A Stranger in a Strange Land

XXXI

PATRICIA HAD HER ARMS around Ben Caxton and gave him the all-out kiss of brotherhood before he knew what hit him. She felt at once his unease and was herself surprised, because Michael had told her to expect him, given her Ben's face in her mind, had explained that Ben was a brother in all fullness, of the Inner Nest, and she knew that Jill was grown closer with Ben second only to that with Michael� which was always necessarily first since Michael was the fountain and source of all their knowledge of the water of life.

But the foundation of Patricia's nature was an endless wish to make other people as happy as she was; she slowed down. She invited Ben to get rid of his clothes but did so casually and did not press the matter, except to ask him to remove his shoes, with the explanation that the Nest was everywhere kind to bare feet and the unstated corollary that street shoes would not be kind to it - it was soft and clean as only Michael's powers could keep things clean, which Ben could see for himself.

Aside from that she merely pointed out where to hang any clothes he found too warm for the Nest and hurried away to fetch him a drink. She didn't ask his preferences; she knew them from Jill. She merely decided that he would choose a double martini this time rather than Scotch and soda, the poor dear looked tired. When she came back with a drink for each of them, Ben was barefooted and had removed his street jacket. "Brother, may you never thirst."

"We share water," he agreed and drank. "But there's mighty little water in that."

"Enough," she answered. "Michael says that the water could be completely in the thought; it is the sharing. I grok he speaks rightly."

"I grok. And it's just what I needed. Thanks, Patty."

"Ours is yours and you are ours. We're glad you're safely home. Just now the others are all at services or teaching. But there's no hurry; they will come when waiting is filled. Would you like to look around your Nest?"

Still puzzled but interested Ben let her lead him on a guided tour. Some parts of it were commonplace: a huge kitchen with a bar at one end - rather short on gadgets and having the same kind-to-the-feet floor covering as elsewhere, but not notable otherwise save for size - a library even more loaded than Jubal's, bathrooms ample and luxurious, bedrooms - Ben decided that they must be bedrooms although they contained no beds but simply floors that were even softer than elsewhere; Patty called them "little nests" and showed him one she said she usually slept in.

It contained her snakes.

It had been fitted on one side for the comfort of snakes. Ben suppressed his own slight queasiness about snakes until he came to the cobras. "It's all right," she assured him. "We did have glass in front of them. But Michael has taught them that they must not come past this line."

"I think I would rather trust glass."

"Okay, Ben." In remarkably short order she replaced the glass barrier, front and top. But he was relieved when they left, even though he managed to stroke Honey Bun when invited to. Before returning to the huge living room Pat showed him one other room. It was large, circular, had a floor which seemed almost as cushiony as that of the bedrooms, and no furniture. In its center was a round pool of water, almost a swimming pool. "This," she told him, "is the Innermost Temple, where we receive new brothers into the Nest." She went over and dabbled a foot in the water. "Just right," she said. "Want to share water and grow closer? Or maybe just swim?"

"Uh, not right now."

"Waiting is," she agreed. They returned to the living room and Patricia went to get him another drink. Ben settled himself on a big, very comfortable couch - then got up at once. The place was too warm for him, that first drink was making him sweat, and leaning back on a couch that adjusted itself too well to his contours made him just that much hotter. He decided it was damn silly to dress the way he would in Washington, warm as it was in here - and with Patty decked out in nothing but ink and a bull snake she had left around her shoulders during the latter part of the tour that reptile would keep him from temptation even if it wasn't already clearly evident that Patty was not trying to be provocative.

He compromised by leaving on jockey shorts and hung his other clothes in the foyer. As he did so, he noticed a sign printed on the inside of the door through which he had entered: "Did You Remember to Dress?"

He decided that, in this odd household, this gentle warning might be necessary if any were absent-minded. Then he saw something else that he had missed on coming in, his attention earlier having been seized by the sight of Patty herself. On each side of the door was a large bowl, as gross as a bushel basket - and each was tilled with money.

More than filled - Federation notes of various denominations spilled out on the floor.

He was staring at this improbability when Patricia returned. "Here's your drink, Brother Ben. Grow close in Happiness."

"Uh, thanks." His eyes returned to the money.

She followed his glance. "You must think I'm a sloppy housekeeper, Ben - and I am. Michael makes it so easy, most of the cleaning and such, that I forget." She squatted down, retrieved the money, stuffed it into the less crowded bowl.

"Patty, why in the world?"

"Oh. We keep it here because this door leads out to the street. Just for convenience. If one of us is leaving the Nest - and I do, myself, almost every day for grocery shopping - we are likely to need money. So we keep it where you won't forget to take some with you."

"You mean� just grab a handful and go?"

"Why, of course, dear. Oh, I see what you mean. But there is never anyone here but us. No visitors, ever. If any of us have friends outside - and, of course, all of us do - there are plenty of nice rooms lower down, the ordinary sort that outsiders are used to, where we can visit with them. This money isn't where it can tempt a weak person."

"Huh! I'm pretty weak, myself!"

She chuckled gently at his joke. "How can it tempt you when it's already yours? You're part of the Nest."

"Uh� I suppose so. But don't you worry about burglars?" He was trying to guess how much money one of those bowls contained. Most of the notes seemed to be larger than singles - hell, he could see one with three zeroes on it still on the floor, where Patty had missed it in her tidying up.

"One did get in, just last week."

"So? How much did he steal?"

"Oh, he didn't. Michael sent him away."

"Called the cops?"

