Stranger in a Strange Land

Mike did notice more sharply one thing about Patricia that he already knew: she had her own face, marked in beauty by bet life. She bad, he saw with gentle wonder, her own face even more than Jill had, and it made him feel toward Fat even more of an emotion he did not as yet call love but for which be used a Martian concept more discriminating.
                She had her own odor, too, and her own voice, as all humans did. Her voice was husky and he liked to hear it even when he did not grok her meaning; her odor was mixed (he knew) with an unscrubbed trace of bitter muskiness from daily contact with snakes. It did not put him off; Pat's snakes were part of Pat as were her tattoos. Mike liked Pat's snakes and could handle the poisonous ones with perfect safety-and not alone by stretching time to anticipate and avoid their strikes. They grokked with him; he savored their innocent merciless thoughts-they reminded him of home. Other than Pat, Mike was the only person who could handle Honey Bun with pleasure to the boa constrictor. Her torpor was usually such that others could, if necessary, handle her-but Mike she accepted as a substitute for Pat.
                Mike let the pictures reappear.
                Jill looked at her and wondered why Aunt Patty had ever let herself be tattooed in the first place? She would really look rather nice-if she weren't a living comic strip. But she loved Aunt Fatty for what she was, not the way she looked-and, of course, it did give her a steady living at least until she got so old and haggard that the marks wouldn't pay to look at her even if all those pictures had been signed by Rembrandt. She hoped that Patty was tucking away plenty in the grouch bag_then she remembered that Aunt Patty was now one of Mike's water brothers (and her own, of course) and Mike's endless fortune gave Patty certain old-age insurance; Jill felt warmed by it.
                "Well?" repeated Mrs. Paiwonski. "What do you see? How old am I, Michael?"
                "I don't know," he said simply.
                "Guess."
                "I can't guess, Pat."
                "Oh, go ahead. You won't hurt my feelings."
                "Patty," Jill put in, "he really does mean that he can't guess. He hasn't had much chance to learn to judge ages-you know how short a time he's been on Earth. And besides that, Mike thinks of things in Martian years and Martian arithmetic. If it's time or figures, I keep track of it for him."
                "Well ... you guess, hon. Be truthful."
                Jill looked Patty over again, noting her trim figure but also noting her hands and throat and the corners of her eyes-then discounted her guess by five years despite the Martian honesty she owed a water brother. "Mmm, thirtyish, give or take a year."
                Mrs. Paiwonski laughed triumphantly. "That's just one bonus from the True Faith, my dears! Jill hon, I'm 'way into my forties. Just how far in we won't say; I've quit counting."
                "You certainly don't look it."
                "I know I don't. That's what Happiness does for you, dear. Alter my first kid, I let my figure go to pot. I got quite a can on me-they invented the word 'broad' just to fit me. My belly always looked like four months gone, or worse. My busts hung down-and I've never had 'em lifted. You don't have to believe me; sure, I know a good plastic surgeon doesn't leave a scar . . . but on me it would show, dear; it would chop chunks out of two of my pictures.
                "Then I seen the light! I got converted. Nope, not exercise, not diet- I still eat like a pig and you know it. Happiness, dear. Perfect Happiness in the Lord through the help of Blessed Foster."
                "It's amazing," said Jill, and meant it. She knew women who had kept their looks quite as well (as she firmly intended to keep hers) but in every case only through great effort. She knew that Aunt Patty was telling the truth about diet and exercise, at least during the time she had known her . . . and as a surgical nurse Jill knew exactly what was excised and where in a breast-lifting job; those tattoos had certainly never known a knife.
                But Mike was not amazed. He assumed conclusively that Pat had learned how to think her body as she wished it, whether she attributed it to Foster or not. He was still