Stranger in a Strange Land

(Goddamit—it wasn’t necessary!) “No, Dawn. Thank you, dear.”

She got to her knees and bent over him. “Just one more word, then. Jill told me, that if you argued, I was to cry. Shall I get my tears all over your chest? And share water with you that way?”

“I’m going to spank Jill!”

“Yes, Jubal. I’m starting to cry.” She made no sound, but in only a second or two a warm, full tear splashed on his chest—was followed quickly by another… and another—and still more. She sobbed almost silently.

Jubal cursed and reached for her… and cooperated with the inevitable.

XXXVI

JUBAL WOKE UP ALERT, rested, and happy, realized that he felt better before breakfast than he had in years. For a long, long time he had been getting through that black period between waking and the first cup of coffee by comforting himself with the thought that tomorrow might be a little easier.

This morning he found himself whistling, which he did very badly. He noticed it, stopped himself, forgot it and started up again.

He saw himself in the mirror, smiled wryly, then grinned openly. “You incorrigible old goat. They’ll be sending the wagon for you any minute now.” He noticed a white hair on his chest, plucked it out, didn’t bother with many others just as white, went on making himself ready to face the world.

When he went outside his door Jill was there. Accidentally? No, he no longer trusted any “coincidence” in this ménage; it was as organized as a computer. She came straight into his arms. “Jubal—Oh, we love you so! Thou art God.”

He returned her kiss as warmly as it was given, grokking that it would be hypocritical not to—and discovering that kissing Jill differed from kissing Dawn only in some fashion unmistakable but utterly beyond instrument or description.

Presently he held her away from him without letting her go. “You baby Messalina… you framed me.”

“Jubal darling… you were wonderful!”

“Uh… how the hell did you know I was able?”

She gave him back a gaze of clear-eyed innocence. “Why, Jubal, I’ve been certain of that ever since Mike and I first lived at home. You see, even then, when Mike was asleep—in trance—he could see around him quite a distance and sometimes he would look in on you—a question to ask you or something—to see if you were asleep.”

“But I slept alone! Always.”

“Yes, dear. But that wasn’t quite what I meant. And I always had to explain things to Mike that he didn’t understand.”

“Hrrrmph!” He decided not to pursue the inquiry. “Just the same, you shouldn’t have framed me.”

“I grok you don’t mean that in your heart, Jubal… and you grok that I speak rightly. We had to have you in the Nest. All the way in. We need you. Since you are shy and humble in your goodness, we did what was needful to welcome you without hurting you. And we did not hurt you, as you grok.”

“What’s this ‘we’ stuff?”

“It was a full Sharing-Water of all the Nest, as you grok—you were there. Mike stopped what he was doing and woke up for it… and grokked with you and kept us all together.”

Jubal hastily abandoned this line of inquiry, too. “So Mike is awake at last. That’s why your eyes are shining so.”

“Only partly. Of course, we are always delighted when Mike isn’t withdrawn, it’s jolly… but he’s never really away. Jubal, I grok that you have not grokked the fullness of our way of Sharing-Water. But waiting will fill. Nor did Mike grok it, at first—he thought it was only for quickening of eggs, as it is on Mars.”

“Well… that’s the primary purpose, the obvious purpose. Babies. Which makes it rather silly behavior on the part of a person, namely me, who has no intention and no wish, at my age, to cause such increase.”

She shook her head. “Babies are the obvious result… but not the primary purpose at all. Babies give meaning to the future, and that is a great goodness. But only three or four or a dozen times in a woman’s life is a baby quickened in her… out of the thousands of times she can share herself—and that is the primary use for what we can do so often but would need to do so seldom if it were only for reproduction. It is sharing and growing closer, forever and always. Jubal, Mike grokked this because on Mars the two things—quickening of eggs, and sharing-closer—are entirely separate… and he grokked, too, that our way is best. What a happy thing it is not to have been hatched a Martian… to be human and a woman!”

He looked at her closely. “Child, are you pregnant?”

“Yes, Jubal. I grokked at last that waiting had ended and I was free to be. Most of the Nest have not needed to wait—but Dawn and I have been quite busy. But when we grokked this cusp coming, I grokked that there would be a waiting after the cusp—and you can see that there will certainly be. Mike will not rebuild the Temple overnight—so this high priestess will be unhurried in building a baby. Waiting always fills.”