"Oh, no, no - Michael would never turn anybody over to the cops. I grok that would be a wrongness Michael just-" She shrugged. "-made him go away. Then Duke fixed the hole in the skylight in the garden room - did I show you that? It's lovely� a grass floor. But I remember that you have a grass floor, Jill told me. That's where Michael first saw one. Is it grass all over? Every room?"

"Just my living room."

"If I ever get to Washington, can I walk on it? Lie down on it? Please?"

"Of course, Patty. Uh� it's yours."

"I know, dear. But it's not in the Nest, and Michael has taught us that it is good to ask, even when we know the answer is yes. I'll lie on it and feel the grass against me and be filled with Happiness to be in my brother's 'little nest.'

"You'll be most welcome, Patty." Ben reminded himself sharply that he didn't give a hoot in hell what his neighbors thought - but he hoped she would leave her snakes behind. "When will you be there?"

"I don't know. When waiting is filled. Maybe Michael knows."

"Well, warn me if you can, so I'll be in town. If not, Jill always knows the code for my door - I change it occasionally. Patty, doesn't anybody keep track of this money?"

"What for, Ben?"

"Uh, people usually do."

"Well, we don't. Just help yourself as you go out - then put back any you have left when you come home, if you remember to. Michael told me to keep the grouch bag filled. If it runs low I get some more from him."

Ben dropped the matter, stonkered by the simplicity of the arrangement. He already had some idea, from Mike and second-hand from Jill and Jubal, of the moneyless communism of the Martian culture; he could see that Mike had set up an enclave of it here - and these bowls of cash marked the transition point whereby one passed from Martian to Terran economy. He wondered if Patty knew that it was a fake� bolstered up by Mike's enormous fortune. He decided not to ask.

"Patty, how many are there in the Nest?" He felt a mild worry that he was acquiring too many sharing brothers without his consent, then shoved back the thought as unworthy after all, why would any of them want to sponge on him? Other than, possibly to lie on his grass rug - he didn't have any pots of gold just inside his door.

"Let me see� there are almost twenty now, counting novitiate brothers who don't really think in Martian yet and aren't ordained."

"Are you ordained, Patty?"

"Oh, yes. But mostly I teach. Beginners' classes in Martian, and I help novitiate brothers and such. And Dawn and I - Dawn and Jill are each High Priestess - Dawn and I are pretty well-known Fosterites, especially Dawn, so we work together to show other Fosterites that the Church of All Worlds doesn't conflict with the Faith, any more than being a Baptist keeps a man from joining the Masons." She showed Ben Foster's kiss, explained what it meant, and showed him also its miraculous companion placed by Mike.

"They all know what Foster's kiss means and how hard it is to win it and by then they've seen some of Mike's miracles and they are just about ripe to buckle down and sweat to climb into a higher circle."

"It's an effort?"

"Of course it is, Ben - for them. In your case and mine, and Jill's, and a few others - YOU know them all - Michael called us straight into brotherhood. But to others Michael first teaches a discipline - not a faith but a way to realize faith in works. And that means they've got to start by learning Martian. That's not easy; I'm not perfect in it myself. But it is much Happiness to work and learn. You asked about the size of the Nest - let me see, Duke and Jim and Michael and myself - two Fosterites, Dawn and myself� one circumcised Jew and his wife and four children-"

"Kids in the Nest?"

"Oh, more than a dozen. Not here, but in the nestlings' nest just off of here; nobody could meditate with kids hooting and hollering and raising Ned, Want to see it?"

"Uh, later."

"One Catholic couple with a baby boy - excommunicated I'm sorry to say; their priest found out about it. Michael had to give them very special help; it was a nasty shock to them - and so utterly unnecessary. They were getting up early every Sunday morning to go to mass just as usual - but kids will talk. One Mormon family of the new schism - that's three more, and their kids. The rest are the usual run of Protestants and one atheist� that is, he thought he was an atheist, until Michael opened his eyes. He came here to scoff; he stayed to learn� and he'll be a priest before long. Uh, nineteen grown-ups - I'm pretty sure that's right though it's hard to say, since we're hardly ever all in the Nest at once, except for our own services in the Innermost Temple. The Nest is built to hold eighty-one - that's 'three-filled,' or three times three multiplied by itself - but Michael says that there will be much waiting before we'd need a bigger nest and by then we will be building other nests. Ben? Wouldn't you like to see an outer service, see how Michael makes the pitch, instead of just listening to me ramble on? Michael will be preaching just about now."

"Why, yes, if it's not too much trouble."

"You could go by yourself. But I'd like to go with you� and I'm not busy. Just a see, dearie, while I get decent."

"Jubal, she was back in a couple of minutes in a robe not unlike Anne's Witness robe but cut differently, with angel-wing sleeves and a high neck and the trademark Mike uses for the Church of All Worlds - nine concentric circles and a conventionalized Sun-embroidered over her heart. This getup was a priestess robe, her vestments; Jill and the other priestesses wear the same sort, except that Patty's was opaque, a heavy synthetic silk, and came so high that it covered her cartoons, and was caught at both wrists for the same reason. She had put on stockings, too, or maybe bobby socks, and was carrying sandals.

"Changed the hell out of her, Jubal. It gave her great dignity. Her face is quite nice and I could see that she was considerably older than I had first guessed her although not within twenty years of what she claims to be. She has an exquisite complexion and I thought what a shame it was that anyone had ever touched a tattooing needle to such skin.

"I had dressed again. She asked me to take off just my shoes because we weren't going out the way I had come in. She led me back through the Nest and out into a corridor; we stopped to put on shoes and went down a ramp that wound down maybe a couple of floors until we reached a gallery. It was sort of a loge overlooking the main auditorium. Mike was holding forth on the platform. No pulpit, no altar, just a lecture hall, with a big All-Worlds symbol on the wall behind him. There was a robed priestess on the platform with him and, at that distance, I thought it was Jill - but it wasn't; it was another woman who looks a bit like her and is almost as beautiful. The other high priestess, Dawn - Dawn Ardent."

