A Stranger in a Strange Land

XXVII

JILL STOPPED TO GRAB a negligee from a well-stocked wardrobe, hurried out into the living room and let in Mrs. Paiwonski. "Come in, dear. We were grabbing baths in a hurry; he'll be right out. I'll get you a drink - then you can have your second drink in the tub if you like. Loads of hot water."

"I had a shower after I put Honey Bun to bed, but - yes, I'd love a tub bath. But, Jill baby, I didn't come here to borrow your bath tub; I came because I'm just heartsick that you kids are leaving the show."

"We won't lose track of you." Jill was busy with glasses. The hotel was so old that not even the "Bridal Suite" had its own ice dispenser but the night bellman, indoctrinated and subsidized, had left a carton of ice cubes. "Tim was right and you know he was. Mike and I have got to slick up our act a lot before we can hold up our end."

"Your act is okay. Needs a few laughs in it, maybe, but - Hi, Smitty." As Mike came in, she offered him a gloved hand. Mrs. Paiwonski always wore gloves away from the lot, and a high-necked dress and stockings. Dressed so, she looked like a middle-aged, most respectable widow, who had kept her figure trim in spite of her years - looked so, because she was precisely that.

"I was just telling Jill," she went on, "that you've got a good act, you two."

Mike smiled gently. "Now, Pat, you don't have to kid us. It stinks. We know it."

"No, it doesn't, dearie. Oh, maybe it needs a little something to give it some zing. A few jokes. Or, well, you could even cut down on Jill's costume a little. You've got an awful cute figure, hon."

Jill shook her head. "That wouldn't do it."

"Well, I saw a magician once that used to bring his assistant out dressed for the Gay 'Nineties - the eighteen-nineties, that is - not even her legs showing. Then he would disappear one garment after another. The marks loved it. But don't misunderstand me, dear - nothing unrefined. She finished� oh, in almost as much as you wear now."

"Patty," Jill said frankly, "I'd do our act stark naked if the clowns wouldn't close the show." As she said it, she realized that she meant it - and wondered how Graduate Nurse Boardman, floor supervisor, had reached the point where she could mean it?

Mike, of course- And she was quite happy about it.

Mrs. Paiwonski shook her head. "You couldn't, honey. The marks would riot. Just a touch more ginger ale, dear. But if you've got a good figure, why not use it? How far do you think I would get as a tattooed lady ii I didn't peel off all they'll let me?"

"Speaking of that," Mike said, "you don't look comfortable in all those clothes, Pat. I think the aircooling in this dump has gone sour again - it must be at least eighty." He himself was dressed in a light robe, his concession to the easy-going conventions of carney good manners. Extreme heat, he had learned, affected him slightly, enough so that he sometimes had to adjust consciously his metabolism-extreme cold affected him not at all. But he knew that their friend was used to the real comfort of almost nothing and affected the clothes she now wore to cover her tattoos when out among the marks; Jill had explained it to him. "Why don't you get comfortable? 'Ain't nobody here but just us chickens.'" The latter, he knew, was a joke, an appropriate one for emphasizing that friends were in private - Jubal had tried to explain it to him, but failed. But Mike had carefully noted when and how the idiom could be used.

"Sure, Patty," Jill agreed. "If you're raw under that dress, I can get you something light and comfortable. Or we'll just make Mike close his eyes."

"Uh� well, I did slip back into one of my costumes."

"Then don't be stiff with friends. I'll get your zippers."

"Let me get these stockings and shoes." She went on talking while trying to think how she could get the conversation around to religion, where she wanted it. Bless them, these kids were ready to be seekers, she was certain - and she had counted on the whole season to bring them around to the light� not just one hurried visit before they left. "The point about show business, Smitty, is that first you have to know what the marks want� and you have to know what it is you're giving them and how to make 'em like it. Now if you were a real magician - oh, I don't mean that you aren't skillful, dear, because you are." She tucked her carefully rolled hose in her shoes, loosened her garter belt and got out of it modestly, let Jill get her dress zippers. "I mean if your magic was real like you had made a pact with the Devil. That'd be one thing. But the marks know that it's clever sleight-of-hand. So you give 'em a light-hearted show to match. But did you ever see a fire eater with a pretty assistant? Heavens, a pretty girl would just clutter his act; the marks are standing around hoping he'll set fire to hisself - or blow up."

She snaked the dress over her head; Jill took it and kissed her. "You look more natural, Aunt Patty. Sit back and enjoy your drink."

"Just a second, dearie." Mrs. Paiwonski prayed mightily for guidance - wished that she were a preacher� or had even the gift of gab of a talker. Well, her pictures would just have to speak for themselves - and they would; that was why George had put them there. "Now this is what I've got to show the marks� this and my snakes, but this is more important. Have either one of you ever looked, really looked, at my pictures?"

"No," Jill admitted, "I guess not. We didn't want to stare at you, like a couple of marks."

"Then stare at me now, dears - because that's why George, bless his sweet soul safe in heaven, put them on me. To be stared at� and studied. Now right up here under my chin is the birth scene of our prophet, the holy Archangel Foster - just an innocent babe and maybe not knowing what Heaven had in store for him. But the angels knew - see 'em there around him? The next scene is his first miracle, when a young sinner in the country school he attended shot down a poor little birdie� and he picked it up and stroked it and it flew away unharmed. See the school house behind? Now it kind of jumps a little and I'll have to turn my back. But all of 'em are dated for each holy event in his life." She explained how George had not had a bare canvas to work with when first the great opus was started - since they had both been sinners and young Patricia already rather much tattooed� how with great effort and inspired genius George had been able to turn "The Attack on Pearl Harbor" into "Armageddon," and "Skyline of New York" into "The Holy City."

