Stranger in a Strange Land

you, that Dawn and I have the same figure? Height, bust, waist, hips, weight, everything-not to mention coloration. We were almost the same when we met . . . and then, with Mike's help, we matched up exactly and are holding it that way. Even our faces are getting more alike-but we didn't plan that. That just comes from doing the same things and thinking about the same things. Stand up and let Ben look at us, dear."
                Dawn put her plate aside and did so, in a pose that reminded Ben oddly of Jill, more so than the figure resemblance seemed to justify; then he realized it was the exact pose Jill had been in when she had first stood revealed as Mother Eve.
                Invited to Stare, he did. Jill said, with her mouth full, "See, Ben? That's me."
                Dawn smiled at her. "A razor's edge of difference, Gillian."
                "Pooh. You're getting that control, too. I'm almost sorry we'll never have the same face. It's very handy, Ben, for Dawn and myself to look so much alike. We have to have two high priestesses; it's all two of us can do to keep up with Mike. We can trade places right in the middle of a service -and sometimes do. And besides," she added, swallowing, "Dawn can buy a fitted dress and it fits me, too. Saves me the nuisance of shopping for clothes. When we wear clothes."
                "I wasn't sure," Ben said slowly, "that you still wore clothes at all. Except these priestess things."
                Jill looked surprised. "Do you think we would go out dancing in these? We wear evening dresses, same as everybody else. That's our favorite way of not getting our beauty sleep, isn't it, dear? Sit back down and finish your supper; Ben has stared at us long enough for the moment. Ben, there's a man in that transition group you were just with who's a perfectly dreamy dancer and this town is loaded with good night clubs-and Dawn and I have kept the poor fellow so busy, alternated keeping him up so many nights in a row, that we've had to help him stay awake in language classes. But he'll be all right; once you reach Eighth Circle you don't need nearly so much sleep. Whatever made you think we never dressed, dear?"
                "Uh-" Ben finally blurted Out the embarrassing predicament he had been in.
                Jill looked wide-eyed, then barely giggled-and stopped it at once, at which Ben realized that he had heard none of these people laugh only the "marks" in the outer service. "I see. But, darling, I just never got around to taking this robe off. I am wearing it because I have to gobble and git. But had I grokked that that was troubling you, I certainly would have chucked it before I said hello even though I wasn't sure there was another one handy. We're so used to dressing or not dressing according to what we need to do that I just plain forgot that I might not be behaving politely. Sweetheart, take those shorts off-or leave them on, exactly as suits you."
                "Uh-"
                "Just don't fret about it, either way." Jill smiled and dimpled. "Reminds me of the first time Mike tried a public beach, but in reverse. 'Member, Dawn?"
                "I'll never forget it!"
                "Ben, you know how Mike is about clothes. He just doesn't understand them. Or didn't. I had to teach him everything. He couldn't see any point to them as protection, until he grokked-to his great surprise-that we aren't as invulnerable as he is. Modesty-that sort of 'modesty'; he's so modest in its true sense that it hurts-body-modesty isn't a Martian concept, it couldn't be. And only lately has Mike grokked clothes as ornaments, after we started experimenting with various ways to costume our acts.
                "But, Ben, while Mike was always wiJling to do what I told him to, whether he grokked it or not, you can't imagine how many million little things there are to being a human being. We take twenty or thirty years to learn them; Mike had to learn them almost overnight. There are gaps, even now. He does things not knowing that isn't how a human does them. We all teach him-Dawn and I especially. All but Patty, who is sure that anything that Michael does must be perfect. But he's still grokking the nature of clothes. He's groks mostly that they're a wrongness that keeps people apart-and get in the way of letting love cause them to grow closer. Lately he's come to