"What was that name?" Jubal interrupted.

"Dawn Ardent-ne Higgins, if you want to be fussy."

"I've met her."

"I know you have, you allegedly retired goat. She's got a crush on you�"

Jubal shook his head. "Some mistake. The 'Dawn Ardent' I mean I just barely met, about two years ago. She wouldn't even remember me."

"She remembers you. She gets every one of your pieces of commercial crud, on tape, under every pseudonym she has been able to track down. She goes to sleep by them, usually, and they give her beautiful dreams. She says. Furthermore there is no doubt that she knows who you are. Jubal, that big living room, the Nest proper, has exactly one item of ornamentation, if you'll pardon the word - a life-sized color copy of your head. Looks as if you had been decapitated, with your face in a hideous grin. A candid shot that Duke sneaked of you, I understand."

"Why, that brat!"

"Jill asked him to, behind your back."

"Double brat!"

"Sir, you are speaking of the woman I love - although I'm not alone in that distinction. But Mike put her up to it. Brace yourself, Jubal - you are the patron saint of the Church of All Worlds."

Jubal looked horrified. "They can't do this to me!"

"They already have. But don't worry; it's unofficial and not publicized. But Mike freely gives you credit, inside the Nest just among water brothers, for having instigated the whole show and explained things to him so well that he was finally able to figure out how to put over Martian theology to humans."

Jubal looked about to retch. Ben went on, "I'm afraid you can't duck it. But in addition, Dawn thinks you're beautiful. Aside from that quirk, she is an intelligent woman - and utterly charming. But I digress. Mike spotted us at once, waved and called out, 'Hi, Ben! Later' - and went on with his spiel.

"Jubal, I'm not going to try to quote him, you'll just have to hear it. He didn't sound preachy and he didn't wear robes - just a smart, well-tailored, white syntholinen suit. He sounded like a damned good car salesman, except that there was no doubt he was talking about religion. He cracked jokes and told parables - none of them straitlaced but nothing really dirty, either. The essence of it was a sort of pantheism� one of his parables was the oldy about the earthworm burrowing along through the soil who encounters another earthworm and at once says, 'Oh, you're beautiful! You're lovely! Will you marry me?' and is answered: 'Don't be silly! I'm your other end.' You've heard it before?"

"'Heard it?' I wrote it!"

"I hadn't realized it was that old. Anyhow, Mike made good use of it. His idea is that whenever you encounter any other grokking thing - he didn't say 'grokking' at this stage - any other living thing, man, woman, or stray cat� you are simply encountering your 'other end'� and the universe is just a little thing we whipped up among us the other night for our entertainment and then agreed to forget the gag. He put it in a much more sugar-coated fashion, being extremely careful not to tread on competitors' toes."

Jubal nodded and looked sour. "Solipsism and Pantheism. Teamed together they can explain anything. Cancel out any inconvenient fact, reconcile all theories, and include any facts or delusions you care to name. Trouble is, it's just cotton candy, all taste and no substance - and as unsatisfactory as solving a story by saying: '-and then the little boy fell out of bed and woke up; it was just a dream.'"

"Don't crab at me about it; take it up with Mike. But believe me, he made it sound convincing. Once he stopped and said, 'You must be tired of so much talk-' and they yelled back, 'No!'-I tell you, he really had them. But he protested that his voice was tired and, anyhow, a church ought to have miracles and this was a church, even though it didn't have a mortgage. 'Dawn, fetch me my miracle box.' Then he did some really amazing sleight-of-hand. Did you know he had been a magician with a carnival?"

"I knew he had been with it. He never told me the exact nature of his shame."

"He's a crackerjack magician; he did stunts for them that had me fooled. But it wouldn't have mattered if it had been only the card tricks kids learn; it was his patter that had them rolling in the aisles. Finally he stopped and said apologetically. 'The Man from Mars is supposed to be able to do wonderful things� so I have to pass a few miracles each meeting. I can't help being the Man from Mars; it's just something that happened to me. But miracles can happen for you, too, if you want them. However, to be allowed to see anything more than these narrow-gauge miracles, you must enter the Circle. Those of you who truly want to learn I will see later. Cards are being passed around,'

"Patty explained to me what Mike was really doing. 'This crowd is just marks, dear - people who come out of curiosity or maybe have been shined in by some of our own people who have reached one of the inner circles.' Jubal, Mike has the thing rigged in nine circles, like degrees in a lodge - and nobody is told that there actually is a circle farther in until they're ready to be inducted into it. 'This is just Michael's bally,' Pat told me, 'which he does as easy as he breathes - while all the time he's feeling them out, sizing them up, getting inside their heads and deciding which ones are even possible. Maybe one in ten. That's why he strings it out - Duke is up behind that grille and Michael tells him every mark who just might measure up, where he sits and everything. Michael's about to turn this tip� and spill the ones he doesn't want. Dawn will handle that part, after she gets the seating diagram from Duke.'"

"How did they work that?" asked Harshaw.

"I didn't see it, Jubal. Does it matter? There are a dozen ways they could cut from the herd the ones they wanted as long as Mike knew which they were and had worked out some way to signal Duke. I don't know. Patty says he's clairvoyant and says it with a straight face - and, do you know, I won't discount the possibility. But right after that, they took the collection. Mike didn't do even this in church style - you know, soft music and dignified ushers. He said nobody would believe that this was a church service if be didn't take a collection� so he would, but with a difference. Either take it or put it - suit yourself. Then, so help me, they passed collection baskets already loaded with money. Mike kept telling them that this was what the last crowd had left, so help themselves� if they were broke or hungry and needed it. But if they felt like giving� give. Share with others. Just do one or the other - put something in, or take something out. When I saw it, I figured he had found one more way to get rid of too much money."