"But," she admitted candidly, "even though every single one of them is a sacred picture now, it did kind of force him to skip around to find enough bare skin to record in living flesh a witness to each milestone in the earthly life of our prophet. Here you see him preaching on the steps of the ungodly theological seminary that turned him down - that was the first time he was arrested, the beginning of the Persecution. And on around, right on my spine, you see him smashing idolatrous images� and next you see him in jail, with the holy light streaming down on it. Then the Faithful Few bust into the jail-"

The Reverend Foster had realized early that, when it came to upholding religious freedom, brass knucks, clubs, and a willingness to tangle with cops was worth far more than passive resistance. His had been a church militant from scratch. But he had been a tactician, too; pitched battles were fought only where the heavy artillery was on the side of the Lord.

"-and they rescue him and tar amp; feather the idolatrous judge who put him there. Around in front here. Uh, you can't see it very well; my bra covers most of it, A shame."

("Michael, what does she want?")

("Thou knowest. Tell her. ")

"Aunt Patty," Jill said gently, "you want us to look at all your pictures. Don't you?"

"Well�it's just as Tim says in the bally, George used up all the skin I have in making the story complete."

"If George went to all that work, I'm sure he meant for them to be seen. Take off your costume. I told you that I wouldn't mind working our own act stark naked if they'd let me - and ours is just entertainment. Yours has a purpose - a holy purpose."

"Well� all right. If you really want me to." She sang a silent hallelujah and decided that Foster himself was sustaining her - with blessed luck and George's pictures she would yet have these dear kids seeking the light.

"I'll unhook you-"

("Jill-")

("No, Michael?")

("Wait")

To her utter surprise and some fear Mrs. Paiwonski found that her spangled briefies and bra were gone! But Jill was surprised to find that her almost - new negligee followed the little costume into wherever and nowhere. Jill was only mildly surprised when Mike's robe disappeared, too; she chalked it up, correctly but not completely, to his catlike good manners.

Mrs. Paiwonski clutched at her mouth and gasped. Jill at once put her arms around her. "There, there, dear! It's all right, nobody's hurt." She turned her head and said, "Mike, you did it, you'll simply have to tell her."

"Yes, Jill. Pat-"

"Yes, Smitty?'

"You said a while ago that I wasn't a real magician, that my tricks were just sleight-of-hand. You were going to take off your costume anyhow - so I took it off for you."

"But how? And where is it?"

"Same place Jill's wrapper is - and my robe. Gone."

"But don't worry about it, Patty," put in Jill. "We'll replace it. Two more - and twice as pretty. Mike, you shouldn't have done it."

"I'm sorry, Jill. I grokked it was all right."

"Well� I suppose it is." Jill decided that Aunt Patty wasn't too upset - and certainly she would never tell; she was carney.

Mrs. Paiwonski was not worried by the loss of two scraps of costume, nor by her own nudity. Nor by the nakedness of the other two. But she was greatly troubled by a theological problem that she felt was out of her depth. "Smitty? That was real magic?"

"I guess you would call it that," he agreed, using the words most exactly.

"I'd rather call it a miracle," she said bluntly.

"You can call it that, too, if you want to. But it wasn't sleight-of-hand."

"I know that. You weren't even near me." She, who daily handled live cobras and who had more than once handled obnoxious drunks with her bare hands (to their sorrow), was not afraid. Patricia Paiwonski was not afraid of the Devil himself; she was sustained by her faith that she was saved and therefore invulnerable to the Devil. But she was uneasy for the safety of her friends. "Smitty� look me in the eye. Have you made a pact with the Devil?"

"No, Pat, I have not."

She continued to look into his eyes, then said, "You aren't lying-"

"He doesn't know how to lie, Aunt Patty."

"-so it's a miracle. Smitty� you are a holy man!"

"I don't know, Pat."

"Archangel Foster didn't know that he was a holy man until he reached his teens� even though he performed many miracles before that time. But you are a holy man; I can feel it." She thought. "I think I felt it when I first met you."

"I don't know, Pat."

"I think he may be," admitted Jill. "But he really doesn't know, himself. Michael� I think we've told her too much not to tell her more."

"'Michael!'" Patty repeated suddenly. "The Archangel Michael, send down to us in human form."

"Aunt Patty, please! If he is, he doesn't know it-"

"He wouldn't necessarily know it. God performs his wonders in his own way."

"Aunt Patty, will you please wait and let me talk, just for a bit?"

Some minutes later Mrs. Paiwonski had accepted that Mike was indeed the Man from Mars, she had agreed to accept him as a man and to treat him as a man� while stating explicitly that she still held to her own opinion as to his true nature and why he was on Earth - explaining (somewhat fuzzily, it seemed to Jill) that Foster had been really and truly a man while he was on Earth, but had been also and always had been, an archangel, even though he had not known it himself. If Jill and Michael insisted that they were not saved, she would treat them as they asked to be treated - God moves in mysterious ways.

"I think you could properly call us 'seekers,'" Mike told her.

"Then that's enough, my dears! I'm sure you're saved - but Foster himself was a seeker in his early years. I'll help."

She had participated in another minor miracle. They had been seated in a circle on the rug. Jill lay back flat and suggested it to Mike in her mind. With no patter of any sort, with no sheet nor anything to conceal a non-existent steel rod, Mike lifted her. Patricia watched it with serene happiness, convinced that she was vouchsafed sight of a miracle. "Pat," Mike then said. "Lie flat."

