Stranger in a Strange Land

honest and humble enough as a physician not to claim credit; the girls had had more to do with it. Or should he say "girl?"
                From the first week of his stay Jubal had told Mike almost daily that he was welcome to stay . . . but that he should stir out and see the world as soon as he felt able. In view of this Jubal should not have been surprised when Mike announced one breakfast that he was leaving. But he was both surprised and, to his greater surprise, hurt.
                He covered it by using his napkin unnecessarily before answering, "So? When?"
                "We're leaving today."
                "Um- Plural.'t Jubal looked around the table. "Are Larry and Duke and I going to have to put up with our own cooking until I can dig up more help?"
                "We've talked that over," Mike answered. "Jill is going with me- nobody else. I do need somebody with me, Jubal; I know quite well that I don't know, as yet, how people do things out in the world. I still make mistakes; I need a guide, for a time. I think it ought to be Jill, because she wants to go on learning Martian-and the others think so, too. But if you want Jill to stay, then it could be someone else. Duke and Larry are each willing to help me, if you can't spare one of the girls."
                "You mean I get a vote?"
                "What? Jubal, it has to be your decision. We all know that."
                (Son, you're a gent-and you've probably just told your first lie- I doubt if I could hold even Duke if you set your mind against it.) "I guess it ought to be Jill. But look, kids- This is still your home. The latch string is out."
                "We know that-and we'll be back. Again we will share water."
                "We will, son."
                "Yes, Father."
                "Huh?"
                "Jubal, there is no Martian word for 'father.' But lately I have grokked that you are my father. And Jill's father."
                Jubal glanced at Jill. "Mmm, I grok. Take care of yourselves."
                "Yes. Come, Jill." They were gone before he left the table.

    XXVI

                IT WAS THE USUAL SORT OF CARNIVAL in the usual sort of town. The rides were the same, the cotton candy tasted the same, the flat joints practiced a degree of moderation acceptable to the local law in separating the marks from their half dollars, whether with baseballs thrown at targets, with wheels of fortune, or what-but the separation took place just the same. The sex lecture was trimmed to suit local opinions concerning Charles Darwin's opinions, the girls in the posing show wore that amount of gauze that local mores required, and the Fearless Fentons did their Death-Defying (in sober truth) Double Dive just before the last bally each night.
                The ten-in-one show was equally standard. It did not have a mentalist, it did have a magician; it did not have a bearded lady, it did have a half-man half-woman; it did not have a sword swallower, it did have a fire eater. In place of a tattooed man the show had a tattooed lady who was also a snake channer-and for the blow-off (at another half dollar per mark) she appeared "absolutely nude! .. clothed only in bare living flesh in exotic designs!"-and any mark who could find one square inch below her neckline untattooed would be awarded a twenty dollar bill.
                That twenty dollars had gone unclaimed all season, because the blowoff was honestly ballyhooed. Mrs. Paiwonski stood perfectly still and completely unclothed-other than in "bare, living flesh" ... in this case a fourteen-foot boa constrictor known as "Honey Bun." Honey Bun was looped around Mrs. P. so strategically that even the local ministerial alliance could find no real excuse to complain, especially as some of their own daughters wore not nearly as much and covered still less while attending the carnival. To keep the placid, docile Honey Bun from being disturbed, Mrs. P. took the precaution of standing on a small platform in the middle of a canvas tank-on the floor of which were more than a dozen cobras.
                The occasional drunk who was certain that all snake charmer's snakes were defanged and so tried to climb into the tank in pursuit of that undecorated square inch invariably changed his opinion as soon as a cobra noticed him, lifted and