Jubal said thoughtfully, "I'm not sure he would lose by it. That pitch, properly given, should result in more people giving more� while a few take just a little. And probably very few. I would say that it would be hard indeed to reach in and take out money when the people on each side of you are putting money in� unless you need it awfully badly."

"I don't know, Jubal� but I understand that they are just as casual about those collections as they are about that stack of dough upstairs. But Patty whisked me away when Mike turned the service over to his high priestess. I was taken to a much smaller auditorium where services were just opening for the seventh circle in - people who had belonged for several months at least and had made progress. If it is progress.

"Jubal, Mike had gone straight from one to the other, and I couldn't adjust to the change. That outer meeting was half popular lecture and half sheer entertainment - this one was more nearly a voodoo rite. Mike was in robes this time; he looked taller, ascetic, and intense-! swear his eyes gleamed. The place was dimly lighted, there was music that was creepy and yet made you want to dance. This time Patty and I took a double seat together, a couch that was darn near a bed. What the service was all about I couldn't say. Mike would sing out to them in Martian, they would answer in Martian - except for chants of 'Thou art God! Thou art God!' which was always echoed by some Martian word that would make my throat sore to try to pronounce it."

Jubal made a croaking noise. "Was that it?"

"Huh? I believe it was - allowing for your horrible tall-corn accent. Jubal� are you hooked? Have you just been stringing me along?"

"No. Stinky taught it to me - and he says that it's heresy of the blackest sort. By his lights I mean - I couldn't care less. It's the Martian word Mike translates as: 'Thou art God.' But our brother Mahmoud says that isn't even close to being a translation. It's the universe proclaiming its own self-awareness� or it's 'peccavimus' with a total absence of contrition or a dozen other things, all of which don't translate it. Stinky says that not only it can't be translated but that he doesn't really understand it in Martian - except that it is a bad word, the worst possible in his opinion and much closer to Satan's defiance than it is to the blessing of a benevolent God. Go on. Was that all there was to it? Just a bunch of fanatics yelling Martian at each other?"

"Uh� Jubal, they didn't yell and it wasn't fanatical. Sometimes they would barely whisper, the room almost dead quiet. Then it might climb in volume a little but not much. They did it in sort of a rhythm, a pattern, like a cantata, as if they had rehearsed it a long time� and yet it didn't feel as if they had rehearsed it; it felt more as if they were all just one person, humming to himself whatever he felt at the moment. Jubal, you've seen how the Fosterites get themselves worked up-"

"Too much of it, I'm sorry to say."

"Well, this was not that sort of frenzy at all; this was quiet and easy, like dropping off to sleep. It was intense all right and got steadily more so, but - Jubal, ever sit in on a spiritualist sance?"

"I have. I've tried everything I could, Ben."

"Then you know how the tension can grow without anybody moving or saying a word. This was much more like that than it was like a shouting revival, or even the most sedate church service. But it wasn't mild; it packed terrific wallop."

"The technical word is 'Apollonian.'"

"Huh?"

"As opposed to 'Dionysian.' And both rather Procrustean I'm sorry to say. People tend to simplify 'Apollonian' into 'mild,' and 'calm,' and 'cool.' But 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' are two sides of the same coin - a nun on her knees in her cell, holding perfectly still and her facial muscles relaxed, can be in a religious ecstasy more frenzied than any priestess of Pan Priapus celebrating the vernal equinox. Ecstasy is in the skull, not in the setting-up exercises." Jubal frowned. "Another common error is to identify 'Apollonian' with 'good' - merely because our most respectable sects are all rather Apollonian in ritual and precept. Mere local prejudice. Proceed."

"Well� things weren't as quiet as a nun at her devotions anyhow. They didn't just stay seated and let Mike entertain them. They wandered about a bit, swapped seats, and there was no doubt that there was necking going on; no more than necking, I believe, but the lighting was very low key and it was hard to see from one pew to another. One gal wandered over our way, started to join us, but Patty gave her some sign to let us be so she just kissed us and left." Ben grinned. "Kissed quite well, too, though she didn't dally about it. I was the only person not dressed in a robe; I was as conspicuous as a space suit in a salon. But she gave no sign of noticing.

"The whole thing was very casual� and yet it seemed as coordinated as a ballerina's muscles. Mike kept busy, sometimes out in front, sometimes wandering among the others - once he squeezed my shoulder and kissed Patty, unhurriedly but quickly. He didn't speak to me. Back of the spot where he stood when he seemed to be leading them was some sort of a dingus like a magic mirror, or possibly a big stereo tank; he used it for 'miracles,' only at this stage he never used the word - at least not in English. Jubal, every church promises miracles. But it's always jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, never jam today."

"Exception," Jubal interrupted again. "Many of them deliver as a matter of routine - exempli gratia among many: Christian Scientists and Roman Catholics."

"Catholics? You mean Lourdes?"

"The example included Lourdes, for what it may be worth. But I referred to the Miracle of Transubstantiation, called forth by every Catholic priest at least daily."

"Hmm- Well, I can't judge that subtle a miracle. To a heathen outsider like myself that sort of miracle is impossible to test. As for Christian Scientists, I won't argue - but if I break a leg, I want a sawbones."

"Then watch where you put your feet," Jubal growled. "Don't bother me with your fractures."