She did so without argument, as readily as if he had been Foster. Jill turned her head. "Hadn't you better put me down first, Mike?"

"No, I can do it."

Mrs. Paiwonski felt herself gently lifted. She was not frightened by it; she simply felt overpowering religious ecstasy like heat lightning in her loins, making tears come to her eyes, the power of which she had not felt since, as a young woman, Holy Foster himself had touched her. When Mike moved them closer together and Jill put her arms around her, her tears increased, but her cries were the gentle sobs of happiness.

Presently he lowered them gently to the floor and found, as he expected, that he was not tired - he could not recall when last he had been tired.

Jill said to him, "Mike� we need a glass of water."

("????")

("Yes, " her mind answered.)

("And?")

("Of elegant necessity. Why do you think she came here?")

("I knew. I was not sure that you knew� or would approve. My brother. My self")

("My brother.")

Mike did not get up to fetch water. He sent a glass from the tray of drinks into the bathroom, had the tap fill it, returned it to Jill's hands. Mrs. Paiwonski watched this with almost absent-minded interest; she was beyond being astonished. Jill held the glass, said to her, "Aunt Patty, this is like being baptized� and like getting married. It's� a Martian thing. It means that you trust us and we trust you� and we can tell you anything and you can tell us anything� and that we are always partners, now and forever. It's very serious� and once done it can never be broken. If you broke it, we would have to die - at once. Saved or not. If we broke it - but we won't. But you don't have to share water with us if you don't want to - we'll still be friends. Now - if this in any way interferes with your faith, don't do it. We don't belong to your church even though you guessed that we did. We don't. We may never belong. 'Seekers' is the most you can call us now. Mike?"

"We grok," he agreed. "Pat, Jill speaks rightly. I wish we could say it to you in Martian, it would be clearer. But this is everything that getting married is� and a great deal more. We are free to offer water to you but if there is any reason at all, in your religion or in your heart, not to accept - don't drink it!"

Patricia Paiwonski took a deep breath. She had made such a decision once before - with her husband watching� and had not funked it. And who was she to refuse a holy man? And his blessed bride? "I want it," she said firmly.

Jill took a sip. "We grow ever closer." She passed the glass to Mike.

He looked at Jill, then at Patricia. "I thank you for water, my brother." He took a sip. "Pat, I give you the water of life. May you always drink deep." He passed the glass to her.

Patricia took it. "Thank you. Thank you, oh my dears! The 'water of life' - oh, I love you both!" She drank thirstily.

Jill took the glass from her, finished it. "Now we grow closer, my brothers."

("Jill?")

("Now!!!")

Michael lifted his new water brother, wafted her in and placed her gently on the bed.

Valentine Michael Smith had grokked, when first he had known it fully, that physical human love - very human and very physical - was not simply a necessary quickening of eggs, nor was it mere ritual through which one grew closer; the act itself was a growing-closer, a very great goodness - and (so far as he knew) unknown even to the Old Ones of his former people. He was still grokking it, trying at every opportunity to grok its fullness. But he had long since broken through any fear that heresy lay in his suspicion that even the Old Ones did not know this ecstasy - he grokked already that these his new people held spiritual depths unique. Happily he tried to sound them, with no inhibitions from his childhood to cause him guilt or reluctance of any sort.

His human teachers had been unusually well qualified to instruct his innocence without bruising it. The result was as unique as he himself.

Jill was very pleased but not really surprised to find that "Aunt Patty" accepted as inevitable and necessary, and with forthright fullness, the fact that sharing water in a very ancient Martian ceremony with Mike led at once to sharing Mike himself in a human rite ancient itself. Jill was somewhat surprised (although still pleased) at Pat's continued calm acceptance when it certainly had been demonstrated to their new water brother that Mike was capable of more miracles than he had disclosed up to then. However, Jill did not then know that Patricia Paiwonski had met a holy man before - Patricia expected more of holy men. Jill herself was simply serenely happy that a cusp had been reached and passed with right action and was ecstatically happy herself to grow closer as the cusp was determined - all of which she thought in Martian and quite differently.

In time they rested and Jill had Mike treat Patty to a bath given by telekinesis, and herself sat on the edge of the tub and squealed and giggled when the older woman did. It was just play, very human and not at all Martian; Mike had done it for Jill on the initial occasion almost lazily rather than raise himself up out of the water - an accident, more or less. Now it had become a custom, one that Jill knew Patty would like. It tickled Jill to see Patty's face when she found herself being scrubbed all over by gentle. invisible hands� and then, presently dried in a whisk with neither towel nor blast of air.

Patricia blinked. "After that I need a drink. A big one."

"Certainly, darling."

"And I still want to show you kids my pictures� all of them." Patricia followed Jill out into the living room, Mike in train, and stood in the middle of the rug. "But first look at me. Look at me, not at my pictures. What do you see?"

With mild regret Mike stripped her tattoos off in his mind and looked at his new brother without her decorations. He liked her tattoos very much; they were peculiarly her own, they set her apart and made her a self. They seemed to him to give her a slightly Martian flavor, in that she did not have the bland sameness of most humans. He had already memorized them all and had thought pleasantly of having himself tattooed all over, once be grokked what should be pictured. The life of his father, water brother Jubal? He would have to ponder it. He would discuss it with Jill - and Jill might wish to be tattooed, too. What designs would make Jill more beautifully Jill? In the way in which perfume multiplied Jill's odor without changing it?

