IN ONE LIMB OF A SPIRAL GALAXY, close to a star known as .Sol“ to someof its dependents, another star of the same type underwent catastrophicreadjustment and became nova. Its glory would be seen on Mars in anotherthree-replenished (729) years, or 1370 Terran years. The Old Ones noted thecoming event as being useful, shortly, for instruction of the young, whilenever ceasing the exciting and crucial discussion of esthetic problemsconcerning the new epic woven around the death of the Fifth Planet.
The departure of the spaceship Champion for its home planet was notedwithout comment and a watch was kept on the strange nestling sent back init, but nothing more, since it would be some time yet before it would be fruitfulto grok the outcome. The twenty-three humans left behind on Mars coped,successfully in most ways, with an environment lethal to naked humans butless difficult, on the whole, than that in the Free State of Antarctica. One ofthem discorporated through an undiagnosed illness sometimes called.heartbreak“ and at other times .homesickness.“ The Old Ones cherished thewounded spirit and sent it back where it belonged for further healing; asidefrom that the Martians left the Terrans alone.
On Earth the exploding neighbor star was not noticed at all, humanastronomers still being limited by speed of light. The Man from Mars, havingbeen briefly back in the news, had dropped out of the news again. Theminority leader in the Federation Senate called for .a bold, new approach“ tothe twin problems of population and malnutrition in southeast Asia, startingwith increased emergency grants-in-aid to families with more than fivechildren. Mrs. Percy B. S. Souchek sued the supervisors of Los Angeles City-County over the death of her pet poodle Piddle which had taken place duringa five-day period of stationary inversion layer. Cynthia Duchess announcedthat she was going to have the Perfect Baby by a scientifically selectedanonymous donor and an equally perfect host mother just as soon as abattery of experts completed calculating the exact instant for conception toinsure that the wonder child would be equally a genius in music, art, andstatesmanship-and that she would (with the aid of hormonal treatments)nurse her child herself. She gave out a statement to the press on thepsychological benefits of natural feeding and permitted, or insisted, that thepress take pictures of her to prove that she was physically endowed for thishappy duty-a fact that her usual publicity pictures had never really leftundecided-Supreme Bishop Digby denounced her as the Harlot of Babylon and forbadeany Fosterite to accept the commission, either as donor or hostmother. AliceDouglas was quoted as saying: .While I do not know Miss Duchesspersonally, one cannot help but admire her. Her brave example should be aninspiration to mothers everywhere.“By accident, Jubal Harshaw saw one of the pictures and the accompanyingstory in a magazine some visitor had left in his house- He chuckled over itand posted it on the bulletin board in the kitchen ... then noted (as he hadexpected) that it did not stay up long, which made him chuckle again.
He did not have too many chuckles that week; the world had been too muchwith him. The working press soon ceased bothering Mike and the Harshawhousehold when it was clear that the story was over and that Harshaw didnot intend to let any fresh news happen-but a great many thousands of otherpeople, not in the news business, did not forget Mike. Douglas honestly triedto insure Mike’s privacy; S. S. troopers now patrolled Harshaw’s fence andan S.S. car circled over the grounds and challenged any car that tried to land.
But Harshaw resented the necessity of having guards.
Guards kept people out; the mail and the telephone came through. Thetelephone Jubal coped with by changing his call number and having all callsrouted through an answering service to which was given a very limited list ofpersons from whom Harshaw would accept calls-and, at that, he kept theinstrument in the house set on .refuse & record“ most of the time.
But the mail always comes through.
At first, Harshaw told Jill that the problem was Mike’s. The boy had to growup someday; he could start by handling his own mail and she could help andadvise him. .But don’t bother me with it; I have enough trouble with screwballmail of my own!“Jubal could not make his decision stick; there was too much of it and Jillsimply did not know how.
Just sorting the mail into categories was a headache. Jubal solved that byfirst making a phone call to the local postmaster (which got no results), thenby a phone call to Bradley, which did get results after a .suggestion“ from onhigh trickled back down to local level; thereafter mail for Mike arrived sackedas first class, second class, third class, and fourth class, with mail foreveryone else in the household in still another sack.
Second and third class mail was used to insulate a new root cellar north ofthe house, the old root cellar having been dug by the former owner as afallout shelter and never having been satisfactory as root cellar. Once thenew root cellar was heavily over-insulated and could use no more, Jubal toldDuke to dump such mail as fill to check erosion in gullies; combined with asmall amount of brush such mail compacted very nicely.