"Wouldn't think of it. I want one who wasn't a classmate of William Harvey."

"Harvey could reduce a fracture. Proceed."

"Yeah, but how about his classmates? Jubal, those things you cited as miracles may be such - but Mike offers splashy ones, ones the cash customers can see. He's either an expert illusionist, one who would make the fabled Houdini look clumsy� or an amazing hypnotist-"

"He might be both."

"-or he's smoothed the bugs out of closed-circuit stereovision to the point where it simply cannot be told from reality, for his special effects. Or 'I've been 'ad fer a button, dearie.'"

"How can you rule out real miracles, Ben?"

"I included them with the button. It's not a theory I like to think about. Whatever he used, it was good theater. Once the lights came up behind him and here was a black-maned lion, lying as stately and sedately as if guarding library steps, while a couple of little lambs wobbled around him. The lion just blinked and yawned. Sure, Hollywood can tape that sort of special effect any day - but it looked real, so much so that I thought I smelled the lion� and of course that can be faked, too."

"Why do you insist on fakery?"

"Damn it, I'm trying to be judicial!"

"Then don't lean over backwards so far you fall down. Try to emulate Anne."

"I'm not Anne. And I wasn't very judicial at the time. I just lounged back and enjoyed it, in a warm glow. It didn't even annoy me that I couldn't understand most of what was said; it felt as if I got the gist of it. Mike did a lot of gang-ho miracles - or illusions. Levitation and such. I wasn't being critical, I was willing to enjoy it as good showmanship Patty slipped away toward the end after whispering to me to stay where I was and she would be back. 'Michael has just told them that any who do not feel ready for the next circle should now leave,' she told me.

"I said, 'I guess I had better leave, too.'

"And she said, 'Oh, no, dear - You're already Ninth Circle - Y0U know that. Just stay seated, I'll be back.' And she left.

"I don't think anybody decided to chicken out. This group was not only Seventh Circle but Seventh Circlers who were all supposed to be promoted. But I didn't really notice for the lights came up again� and there was Jill!

"Jubal, this time it definitely did not feel like stereovision. Jill picked me out with her eyes and smiled at me. Oh, I know, if the person being photographed looks directly at the cameras, then the eyes meet yours no matter where you're seated But if Mike has it smoothed out this well, he had better patent it. Jill was dressed in an outlandish costume-priestess outfit, I suppose, but not like the others. Mike started intoning something to her and to us, partly in English� stuff about the Mother of All, the unity of many, and started calling her by a series of names� and with each name her costume changed-"

Ben Caxton came quickly alert when the lights came up behind the High Priest and he saw Jill Boardman posed, above and behind the priest. He blinked and made sure that he had not again been fooled by lighting and distance - this was Jill She looked back at him and smiled. He half listened to the invocation while thinking that he had been convinced that the space behind the Man from Mars was surely a stereo tank, or some gitumick. But he could almost swear that he could walk up those steps and pinch her. He was tempted to do so - then reminded himself that it would be a crummy trick to ruin Mike's show. Wait till it was over and Jill was free - "Cybele!" - and Jill's costume suddenly changed - again

"Frigg!"

"Gel"

"Devil"

"Ishtar!"

"Maryam"

"Mother Eve! Mater Deus Magna! Loving and Beloved, Life Undying-"

Caxton stopped hearing the words� for Jill suddenly was Mother Eve, clothed only in her own glory. The light spread and he saw that she was standing gently at rest in a Garden, beside a tree around and on which was twined a great serpent.

Jill smiled at them all, turned a little, reached up and smoothed the serpent's head turned back and opened her arms to all of them. The first of the candidates moved forward to enter the Garden. Patty returned and touched Caxton on the shoulder. "Ben, I'm back. Come with me, dear."

Caxton was reluctant, he wanted to stay and drink in the glorious vision of Jill� he wanted to do more than that; he wanted to join that procession and go where she was. But he found himself getting up and leaving with Patricia. He looked back and saw Mike about to put his arms around and kiss the first woman in the line� turned to follow Patricia outside and failed to see the candidates' robe vanish as Mike kissed her - and did not see what followed at once, when Jill kissed the first male candidate for elevation to the eighth circle�and his robe vanished.

"We have to go long way 'round," Patty explained, "to give them time to get clear and on into the Temple of the Eighth Circle. Oh, it wouldn't actually hurt to barge in, but it would waste Michael's time, getting them back in the mood - and he does work so very hard."

"Where are we going now?"

"To pick up Honey Bun. Then back to the Nest. Unless you want to take part in the initiation to the Eighth Circle. You can, you know, since you're Ninth Circle. But you haven't learned Martian yet; you'd find it very confusing."

"Well - I'd like to see Jill. When will she be free?"

"Oh. She told me to tell you that she was going to duck upstairs and see you. Down this way, Ben."

A door opened and Ben found himself in the garden he had seed. The serpent was still festooned on the tree; she raised her head as they came in. "There, there, dears" Patricia said to her. "You were Mama's good girl, weren't you?" She gently unwrapped the boa and flaked it down into a basket, tail first. "Duke brought her down for me but I have to arrange her on the tree and tell her to stay there and not go wandering off. You were lucky, Ben; a transition service from Seventh to Eighth happens very seldom - Michael won't hold it until there are enough candidates ready to build and hold the mood� although we used to supply people out of the Innermost Circle to help the first candidates from outside through."