What he saw when he looked at Pat without her tattoos pleased him but not as much; she looked as a woman necessarily must look to be woman. Mike still did not grok Duke's collection of pictures; the pictures were interesting and had taught Mike that there was more variety in the sizes, shapes, proportions and colors of women than he had known up to then and that there was some variety in the acrobatics involving physical love - but having learned these simple facts he seemed to grok that there was nothing more to be learned from Duke's prized pictures. Mike's early training had made of him a very exact observer, by eye (and other senses), but that same training had left him unresponsive to the subtle pleasures of voyeurism, it was not that be did not find women (including, most emphatically Patricia Paiwonski) sexually stimulating, but it lay not in seeing them. Of his senses, smell and touch counted much higher - in which he was quasi-human, quasi-Martian; the parallel Martian reflex (as unsubtle as a sneeze) was triggered by those two, but could activate only in season - what must be termed "sex" in a Martian is as romantic as intravenous feeding.

But, having been invited to see her without her pictures. Mike did notice more sharply one thing about Patricia that he already knew: she had her own face, marked in beauty by her life. She bad, he saw with gentle wonder, her own face even more than Jill had, and it made him feel toward Pat even more of an emotion he did not as yet call love but for which be used a Martian concept more discriminating.

She had her own odor, too, and her own voice, as all humans did. Her voice was husky and he liked to hear it even when he did not grok her meaning; her odor was mixed (he knew) with an unscrubbed trace of bitter muskiness from daily contact with snakes. It did not put him off; Pat's snakes were part of Pat as were her tattoos. Mike liked Pat's snakes and could handle the poisonous ones with perfect safety - and not alone by stretching time to anticipate and avoid their strikes. They grokked with him; he savored their innocent merciless thoughts - they reminded him of home. Other than Pat, Mike was the only person who could handle Honey Bun with pleasure to the boa constrictor. Her torpor was usually such that others could, if necessary, handle her - but Mike she accepted as a substitute for Pat.

Mike let the pictures reappear.

Jill looked at her and wondered why Aunt Patty had ever let herself be tattooed in the first place? She would really look rather nice - if she weren't a living comic strip. But she loved Aunt Patty for what she was, not the way she looked - and, of course, it did give her a steady living at least until she got so old and haggard that the marks wouldn't pay to look at her even if all those pictures had been signed by Rembrandt. She hoped that Patty was tucking away plenty in the grouch bag then she remembered that Aunt Patty was now one of Mike's water brothers (and her own, of course) and Mike's endless fortune gave Patty certain old-age insurance; Jill felt warmed by it.

"Well?" repeated Mrs. Paiwonski. "What do you see? How old am I, Michael?"

"I don't know," he said simply.

"Guess."

"I can't guess, Pat."

"Oh, go ahead. You won't hurt my feelings."

"Patty," Jill put in, "he really does mean that he can't guess. He hasn't had much chance to learn to judge ages - you know how short a time he's been on Earth. And besides that, Mike thinks of things in Martian years and Martian arithmetic. If it's time or figures, I keep track of it for him."

"Well� you guess, hon. Be truthful."

Jill looked Patty over again, noting her trim figure but also noting her hands and throat and the corners of her eyes - then discounted her guess by five years despite the Martian honesty she owed a water brother. "Mmm, thirtyish, give or take a year."

Mrs. Paiwonski laughed triumphantly. "That's just one bonus from the True Faith, my dears! Jill hon, I'm 'way into my forties. Just how far in we won't say; I've quit counting."

"You certainly don't look it."

"I know I don't. That's what Happiness does for you, dear. Alter my first kid, I let my figure go to pot. I got quite a can on me - they invented the word 'broad' just to fit me. My belly always looked like four months gone, or worse. My busts hung down - and I've never had 'em lifted. You don't have to believe me; sure, I know a good plastic surgeon doesn't leave a scar� but on me it would show, dear; it would chop chunks out of two of my pictures.

"Then I seen the light! I got converted. Nope, not exercise, not diet - I still eat like a pig and you know it. Happiness, dear. Perfect Happiness in the Lord through the help of Blessed Foster."

"It's amazing," said Jill, and meant it. She knew women who had kept their looks quite as well (as she firmly intended to keep hers) but in every case only through great effort. She knew that Aunt Patty was telling the truth about diet and exercise, at least during the time she had known her� and as a surgical nurse Jill knew exactly what was excised and where in a breast-lifting job; those tattoos had certainly never known a knife.

But Mike was not amazed. He assumed conclusively that Pat had learned how to think her body as she wished it, whether she attributed it to Foster or not. He was still trying to teach this control to Jill, but knew that she would have to perfect her knowledge of Martian before it could be perfect. No hurry, waiting would accomplish it. Pat went on talking:

"I wanted you to see what the Faith has done for me. But that's just outside; the real change is inside. Happiness. I've got to try to tell you about it. The good Lord knows that I'm not ordained and I'm not gifted with tongues� but I've got to try. And then I'll answer your questions if I can. The first thing that you've got to accept is that all the other so-called churches are traps of the Devil. Our dear Jesus preached the True Faith, so Foster said and I truly believe. But, in the Dark Ages his words were deliberately twisted and added to and changed until Jesus wouldn't recognize 'em. And that is why Foster was sent down to Earth, to proclaim a New Revelation and straighten it out and make it clear again."