Fourth class mail was a problem, especially as one package explodedprematurely in the village post office, blowing several years of .Wanted“announcements off the notice board and ruining one .Use Next Window“sign-by great good luck the postmaster was out for coffee and his assistant,an elderly lady with weak kidneys, was safe in the washroom. Jubalconsidered having all fourth class mail addressed to Mike processed by thebomb-disposal specialists of the S.S, who performed the same service for theSecretary General.
This turned out not to be necessary; Mike could spot a .wrongness“ about apackage without opening it. Thereafter all fourth class mail was unsacked ina heap just inside the gate; then, after the postman had left, Mike would prythrough the pile from a distance, cause to disappear any harmful parcel; thenLarry would truck the remainder to the house. Jubal felt that this method wasfar better than soaking suspect packages, opening them in darkness, Xrayingthem, or any other conventional method.
Mike loved opening the harmless packages; it made every day Christmas forhim. He particularly enjoyed reading his own name on address labels. Theplunder inside might or might not interest him; usually he gave it to one of theothers-and, in the process, at last learned what .property“ was in discoveringthat he could make gifts to his friends. Anything that nobody wanted woundup in a gully; this included, by definition, all gifts of food, as Jubal was notcertain that Mike’s nose for .wrongness“ extended to poisons - especiallyafter Mike had drunk, through error, a beaker of a poisonous solution Dukehad left in the refrigerator he used for his photographic work. Mike had simplysaid mildly that the .Iced tea“ had a flavor he was not sure that he liked.
Jubal told .iii that it was otherwise all right to keep anything that caine to Mikeby parcel post provided that none of it was (a) ever paid for, (b) everacknowleged, (c) nor ever returned no matter how marked. Some of theitems were legitimatly gifts; more of it was unordered merchandise. Eitherway, Jubal assumed conclusively that unsolicted chattels from strangersalways represented efforts to make use of the Man from Mars and thereforemerited no thanks.
An exception was made for live stock, from baby chicks to baby alligatorswhich Jubal advised her to return unless she was willing to guarantee thecare and feeding thereof, and the responsibilitY of keeping same from fallinginto the pool.
First class mail was a separate headache. After looking over a bushel or soof Mike’s first class mail Jubal set up a list of categories:
A. Begging letters, personal and institutionaa-erosion fill.
B. Threatening letters-file unanswered. Second and later lettersfrom any one source to be turned over to S.S.
C. Offers of business deals of any nature forward to Douglasunanswered.
D. Crackpot letters not containing threat-Pass around any realdillies; the rest to go in a gully.
E. Friendly letters-answer only if accompanied by stamped, selfaddressed envelope, in which case use one of several formletters to be signed by Jill (Jubal pointed out thatletters signed by the Man from Mars were valuable per se,and an open invitation to more useless mail.)F. Scatological letters-Pass to Jubal (who had a bet with himselfthat no such letter would ever show the faintest sign ofliterary novelty) for further disposition- i.e., gully.
G. Proposals of marriage and propositions not quite so formal—ignore and file. Use procedure under .B“ on third offense.
H. Letters from scientific and educatiional institutions-handleas under .E“; if answered at all, use form letterexplaining that the Man from Mars was not available foranything; if Jill felt that a form brushoff would not do,pass along to Jubal.
I. Letters from persons who actually had met Mike, such as allthe crew of the Champion, the President of the UnitedStates, and a few others-let Mike answer them exactlY ashe pleased; the exercise in penmanship would be good forhim and the exercise in humam personal relations he neededeven more (and if he wanted advice, let him ask for it).
This guide cut the number of letters that had to be answered down tomanageable size-a few each day for Jill, seldom even one for Mike. Justopening the mail took a major effort, but Jill found that she could skim andclassify in about one hour each day, after she got used to it. The first fourcategofles remained large at all times; category .G“ waS very large duringthe fortnight following the world stereocast from the Palace, then dwindledand the curve flattened to a steady trickle.
Jubal cautioned Jill that, while Mike should himself answer letters only fromacquaintances and friends, mail addressed to him was his to read if hewished.
The third morning after the category system had gone into effect Jill broughta letter, category .G,“ to Jubal. More than half of the ladies and other females(plus a few misguided males) who supplied this category included picturesalleged to be of themselves; some of these pictures left little to theimagination, as did the letters themselves in many cases-This letter enclosed a picture which managed not only to leave nothing to theimagination, but started over by stimulating fresh imaginings. Jill said, .Lookat this, Boss! I ask you!“Jubal read the letter, then looked at the picture. .She seems to know whatshe wants. What does Mike think of it?“.He hasn’t seen it. That’s why I brought it to you.“Jubal glanced again at the picture. .A type which, in my youth, we referred toas .stacked.’ Well, her sex is not in doubt, nor her agility. But why are youshowing it to me? I’ve seen better, I assure you.“.But what should I do with it? The letter is bad enough ... but that disgustingpicture-should I tear it up? Before Mike sees it?“.Oh- Siddown, Nurse. What does it say on the envelope?“.Nothing. Just the address and the return address.“.How does the address read?“.Huh? .Mr. Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from-.