Ben carried Honey Bun for Patty until they reached the top level and learned that a fourteen-foot snake is quite a load; the basket had steel braces and needed them. As soon as they were that high, Patricia stopped. "Put her down, Ben." She took off her robe and handed it to him, then go out the snake and draped it around her. "This is Honey Bun's reward for being a good girl; she expects to cuddle up to Mama. I've got a class starting almost at once, so I'll walk the rest of the way with her on me and let her stay on me until the last possible second. It's not a goodness to disappoint a snake; they're just like babies. They can't grok in fullness, except that Honey Bun groks Mama�and Michael, of course."

They walked the fifty yards or so to the entrance to the Nest proper and at its door Patricia let Ben take off her sandals for her after he removed his shoes, He wondered bow she could balance on one foot under such a load� and noticed, too, that she had gotten rid of her socks or stockings at some point - no doubt while she was out arranging Honey Bun's stage appearance.

They went inside and she went with him, still clothed in the big snake, while be shucked down to his jockey shorts - stalling as he did so, trying to make up his mind whether to discard the shorts, too. He had seen enough to be fairly certain that clothing, any clothing, inside the Nest was as unconventional by these conventions (and possibly as rude), as hob-nailed boots on a dance floor. The gentle warning on the exit door, the fact that there were no windows anywhere in the Nest, the womblike comfort of the Nest itself, Patricia's lack of attire plus the fact that she had suggested (but not insisted) that he do likewise - all added up to an unmistakable pattern of habitual domestic nudity� among people who were all at least nominally his own "water brothers," even though he had not met most of them.

He had seen further confirmation in addition to Patricia, whose behavior he had discounted somewhat from a vague feeling that a tattooed lady might very well have odd habits about clothing. On coming into the living room they had passed a man headed the other way, toward the baths and the note 2 - and he had worn less than Patricia by one snake and lots of pictures. He had greeted them with "Thou art God" and gone on, apparently as used to buff as Patricia was. But, Ben reminded himself, this "brother" hadn't seemed surprised that Ben was dressed, either.

There had been other such evidence in the living room: a body sprawled face down on a couch across the room - a woman, Ben thought, although he had not wanted to stare after a quick glance had shown him that this one was naked, too.

Ben Caxton had thought himself to be sophisticated about such things. Swimming without suits be considered only sensible. He knew that many families were casually naked in their own homes - and this was a family, of sorts - although he himself had not been brought up in the custom. He had even (once) let a girl invite him to a nudist resort, and it had not troubled him especially after the first five minutes or so - he had simply regarded it as a silly lot of trouble to go to for the dubious pleasures of poison ivy, scratches, and an all-over sunburn that bad put him in bed for a day.

But now he found himself balanced in perfect indecision, unable to make up his mind between the probable urbanity of removing his symbolic fig leaf� and the even stronger probability - certainty he decided - that if he did so and strangers came in who were dressed and stayed that way, he would feel all-fired silly. Hell, he might even blush!

"What would you have done, Jubal?" Ben demanded.

Harshaw lifted his eyebrows. "Axe you expecting me to be shocked, Ben? I have seen the human body, professionally and otherwise, for most of a century. It is often pleasing to the eye, frequently most depressing and never significant per se. Only in the subjective value the viewer places on the sight. I grok Mike runs his household along nudist lines. Shall I cheer? Or must I cry? Neither. It leaves me unmoved."

"Damn it man!, it's easy for you to sit there and be Olympian about it - you weren't faced with the choice. I've never seen you take off your pants in company."

"Nor are you likely to. 'Other times, other customs.' But I grok you were not motivated by modesty. You were suffering from a morbid fear of appearing ridiculous - a well-known phobia with a long, pseudo-Greek name with which I shall not bore you."

"Nonsense! I simply wasn't certain what was polite."

"Nonsense to you, sir - YOU already knew what was polite� but were afraid you might look silly� or possibly feared being trapped inadvertently in the gallant reflex. But I seem to grok that Mike had a reason for instituting this household custom - Mike always has reasons for everything he does, although some of them seem strange to me."

"Oh, yes. He has reasons. Jill told me about them."

Ben Caxton was standing in the foyer, his back to the living room and his hands on his shorts, having told himself, not very firmly, to take the plunge and get it over with - when two arms came snugly around his waist from behind. "Ben darling! How wonderful to have you here!"

He turned and had Jill in his arms and her mouth warm and greedy against his - and was very glad that he had not quite finished stripping. For she was no longer "Mother Eve"; she was wearing one of the long, all-enveloping priestess robes. Nevertheless he was happily aware that he had a double armful of live, warm, and gently squirming girl; her priestly vestment was no greater impediment than would have been a thin gown, and both kinesthetic and tactile senses told him that the rest was Jill.

"Golly!" she said, breaking from the kiss. "I've missed you, you old beast. Thou art God."

"Thou art God," he conceded. "Jill, you're prettier than ever."

"Yes," she agreed. "It does that for you. But I can't tell you what a thrill it gave me to catch your eye at the blow-off."

"'Blow-off'?"

"Jill means," Patricia put in, "the end of the service where she is All Mother, Mater Deum Magna. Kids, I must rush."

"Never hurry, Pattycake."

"I gotta rush so I won't have to hurry. Ben, I must put Honey Bun to bed and go down and take my class - so kiss me good-night now. Please?"

Ben found himself kissing good-night a woman still wrapped most thoroughly by a giant snake - and decided that he could think of better ways� say wearing full armor. But he tried to ignore Honey Bun and treat Patty as she deserved to be treated.

Jill kissed her and said, "Stop by and tell Mike to stall until I get there, pretty please."

"He will anyhow. 'Night, dears." She left unhurriedly.

"Ben, isn't she a lamb?"

"She certainly is. Although she had me baffled at first."