Patricia Paiwonski pointed her finger and suddenly looked very impressive, a priestess clothed in holy dignity and mystic symbols. "God wants us to be Happy. He filled the world with things to make us Happy if only we see the light. Would God let grape juice turn into wine if He didn't want us to drink and be joyful? He could just as easily let is stay grape juice� or turn it straight into vinegar that nobody could get a happy giggle out of. Ain't that true? Of course He don't mean you should get roaring drunk and beat your wife and neglect your kids� but He gave us good things to use, not abuse� and not to ignore. But if you feel like a drink or six, among friends who have seen the light, too, and it makes you want to jump up and dance and give thanks to the Lord on high for his goodness - why not? God made alcohol and he made feet - and he made 'em so you could put 'em together and be happy!"

She paused and said, "Fill 'er up again, honey; preaching is thirsty work - and not too strong on the ginger ale this time; that's good rye. And that ain't all. If God didn't want women to be looked at, he would have made 'em ugly - that's reasonable, isn't it? God isn't a cheat; He set up the game Himself - He wouldn't rig it so that the marks can't win, like a flat joint wheel in a town with the fix on. He wouldn't send anybody to Hell for losing in a crooked game.

"All right! God wants us to be Happy and he told us how: 'Love one another!' Love a snake if the poor thing needs love. Love thy neighbor if he's seen the light and has love in his heart� and the back of your hand only to sinners and Satan's corruptors who want to lead you away from the appointed path and down into the pit. And by 'love' he didn't mean namby-pamby old-maid-aunt love that's scared to look up from a hymn book for fear of seeing a temptation of the flesh. If God hated flesh, why did lie make so much of it? God is no sissy. He made the Grand Canyon and comets coursing through the sky and cyclones and stallions and earthquakes - can a God who can do all that turn around and practically wet his pants just because some little sheila leans over a mite and a man catches sight of a tit? You know better, hon - and so do I! When God told us to love, He wasn't holding out a card on us; He meant it. Love little babies that always need changing and love strong, smelly men so that there will be more little babies to love - and in between go on loving because it's so good to love!

"Of course that don't mean to peddle it any more than a bottle of rye whiskey means I gotta get fighting drunk and clobber a cop. You can't sell love and you can't buy Happiness, no price tags on either one and if you think there is, the way to Hell lies open to you. But if you give with an open heart and receive what God has an unlimited supply of, the Devil can't touch you. Money?" She looked at Jill. "Hon, would you do that water-sharing thing with somebody, say for a million dollars? Make it ten million, tax free."

"Of course not." ("Michael, do you grok this?")

("Almost in fullness, Jill. Waiting is. ")

"You see, dearie? I knew what it meant, I knew love was in that water. You're seekers, very near the light. But since you two, from the love that is in you, did 'share water and grow closer,' as Michael says, I can tell you things I couldn't ordinarily tell a seeker-"

The Reverend Foster, self-ordained - or directly ordained by God, depending on authority cited - had an intuitive instinct for the pulse of his culture and his times at least as strong as that of a skilled carney sizing up a mark. The country and culture commonly known as "America" had had a badly split personality all through its history. Its overt laws were almost always puritanical for a people whose covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian; its major religions were all Apollonian in varying degree - its religious revivals were often hysterical in fashion almost Dionysian. In the twentieth century (Terran Christian Era) nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed as in America - and nowhere else was there such a deep interest in it.

The Reverend Foster had in common with almost every great religious leader of that planet two traits: he had an extremely magnetic personality ("hypnotist" was a word widely used by his detractors, along with others less mild) and, sexually, he did not fall anywhere near the human norm. Great religious leaders on Earth were always either celibate, or the antithesis. (Great leaders, the innovators - not necessarily the major administrators and consolidators.) Foster was not celibate.

Nor were any of his wives and high priestesses - the clincher for complete conversion and rebirth under the New Revelation usually included a ritual which Valentine Michael Smith at a later time was to grok as especially suited for growing-closer.

This, of course, was nothing new; in Terran history sects, cults, and major religions too numerous to list had used essentially the same technique - but not on a major scale in America before Foster's times. Foster was run out of town more than once before he "perfected" a method and organization that permitted him to expand his capric cult. In organization he borrowed as liberally from freemasonry, from Catholicism, from the Communist Party, and from Madison Avenue as he had borrowed from any and all earlier scriptures in composing his New Revelation� and he sugar-coated it all as a return to primitive Christianity to suit his customers. He set up an outer church which anybody could attend - and a person could remain a "seeker" with many benefits of the church for years. Then there was a middle church, which to all outward appearance was "The Church of the New Revelation," the happy saved, who paid their tithes, enjoyed all economic benefits of the church's ever-widening business tie-ins, and whooped it up in the endless carnival amp; revival atmosphere of Happiness, Happiness, Happiness! Their sins were forgiven - and henceforth very little was sinful as long as they supported their church, dealt honestly with their fellow Fosterites, condemned sinners, and stayed Happy. The New Revelation does not specifically encourage adultery; it simply gets rather mystical in discussing sexual conduct.

The saved of the middle church supplied the ranks of the shock troops when direct action was needed. Foster borrowed a trick from the early twentieth-century Wobblies; if a community tried to suppress a budding Fosterite movement, Fosterites from elsewhere converged on that town until there were neither jails nor cops enough to cope with them - and the cops usually had had their ribs kicked in and the jails were smashed.

If some prosecutor were brave enough to push an indictment thereafter, it was almost impossible to make it stick. Foster (after learning his lesson under fire) saw to it that such prosecutions were indeed persecution under the letter of the law; not one conviction of a Fosterite qua Fosterite ever was upheld by the national Supreme Court - nor, later, by the High Court.

