Stranger in a Strange Land

The Man from Mars looked troubled, then suddenly smiled. «I will ask the Fosterites to ask your Old Ones and then we will know, my brother. How will I do this?»

A few minutes later Jubal found, to his disgust, that he had promised Mike an interview with some Fosterite bigmouth. Nor had he been able to dent Mike's assumption that Fosterites were in touch with human «Old Ones.» Mike's difficulty was that he didn't know what a lie was — definitions of «lie» and «falsehood» had been filed in his mind with no trace of grokking. One could «speak wrongly» only by accident. So he had taken the Fosterite service at its face value.

Jubal tried to explain that all human religions claimed to be in touch with «Old Ones» one way or another; nevertheless their answers were all different.

Mike looked patiently troubled. «Jubal my brother, I try … but I do not grok how this can be right speaking. With my people, Old Ones speak always rightly. Your people — »

«Hold it, Mike.»

«Beg pardon?»

«When you said, “my people” you were talking about Martians. Mike, you are not a Martian; you are a man.»

«What is “Man”?»

Jubal groaned. Mike could, he was sure, quote the dictionary definitions. Yet the lad never asked a question to be annoying; he asked always for information — and expected Jubal to be able to tell him. «I am a man, you are a man, Larry is a man.»

«But Anne is not a man?»

«Uh … Anne is a man, a female man. A woman.»

(«Thanks, Jubal.» — «Shut up, Anne.»)

«A baby is a man? I have seen pictures — and in the goddam noi — in stereovision. A baby is not shaped like Anne … and Anne is not shaped like you … and you are not shaped like I. But a baby is a nestling man?»

«Uh … yes, a baby is a man.»

«Jubal… I think I grok that my people — “Martians” — are man. Not shape. Shape is not man. Man is grokking. I speak rightly?»

Jubal decided to resign from the Philosophical Society and take up tatting! What was «grokking»? He had been using the word for a week — and he didn't grok it. But what was «Man»? A featherless biped? God's image? Or a fortuitous result of «survival of the fittest» in a circular definition? The heir of death and taxes? The Martians seemed to have defeated death, and they seemed not to have money, property, nor government in any human sense — so how could they have taxes?

Yet the boy was right; shape was irrelevant in defining «Man,» as unimportant as the bottle containing the wine. You could even take a man out of his bottle, like that poor fellow whose life those Russians had «saved» by placing his brain in a vitreous envelope and wiring him like a telephone exchange. Gad, what a horrible joke! He wondered if the poor devil appreciated the humor.

But how, from the viewpoint of a Martian, did Man differ from other animals? Would a race that could levitate (and God knows what else) be impressed by engineering? If so, would the Aswan Dam, or a thousand miles of coral reef, win first prize? Man's self-awareness? Sheer conceit, there was no way to prove that sperm whales or sequoias were not philosophers and poets exceeding any human merit.

There was one field in which man was unsurpassed; he showed unlimited ingenuity in devising bigger and more efficient ways to kill off, enslave, harass, and in all ways make an unbearable nuisance of himself to himself. Man was his own grimmest joke on himself. The very bedrock of humor was —

«Man is the animal who laughs,» Jubal answered.

Mike considered this. «Then I am not a man.»

«Huh?»

«I do not laugh. I have heard laughing and it frighted me. Then I grokked that it did not hurt. I have tried to learn — » Mike threw his head back and gave out a raucous cackle.

Jubal covered his ears.«Stop!»

«You heard,» Mike agreed sadly. «I cannot rightly do it. So I am not man.»

«Wait a minute, son. You simply haven't learned yet … and you'll never learn by trying. But you will, I promise you. If you live among us long enough, one day you will see how funny we are — and you will laugh.»

«I will?»

«You will. Don't worry, just let it come. Why, son, even a Martian would laugh once he grokked us.»

«I will wait,» Smith agreed placidly.

«And while you are waiting, don't doubt that you are man. You are. Man born of woman and born to trouble … and some day you will grok its fullness and laugh — because man is the animal that laughs at himself. About your Martian friends, I do not know. But I grok that they may be “man”.»

«Yes, Jubal.»

Harshaw thought that the interview was over and felt relieved. He had not been so embarrassed since a day long gone when his father had explained the birds and the bees and the flowers — muchtoo late.

But the Man from Mars was not yet done. «Jubal my brother, you were ask me, “Who made the World?” and I did not have words why I did not grok it rightly to be a question. I have been thinking words.»

«So?»

«You told me, “God made the World.”»