Stranger in a Strange Land

On the third planet Valentine Michael Smith was not concerned with this burning issue; he had never heard of it. His Martian keeper and his keeper's water brothers had not mocked him with things he could not grasp. Smith knew of the destruction of the fifth planet just as any human school boy learns of Troy and Plymouth Rock, but he had not been exposed to art that he could not grok. His education had been unique, enormously greater than that of his nestlings, enormously less than that of an adult; his keeper and his keeper's advisers among the Old Ones had taken passing interest in seeing how much and of what sort this alien nestling could learn. The results had taught them more about the human race than that race had yet learned about itself, for Smith had grokked readily things that no other human being had ever learned.

At present Smith was enjoying himself. He had won a new water brother in Jubal, he had acquired many new friends, he was enjoying delightful new experiences in such kaleidoscopic quantity that he had no time to grok them; he could only file them away to be relived at leisure.

His brother Jubal told him that he would grok this strange and beautiful place more quickly if he would learn to read, so he took a day off to do so, with Jill pointing to words and pronouncing. It meant staying out of the swimming pool that day, which was a great sacrifice, as swimming (once he got it through his head that it was permitted ) was not merely a delight but almost unbearable religious ecstasy. If Jill and Jubal had not told him to, he would never have come out of the pool at all.

Since he was not permitted to swim at night he read all night long. He was zipping through the Encyclopedia Britannica and sampling Jubal's medicine and law libraries as dessert. His brother Jubal saw him leafing through one of the books, stopped and questioned him about what he had read. Smith answered carefully, as it reminded him of tests the Old Ones had given him. His brother seemed upset at his answers and Smith found it necessary to go into meditation — he was sure that he had answered with the words in the book even though he did not grok them all.

But he preferred the pool to the books, especially when Jill and Miriam and Larry and the rest were all splashing each other. He did not learn at once to swim, but discovered that he could do something they could not. He went to the bottom and lay there, immersed in bliss — whereupon they hauled him out with such excitement that he was almost forced to withdraw, had it not been clear that they were concerned for his welfare.

Later he demonstrated this for Jubal, remaining on the bottom a delicious time, and tried to teach it to his brother Jill-but she became disturbed and he desisted. It was his first realization that there were things he could do that these new friends could not. He thought about it a long time, trying to grok its fullness.

Smith was happy; Harshaw was not. He continued his usual loafing, varied by casual observation of his laboratory animal. He arranged no schedule for Smith, no program of study, no regular physical examinations, but allowed Smith to run wild, like a puppy on a ranch. What supervision Smith received came from Gillian — more than enough, in Jubal's grumpy opinion; he took a dim view of males' being reared by females.

However, Gillian did little more than coach Smith in social behavior. He ate at the table now, dressed himself (Jubal thought he did; he made a note to ask Jill if she still had to assist him); he conformed to the household's informal customs and coped with new experiences on a «monkey-see-monkey-do» basis. Smith started his first meal at the table using only a spoon and Jill cut up his meat. By the end of the meal he was attempting to eat as others ate. At the next meal his manners were a precise imitation of Jill's, including superfluous mannerisms.

Even the discovery that Smith had taught himself to read with the speed of electronic scanning and appeared to have total recall of all that he read did not tempt Jubal Harshaw to make a «project» of Smith, with controls, measurements, and curves of progress. Harshaw had the arrogant humility of a man who has learned so much that he is aware of his own ignorance; he saw no point in «measurements» when he did not know what he was measuring.

But, while Harshaw enjoyed watching this unique animal develop into a mimicry copy of a human being, his pleasure afforded him no happiness.

Like Secretary General Douglas, Harshaw was waiting for the shoe to drop.