But, in addition to the overt church, there was the Inner Church, never named as such - a hard core of the utterly dedicated who made up the priesthood, all the church lay leaders, all keepers of keys and records and makers of policy. They were the "reborn," beyond sin, certain of their place in heaven, and sole participants of the inner mysteries - and the only candidates for direct admission to Heaven.

Foster selected these with great care, doing so personally until the operation got too big. He looked for men as much like himself as possible and for women like his priestess - wives - dynamic, utterly convinced (as he was himself convinced), stubborn, and free (or able to be freed, once their guilt and insecurity was purged) of jealousy in its simplest, most human meaning - and all of them potential satyrs and nymphs, as the secret inner church was that utterly Dionysian cult that America had never had and for which there was an enormous potential market.

But he was most cautious - if candidates were married, it had to be both spouses. An unmarried candidate had to be sexually attractive as well as sexually aggressive - and he impressed on his priests that the males must always equal or exceed in number the females. Nowhere is it admitted that Foster had studied the histories of earlier, somewhat parallel cults in America but he either knew (or sensed) that most of such had foundered because the possessive concupiscence of their priests led to male jealousy and violence. Foster never made this error; not once did he keep a woman entirely to himself, not even the women he married legally.

Nor did he try too eagerly to expand his core group; the middle church, the one known to the public, offered plenty to slake the milder needs of the great masses of guilt-ridden and unhappy. If a local revival produced even two couples who were capable of "Heavenly Marriage" Foster was content - if it produced none, he let the other seeds grow and sent in a salted priest and priestess to nurture them.

But, so far as possible, he always tested candidate couples himself, in company with some devoted priestess. Since such a couple was already "saved" insofar as the middle church was concerned, he ran little risk - none, really, with the woman candidate and he always sized up the man himself before letting his priestess go ahead.

At the time she was saved, Patricia Paiwonski was still young, married, and "very happy, very happy." She had her first child, she looked up to and admired her much older husband. George Paiwonski was a generous, very affectionate man. He did have one weakness, which often left him too drunk to show his affection after a long day� but his tattooing needle was still steady and his eye sharp. Patty counted herself a faithful wife and, on the whole, a lucky one - true, George occasionally got affectionate with a female client� quite affectionate if it was early in the day - and, of course, some tattooing required privacy, especially with ladies. Patty was tolerant� besides, she sometimes herself made a date with a male client, especially after George got to hitting the bottle more and more.

Nevertheless there was a lack in her life, one which was not filled even when an especially grateful client made her the odd gift of a bull snake - shipping out on a freighter, he said, and couldn't keep it any longer. She had always liked pets and had none of the vulgar phobia about snakes; she made a home for it in their show window facing the street, and George made a beautiful four-color picture to back it up: "Don't Tread on Me!" His new design turned out to be very popular.

Presently she had more snakes and they were quite a comfort to her. But she was the daughter of an Ulster Protestant and a girl from Cork; the armed truce between her parents had left her with no religion.

She was already a "seeker" when Foster preached in San Pedro; she had managed to get George to go a few Sundays but he had not yet seen the light.

Foster brought them the light, they made their confessions the same day. When Foster returned six months later for a quick check on how his branch was doing, the Paiwonskis were so dedicated that he gave them personal attention.

"I never had a minute's trouble with George from the day he saw the holy light," she told Mike and Jill - "Of course, he still drank� but he drank in church and never too much. When our holy leader returned, George had already started his Great Project. Naturally we wanted to show it to Foster, if he could find time-" Mrs. Paiwonski hesitated. "Kids, I really ought not to be telling you any of this."

"Then don't," sill said emphatically "Patty darling, neither of us want you ever to do or say anything you don't feel easy about. 'Sharing water' has to be easy and natural� and waiting until it comes easy for you is easy for us."

"Uh� but I do want to share it. Look, darlings, I trust you both utterly. But I just want you to remember that this is Church things I'm telling you, so you mustn't ever tell anyone� just as I wouldn't tell anything about you."

Mike nodded. "Here on Earth we sometimes call it 'water brother' business. On Mars there's no problem� but here I grok that there sometimes is. 'Water brother' business you don't repeat."

"I�I,'Grok.' That's a funny word, but I'm learning it, All right, darlings, this is 'water brother' business. Did you know that all Fosterites are tattooed? Real Church members I mean, the ones who are eternally saved forever and ever and a day - like me? Oh, I don't mean tattooed all over, the way I am, but - look, see that? Right over my heart� see? That's Foster's holy kiss. George worked it into the design so that it looks like part of the picture it's in� so that nobody could guess unless I told 'em. But it's his kiss - and Foster put it there hisself!" She looked ecstatically proud.

They both examined it. "It is a kiss mark," Jill said wonderingly. "Just like somebody had kissed you there wearing lipstick. But, until you showed us, I thought it was part of that sunset."

"Yes, indeedy, that's why George did it. Because you don't go showing Foster's kiss to anyone who doesn't wear Foster's kiss - and I never have, up to now. But," she insisted, "I'm sure you're going to wear one, both of you, someday - and when you do, I want to be the one to tattoo 'em on."

Jill said, "I don't quite understand, Patty. I can see that it's wonderful for you to have been kissed by Foster - but how can he ever kiss us? After all, he's up in Heaven."

"Yes, dearie, he is. But let me explain. Any ordained priest or priestess can give you Foster's kiss. It means God's in your heart. God is part of you� forever."