"I grok. But it's not because she's tattooed nor because of her snakes, I know. She baffled you - she baffles everybody - because Patty never has any doubts; she just automatically always does the right thing. She's very much like Mike. She's the most advanced of any of us - she ought to be high priestess. But she won't take it because her tattoos would make some of the duties difficult - be a distraction at least - and she doesn't want them taken off."

"How could you possibly take off that much tattooing? With a flensing knife? It would kill her."

"Not at all, dear. Mike could take them off completely, not leave a trace, and not even hurt her. Believe me, dear, he could, But he groks that she does not think of them as belonging to her; she's just their custodian - and he groks with her about it. Come sit down. Dawn will be in with supper for all three of us in a moment - I must eat while we visit or I won't have a chance until tomorrow. That's poor management with all eternity to draw from� but I didn't know when you would get here and you happen to arrive on a very full day. But tell me what you think of what you've seen? Dawn tells me you saw an outsiders' service, too."

"Yes."

"Well?"

"Mike," Caxton said slowly, "has certainly blossomed out. I think he could sell shoes to snakes."

"I'm quite sure he could. But he never would because it would be wrong - snakes don't need them. What's the matter, Ben? I grok there's something bothering you."

"No," he answered. "Certainly not anything I can put my finger on. Oh, I'm not much for churches� but I'm not against them exactly - certainly not against this one. I guess I just don't grok it."

"I'll ask you again in a week or two. There's no hurry."

"I won't be here even a week."

"You have some columns on the spike" - it was not a question.

"Three fresh ones. But I shouldn't stay even that long."

"I think you will� then you'll phone in a few� probably about the Church. By then I think you will grok to stay much longer."

"I don't think so."

"Waiting is, until fullness. You know it's not a church?"

"Well, Patty did say something of the sort."

"Let's say it's not a religion. It is a church, in every legal and moral senses - and I suppose our Nest is a monastery. But we're not trying to bring people to God; that's a contradiction in terms, you can't even say it in Martian. We're not trying to save souls, because souls can't be lost. We're not trying to get people to have faith, because what we offer is not faith but truth - truth they can check; we don't urge them to believe it. Truth for practical purposes, for here-and-now, truth as matter of fact as an ironing board and as useful as a loaf of bread� so practical that it can make war and hunger and violence and hate as unnecessary as� as - well, as clothes here in the Nest. But they have to learn Martian first. That's the only hitch-finding people who are honest enough to believe what they see, and then are willing to do the hard work - it is hard work - of learning the language it can be taught in. A composer couldn't possibly write down a symphony in English� and this sort of symphony can't be stated in English any more than Beethoven's Fifth can be." She smiled. "But Mike never hurries. Day after day he screens hundreds of people finds a few dozen� and out of those a very few trickle into the Nest and he trains them further. And someday Mike will have some of us so thoroughly trained that we can go out and start other nests, and then it can begin to snowball. But there's no hurry. None of us, even us in the Nest, are really trained. Are we, dear?"

Ben looked up, somewhat startled by Jill's last three words - then was really startled to find bending over him to offer him a plate a woman whom he belatedly recognized as the other high priestess - Dawn, yes, that was right. His surprise was not reduced by the fact that she was dressed in Patricia's fashion, minus tattoos.

But Dawn was not startled. She smiled and said, "Your supper, my brother Ben. Thou art God."

"Uh, thou art God. Thanks." He was beyond being surprised when she leaned down and kissed him, then got plates for herself and Jill, sat down on the other side of him and began to eat. He was willing to concede that, if not God, Dawn had the best attributes associated with goddesses; he was rather sorry she had not sat down across from him - he couldn't see her well without being obvious about it.

"No," Dawn agreed, between bites, "we aren't really trained yet, Jill. But waiting will fill."

"That's the size of it, Ben," Jill continued. "For example, I took a break to eat. But Mike hasn't had a bite for well over twenty-four hours and won't eat until he's not needed - you happened to bit a crowded day, because of that group making transition to Eighth Circle. Then when Mike is through, he'll eat like a pig and that will carry him as long as necessary. Besides that, Dawn and I get tired� don't we, sweet?"

"We surely do. But I'm not too tired, Gillian. Let me take this service and you can visit with Ben. Give me that robe."

"You're crazy in your little pointy head, my love - and Mama spank. Ben, she's been on duty almost as long as Mike has. We both can take that long a stretch - but we eat when we're hungry and sometimes we need sleep. Speaking of robes, Dawn, this was the last vanishing robe in the Seventh Temple. I meant to tell Patty she'd better order a gross or two."

"She has."

"I should have known. This one seems a little tight." Jill wiggled in it in a fashion that disturbed Ben more than Dawn's perfect and unrobed skin. "Are we putting on weight, Dawn?"

"I think we are, a little. No matter."

"Helps, you mean. We were too skinny. Ben, you noticed, didn't you, that Dawn and I have the same figure? Height, bust, waist, hips, weight, everything - not to mention coloration. We were almost the same when we met� and then, with Mike's help, we matched up exactly and are holding it that way. Even our faces are getting more alike - but we didn't plan that. That just comes from doing the same things and thinking about the same things. Stand up and let Ben look at us, dear."

Dawn put her plate aside and did so, in a pose that reminded Ben oddly of Jill, more so than the figure resemblance seemed to justify; then he realized it was the exact pose Jill had been in when she had first stood revealed as Mother Eve.

Invited to Stare, he did. Jill said, with her mouth full, "See, Ben? That's me."

Dawn smiled at her. "A razor's edge of difference, Gillian."

"Pooh. You're getting that control, too. I'm almost sorry we'll never have the same face. It's very handy, Ben, for Dawn and myself to look so much alike. We have to have two high priestesses; it's all two of us can do to keep up with Mike. We can trade places right in the middle of a service - and sometimes do. And besides," she added, swallowing, "Dawn can buy a fitted dress and it fits me, too. Saves me the nuisance of shopping for clothes. When we wear clothes."

