyone knew . . . else they could not grok alive. Possibly he should ask the human Old Ones how to say it, rather than struggle with shifting meanings. If so, he must wait until Jubal arranged it, for he was only an egg.

He felt brief regret that he was not privileged to attend discorporation of brother Art and brother Dottie.

Then he settled down to review Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, published in Springfield, Massachusetts.

 

From a long way off Smith was roused by uneasy awareness that his water brothers were in trouble. He paused between “sherbacha” and “sherbet” to ponder this. Should he leave the water of life and join them to grok and share their trouble? At home there could have been no question; trouble is shared, in joyful closeness.

But Jubal had told him to wait.

He reviewed Jubal's words, trying them against other human words, making sure that he grokked. No, he had grokked rightly; he must wait until Jill came.

Nevertheless he was so uneasy that he could not go back to his word hunt. At last an idea came that was filled with such gay daring that he would have trembled had his body been ready.

Jubal had told him to place his body under water and leave it there until Jill came . . . but had Jubal said that
he himself
must wait with the body?

Smith took a long time to consider this, knowing that slippery English words could lead him into mistakes. He concluded that Jubal had not ordered him to stay with his body . . . and that left a way out of the wrongness of not sharing his brothers' trouble.

So Smith decided to take a walk.

He was dazed at his own audacity, for, while he had done it before, he had never “soloed.” Always an Old One had been with him, watching over him, making sure that his body was safe, keeping him from becoming disoriented, staying with him until he returned to his body.

There was no Old One to help him now. But Smith was confident that he could do it alone in a fashion that would fill his teacher with pride. So he checked every part of his body, made certain that it would not damage while he was gone, then got cautiously out of it, leaving behind that trifle of himself needed as caretaker.

He rose up and stood on the edge of the pool, remembering to behave as if his body were with him as a guard against disorienting—against losing track of pool, body, everything, and wandering off into unknown places where he could not find his way back.

Smith looked around.

A car was just landing in the garden and beings under it were complaining of injuries and indignities. Was this the trouble he could feel? Grasses were for walking on, flowers and bushes were not—this was a wrongness.

No, there was more wrongness. A man was stepping out of the car, one foot about to touch the ground, and Jubal was running toward him. Smith could see the anger that Jubal was hurling toward the man, a blast so furious that, had one Martian hurled it toward another, both would discorporate.

Smith noted it as something to ponder and, if it was a cusp of necessity, decided what he must do to help his brother. Then he looked over the others.

Dorcas was climbing out of the pool; she was troubled but not too much so; Smith could feel her confidence in Jubal. Larry was at the edge and had just gotten out; drops of water falling from him were in the air. Larry was excited and pleased; his confidence in Jubal was absolute. Miriam was near him; her mood was midway between those of Dorcas and Larry. Anne was standing nearby, dressed in the long white garment she had had with her all day. Smith could not fully grok her mood; he felt in her the cold unyielding discipline of an Old One. It startled him, as Anne was always soft and gentle and warmly friendly.

He saw that she was watching Jubal closely and was ready to help him. And so was Larry! . . . and Dorcas! . . . and Miriam! With a burst of empathy Smith learned that all these friends were water brothers of Jubal—and therefore of him. This release from blindness shook him so that he almost lost anchorage. Calming himself, he stopped to praise and cherish them all, one by one and together.

Jill had one arm over the edge of the pool and Smith knew that she had been down under, checking on his safety. He had been aware of her when she had done it . . . but now he knew that she had not alone been worried about his safety; Jill felt other and greater trouble, trouble that was not relieved by knowing that her charge was safe under the water of life. This troubled him much and he considered going to her, making her know that he was with her and sharing her trouble.

He would have done so had it not been for a faint feeling of guilt: he was not certain that Jubal wanted him to walk around while his body was in the pool. He compromised by telling himself that he would share their trouble—and let them know that he was present if it became needful.

Smith then looked over the man who was stepping out of the air car, felt his emotions and recoiled from them, forced himself to examine him carefully, inside and out.

In a shaped pocket strapped around his waist the man was carrying a gun.

Smith was almost certain it was a gun. He examined it in detail, comparing it with guns he had seen, checking it against the definition in Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, published in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Yes, it was a gun—not alone in shape but also in wrongness that surrounded and penetrated it. Smith looked down the barrel, saw how it must function, and wrongness stared back at him.

Should he turn it and let it go elsewhere, taking its wrongness with it? Do it before the man was fully out of the car? Smith felt that he should . . . and yet Jubal had once told him not to do this to a gun until Jubal told him that it was time.

He knew now that this was indeed a cusp of necessity. . . . but he resolved to balance on the point of cusp until he grokked all—since it was possible that Jubal, knowing that a cusp was approaching, had sent him under water to keep him from acting wrongly.

He would wait . . . but he would watch this gun. Not being limited to eyes, being able to see all around if needful, he continued to watch gun and man while he went inside the car.

More wrongness than he would have believed possible! Other men were in there, all but one crowding toward the door. Their minds smelled like a pack of Khaugha who had scented an unwary nymph . . . and each one held in his hands a something having wrongness.

As he had told Jubal, Smith knew that shape was never a prime determinant; it was necessary to go beyond shape to essence in order to grok. His own people passed through five major shapes: egg, nymph, nestling, adult—and Old One which had no shape. Yet the essence of an Old One was patterned in the egg.

These somethings seemed like guns. But Smith did not assume that they were; he examined one most carefully. It was larger than any gun he had ever seen, its shape was different, its details were quite different.

It was a gun.

He examined each of the others just as carefully. They were guns.

The one man still seated had strapped to him a small gun.

The car had built into it two enormous guns—plus other things which Smith could not grok but in which he felt wrongness.

He considered twisting car, contents, and all—letting it topple away. But, in addition to his lifelong inhibition against wasting food, he knew that he did not grok what was happening. Better to move slowly, watch carefully, and help and share at cusp by following Jubal's lead . . . and if right action was to remain passive, then go back to his body when cusp had passed and discuss it with Jubal later.

He went outside the car and watched and listened and waited.

The first man to get out talked with Jubal concerning things which Smith could only file without grokking; they were beyond his experience. The other men got out and spread out; Smith spread his attention to watch them all. The car raised, moved backwards, stopped again, which relieved the beings it had sat on; Smith grokked with them, trying to soothe their hurtings.

The first man handed papers to Jubal; they were passed to Anne. Smith read them with her. He recognized their word shapings as being concerned with human rituals of healing and balance, but since he had encountered these rituals only in Jubal's law library, he did not try to grok the papers, especially as Jubal seemed untroubled by them—the wrongness was elsewhere. He was delighted to recognize his own human name on two papers; he always got an odd thrill out of reading it, as if he were two places at once—impossible as that was for any but an Old One.