Mike was suddenly intent. "Thou art God!"

"Huh, Michael? Well, that is a strange way to say it - I've never heard a priest put it quite that way. But that does sort of express it� God is in you and of you and with you, and the Devil can't ever get at you."

"Yes," agreed Mike. "You grok God." He thought happily that this was nearer to putting the concept across than he had ever managed before except that Jill was learning it, in Martian. Which was inevitable. "That's the idea, Michael. God� groks you - and you are married in Holy Love and eternal Happiness to His Church. The priest, or maybe priestess - it can be either - kisses you and then the kiss mark is tattooed on to show that it's forever. Of course it doesn't have to be this big - mine is just exactly the size and shape of Foster's blessed lips - and the kiss can be placed anywhere to shield from sinful eyes. Lots of men have a patch of skull shaved and then wear a hat or a bandage until the hair grows out. Or any spot where it's blessed certain it won't be seen unless you want it to be. You mustn't sit or stand on it - but anywhere else is okay. Then you show it when you go into a closed Happiness gathering of the eternally saved."

"I've heard of Happiness meetings," Jill commented, "but I've never known quite what they are."

"Well," Mrs. Paiwonski said judicially, "there are Happiness meetings and Happiness meetings. The ones for ordinary members, who are saved but might backslide, are an awful lot of fun - grand parties with only the amount of praying that comes natural and happily, and plenty of whoopit-up that makes a good party. Maybe, even, a little real lovin' - but that's frowned on there and you'd better be mighty careful who and how, because you mustn't be a seed of dissension among the brethren. The Church is way strict about keeping things in their proper place.

"But a Happiness meeting for the eternally saved - well, you don't have to be careful because there won't be anybody there who can sin - all past and done with. If you want to drink and pass out� okay, it's God's will or you wouldn't want to. You want to kneel down and pray, or lift up your voice in song - or tear off your clothes and dance; it's God's will. Although," she added, "you might not have any clothes on at all, because there can't possibly be anybody there who would see anything wrong in it."

"It sounds like quite a party," said Jill.

"Oh, it is, it is - always! And you're filled with heavenly bliss the whole time. And if you wake up in the morning on a couch with one of the eternally saved brethren, you know he's there because God willed it to make you all blessedly Happy. And you are. They've all got Foster's kiss on - they're yours." She frowned slightly. "It feels a little like 'sharing water.' You understand me?"

"I grok," agreed Mike.

("Mike?!!?")

("Wait, Jill. Wait for fullness.")

"But don't think," Patricia said earnestly, "that a person can get into an Inner Temple Happiness meeting just with a little tattoo mark - after all, it's too easy to fake. A visiting brother or sister - well, take me. As soon as I know where the carnie is going, I write to the local churches and send 'em my finger prints so they can check 'em against the master file of the eternally saved at Archangel Foster Tabernacle - unless they already know me. I give 'em my address care of Billboard. Then when I go to church - and I always go to church Sundays and I would never miss a Happiness meeting even if it means Tim has to slough the blow-off some nights - I go first time and get positively identified. Most places they're mighty glad to see me; I'm an added attraction, with my unique and unsurpassed sacred pictures - I often spend most of the evening just letting people examine me� and every minute of it bliss. Sometimes the priest wants me to bring Honey Bun and I do Eve and the serpent - that takes body make-up, of course, or skin-colored tights if there isn't time. Some local brother plays Adam and we get scourged out of the Garden of Eden, and the local priest explains the real meaning, not all the twisted lies you hear - and we end by regaining our blessed innocence and happiness, and that's certain to get the party really rolling. Joy!"

She added, "But everybody is always interested in my Foster's kiss, Because, since he went back to Heaven almost twenty years ago now and the Church has increased and flourished, not too many of us have a Foster's kiss that wasn't laid on by proxy - I always have the Tabernacle testify to that, too. And I tell them about it. Uh-"

Mrs. Paiwonski hesitated, then told them about it, in explicit detail - and Jill wondered where her admittedly limited ability to blush had gone? Then she grokked that Mike and Patty were two of a kind - God's innocents, unable to be anything else, no matter what they did. She wished, for Patty's sake, that this preposterous mishmash were really true, that Foster had really been a holy prophet who had saved her for eternal bliss.

But Foster! God's Wounds, what a travesty! Then suddenly, through her greatly improved recall, Jill was standing back in a room with a wall of glass and looking into Foster's dead eyes. But, in her mind, he seemed alive and she felt a shiver in her loins and wondered what she would have done if Foster himself had offered her his holy kiss - and his holy self?

She shut it out of her mind, but not before Mike had caught much of it. She felt him smile, with knowing innocence.

She stood up. "Pattycake darling, what time do you have to be back at the lot?"

"Oh dear! I should be back this blessed minute!"

"Why? The show doesn't roll until nine-thirty."

"Well� Honey Bun misses me�and she's jealous if I stay out late."

"Can't you tell her that it's a Happiness meeting night?"

"Uh�The older woman gathered Jill in her arms. "It is! It certainly is!"

"Good. Then I'm going to get a certain amount of sleep - Jill is bushed, believe me. What time do you have to be up, then?"

"Uh, if I'm back on the lot by eight, I can get Sam to tear down my living top and have time to make sure that my babies are loaded safely."

"Breakfast?"

"I don't eat breakfast right away, I'll get it on the train. Just coffee when I wake up, usually."