"I wasn't sure," Ben said slowly, "that you still wore clothes at all. Except these priestess things."

Jill looked surprised. "Do you think we would go out dancing in these? We wear evening dresses, same as everybody else. That's our favorite way of not getting our beauty sleep, isn't it, dear? Sit back down and finish your supper; Ben has stared at us long enough for the moment. Ben, there's a man in that transition group you were just with who's a perfectly dreamy dancer and this town is loaded with good night clubs - and Dawn and I have kept the poor fellow so busy, alternated keeping him up so many nights in a row, that we've had to help him stay awake in language classes. But he'll be all right; once you reach Eighth Circle you don't need nearly so much sleep. Whatever made you think we never dressed, dear?"

"Uh-" Ben finally blurted out the embarrassing predicament he had been in.

Jill looked wide-eyed, then barely giggled - and stopped it at once, at which Ben realized that he had heard none of these people laugh only the "marks" in the outer service. "I see. But, darling, I just never got around to taking this robe off. I am wearing it because I have to gobble and git. But had I grokked that that was troubling you, I certainly would have chucked it before I said hello even though I wasn't sure there was another one handy. We're so used to dressing or not dressing according to what we need to do that I just plain forgot that I might not be behaving politely. Sweetheart, take those shorts off - or leave them on, exactly as suits you."

"Uh-"

"Just don't fret about it, either way." Jill smiled and dimpled. "Reminds me of the first time Mike tried a public beach, but in reverse. 'Member, Dawn?"

"I'll never forget it!"

"Ben, you know how Mike is about clothes. He just doesn't understand them. Or didn't. I had to teach him everything. He couldn't see any point to them as protection, until he grokked - to his great surprise - that we aren't as invulnerable as he is. Modesty - that sort of 'modesty'; he's so modest in its true sense that it hurts - body-modesty isn't a Martian concept, it couldn't be. And only lately has Mike grokked clothes as ornaments, after we started experimenting with various ways to costume our acts.

"But, Ben, while Mike was always willing to do what I told him to, whether he grokked it or not, you can't imagine how many million little things there are to being a human being. We take twenty or thirty years to learn them; Mike had to learn them almost overnight. There are gaps, even now. He does things not knowing that isn't how a human does them. We all teach him - Dawn and I especially. All but Patty, who is sure that anything that Michael does must be perfect. But he's still grokking the nature of clothes. He's groks mostly that they're a wrongness that keeps people apart - and get in the way of letting love cause them to grow closer. Lately he's come to realize that part of the time you want and need, such a barrier - with outsiders. But for a long time Mike wore clothes only because I told him to and when I told him he must.

"And I missed a gap."

"We were down in Baja California; it was just at the time we met - or remet, actually - Dawn. Mike and I checked in at night at one of those big fancy beach hotels and he was so anxious to grok the ocean, get wet all over, that he let me sleep the next morning and went down by himself for his first encounter with the ocean. And I didn't realize that Mike didn't know about swim suits. Oh, he may have seen them� but he didn't know what they were for or had some mixed-up idea. He certainly didn't know that you were supposed to wear them in the water - the idea was almost sacrilege. And you know Jubal's rigid rules about keeping his pool clean - I'm sure it's never seen a suit. I do remember one night a lot of people got tossed in with all their clothes on, but it was when Jubal was going to have it drained right away anyhow.

"Poor Mike! He got down to the beach and threw off his robe and headed for the water� looking like a Greek god and just as unaware of local conventions - and then the riot Started and I came awake fast and grabbed some clothes myself and got down there just in time to keep him out of jail� and fetched him back to the room and he spent the rest of the day in a trance."

Jill got a momentary faraway look. "And he needs me now, too, so I must run along. Kiss me good-night, Ben; I'll see you in the morning."

"You'll be gone all night?"

"Probably. It's a fairly big transition class and, truthfully, Mike has just been keeping them busy the past half hour and more while we visited. But that's all right." She stood up, pulled him gently to his feet and went into his arms.

Presently she broke from the kiss but not from his arms and murmured, "Ben darling, you've been taking lessons. Whew!"

"Me? I've been utterly faithful to you - in my own way."

"In the same way I've been to you� the nicest way. I wasn't complaining� I just think Dorcas has been helping you to practice kissing."

"Some, maybe. Nosy."

"Uh huh, I'm always nosy. The class can wait while you kiss me once more. I'll try to be Dorcas."

"You be yourself."

"I would be, anyway. Self. But Mike says that Dorcas kisses more thoroughly - 'groks a kiss more' - than anyone."

"Quit chattering."

She did, for a while, then sighed. "Transition class, here I come - glowing like a lightning bug. Take good care of him, Dawn."

"I will."

"And better kiss him right away and see what I mean!"

"I intend to."

"'Bye, darlings! Ben, you be a good boy and do what Dawn tells You." She left, not hurrying - but running.

Dawn stood up, flowed up against him, put up her arms.

Jubal cocked an eyebrow. "And now I suppose you are going to tell me that at that point, you went chicken."

"Uh, not exactly. A near miss, call it. To tell the truth I didn't have too much to say about it. I, uh, 'cooperated with the inevitable.'"

Jubal nodded. "No other possible course. You were trapped and couldn't run. Whereupon the best a man can do is try for a negotiated peace." He added, "But I'm sorry that the civilized habits of my household caused the boy to fall afoul the law of the jungles of Baja California."

"I don't think he's a boy any longer, Jubal."