"We can make that right here in the room. I'll see that you're up. Now you dears stay up and talk religion as long as you like; I won't let you oversleep - if you sleep. Mike doesn't sleep."

"Not at all?"

"Never. He sort of curls up and thinks a while, if he's got something to think about - but he doesn't sleep."

Mrs. Paiwonski nodded solemnly. "Another sign. I know it - and, Michael, some day you will know. Your call will come."

"Maybe," agreed Jill. "Mike, I'm falling asleep. Pop me into bed. Please?" She was lifted, wafted into the bedroom, the covers rolled back by invisible hands - she was asleep before he covered her.

Jill woke up, as she had planned, exactly at seven. Mike had a clock in his head, too, but his was quite erratic so far as Earth calendars and times were concerned; it vibrated to another need. She slipped out of bed, put her head into the other room. Lights were out and the shades were tight; it was quite dark. But they were not asleep. Jill heard Mike say with soft certainty:

"Thou art God."

"'Thou art God' - " Patricia whispered back in a voice as heavy as if drugged.

"Yes. Jill is God."

"Jill� is God. Yes, Michael."

"And thou art God."

"Thou - are God. Now, Michael, now!"

Jill went very softly back in and quietly brushed her teeth. Presently she let Mike know in her mind that she was awake and found, as she expected, that he knew it. When she came back into the living room, shades were up and morning sun was streaming in. "Good morning, darlings!" She kissed them both.

"Thou art God," Patty said simply.

"Yes, Patty. And thou art God. God is in all of us." She looked at Patty in the harsh, bright morning light and noted that her new brother did not look tired. She looked as if she had had a full night of sleep and some extra� and looked younger and sweeter than ever. Well, she knew that effect - if Mike wanted to stay up, instead of reading or thinking all night, Jill never found it any trouble� and she suspected that her own sudden sleepiness the night before had been Mike's idea, too - and heard Mike agree in his mind that it was.

"Now coffee for both you darlings - and me, too. And I just happen to have stashed away a redipak of orange juice, too."

They breakfasted lightly, filled out with happiness. Jill saw Patty looking thoughtful. "What is it, dear?"

"Uh, I hate to mention this - but what are you kids going to eat on? Happens that Aunt Patty has a pretty well stuffed grouch bag and I thought-"

Jill laughed. "Oh, darling, I'm sorry; I didn't mean to laugh. But the Man from Mars is rich! Surely you know that? Or don't you ever read the news?"

Mrs. Paiwonski looked baffled. "Well, I guess I knew - that way. But you can't trust anything you hear over the news."

Jill sighed. "Patty, you're an utter darling. And believe me, now that we're water brothers, we wouldn't hesitate an instant to impose on you - 'sharing the nest' isn't just poetry. But it happens to be the other way around. If you ever need money - it doesn't matter how much; we can't use it up - just say so. Any amount. Any time. Write to me - or better yet, call me - because Mike doesn't have the foggiest idea about money. Why, dear, I've got a couple of hundred thousand dollars in a checking account in my name right this minute. Want some of it?"

Mrs. Paiwonski looked startled, something she had not looked since Mike had caused her costume to go away. "Bless me! No, I don't need money."

Jill shrugged. "If you ever do, just holler. We can't possibly spend it all and the government won't let Mike give it away. At least, not much of it. If you want a yacht - Mike would enjoy giving you a yacht."

"I certainly would, Pat. I've never seen a yacht."

Mrs. Paiwonski shook her head. "Don't take me up on a tall mountain, dearie - I've never wanted much� and all I want from you two is your love-"

"You have that," Jill told her.

"I don't grok 'love'," Mike said seriously. "But Jill always speaks rightly. If we've got it, it's yours."

"-and to know that you're both saved. But I'm no longer worried about that. Mike has told me about waiting, and why waiting is. You understand me, Jill?"

"I grok. I'm no longer impatient about anything."

"But I do have something for you two." The tattooed lady got up and crossed to where she had left her purse, took a book out of it. She came back, stood close to them. "My dear ones� this is the very copy of the New Revelation that Blessed Foster gave me� the night he placed his kiss on me. I want you to have it."

Jill's eyes suddenly filled with tears and she felt herself choking. "But, Aunt Patty - Patty our brother! We can't take this one. Not this one. We'll buy one."

"No. It's�it's 'water' I'm sharing with you. For growing-closer."

"Oh-" Jill jumped up. "We'll take it. But it's ours now - all of us." She kissed her.

Presently Mike tapped her on the shoulder. "Greedy little brother. My turn."

"I'll always be greedy, that way."

The Man from Mars kissed his new brother first on her mouth, then paused and gently kissed the spot where Foster had kissed her. Then he pondered, briefly by Earth time, picked a corresponding spot on the other side where he saw that George's design could be matched well enough for his purpose - kissed her there while he thought by stretched-out time and in great detail what he wanted to accomplish. It was necessary to grok the capillaries - To the other two, subject and spectator, he simply gently and briefly pressed his lips to the garishly decorated skin. But Jill caught a hint of the effort he had exerted and looked. "Patty! See!"

Mrs. Paiwonski looked down at herself. Marked on her skin, paired stigmata in blood red, were his lips. She started to faint - then showed the depth of her own staunch faith. "Yes. Yes! Michael-"

Most shortly thereafter the tattooed lady had disappeared, replaced by a rather mousy housewife in high neck, long sleeves and gloves. "I won't cry," she said soberly, "and it's not good-by; there are no good-bys in eternity. But I will be waiting." She kissed them both, briefly, left without looking back.