.Oh. Then it’s not addressed to you.“.Why, no, of course-.
.That’s all I wanted to be sure of. Now let’s get something straight. I am notMike’s guardian. You are neither his mother nor his chaperon. I’ve simply cooptedyou as his secretary. If Mike wants to read everything that comes inhere addressed to him, including third class junk mail, he is free to do so.“.Well, he does read almost all of those ads. But surely you don’t want him tosee filth? Jubal, Mike doesn’t know what the world is like. He’s innocent.
.So? How many men has he killed so far, Jill?“Jill did not answer; she looked unhappy. Jubal went on: .If you want to helphim, you will concentrate on teaching him that casual killing is frowned on inthis society. Otherwise he is bound to be unpleasantly conspicuous when hegoes out into the world.“.Uh, I don’t think he wants to .go out into the world.’“.Well, I’m damned well going to push him out of the nest as soon as I thinkhe can fly. He can come back later, if he wishes—But I shan’t make itpossible for him to live out his life here, as an arrested infant. For one thing, Ican’t even if I wanted to . . because Mike will probably outlive me by sixty orseventy years and this nest will be gone. But you are correct; Mike isinnocent our standards. Nurse, have you ever seen that sterile laboratory atNotre Dame?“.No. I’ve read about it.“.Healthiest animals in the world_hut they can’t ever leave the laboratory.
Child, I’m not running a sterile laboratorY. Mike has got to get acquaintedwith .filth,’ as you call it-and get immunized to it. One day he’s going to meetthe gal who wrote this letter, or her spiritual twin sister -in fact he’s going tomeet her by the dozens and hundreds ~hucks, with his notoriety and hislooks he can spend his life skipping from one warm bed to another, if helikes. You can’t stop it, I can’t stop it; it’s up to Mike. Furthermore, I wouldn’twant to stop it, although for my taste it’s a silly way to spend one’s life-doingthe same monotonous exercises over and over again, I mean- What do youthink?“.I-. Jill stopped and blushed.
.I withdraw the question. Maybe you don’t find them monotonous but none ofmy business, either way. But if you don’t want Mike’s feet kicked out fromunder him by the first five hundred women that get him alone_and I don’tregard it as a good idea, either; he should have other interests as well-thendon’t try to intercept his mail. Letters like that may vaccinate him a little - . . orat least tend to put him on guard. Don’t make a thing out of it; just pass italong in the stack, cum .filthy’ picture. Answer his questionS if he asks them .
. . and try not to blush.“.Uh, all right. Boss, you’re infuriating when you’re logical.“ .Yes, a mostuncouth way to argue. Now run along.“.All right. But I’m going to tear up that picture after Mike has seen it.“.Oh, don’t do that!“.What? Do you want it, Boss?“.Heaven forbid! I told you I bad seen much better. But Duke is not asjaundiced as I am; he collects such pictures- If Mike doesn’t want it-and fiveto-one he doesn’t-give it to Duke- He’ll be delighted.“.Duke collects such trash? But he seems such a nice person.
.He is. A very nice person indeed. Or I’d kick him out.“.But- I don’t understand it“Jubal sighed. .And 1 could sit here all day explaining it and you still wouldn’tunderstand it. My dear, there are aspects of sex on which it is jmpossible tocommunicate between the two sexes of our race. They are sometimesgrokked by intuition across the gulf that separates us, by a few exceptionallygifted individuals. But words are useless, so I won’t try. Just take my word forit: Duke is a perfect knight, sans peur et sans reproche- and he would like tohave that picture.“.All right, he can have it if Mike doesn’t keep it. But I’ll just pass it along toyou. I won’t give it to Duke myself_be might get ideas.“.Sissy. You might enjoy his ideas- Anything startling in the mail otherwise?“.No. The usual crop of people who want Mike to endorse this and that, orpeddle .Official Man-from-Mars this’s and that’s-one character had the nerveto ask for a five-year monopoly royalty free, on the name, but wants Mike tofinance it as well.“.I admire that sort of whole-hearted thief. Encourage him. Tell him that Mikeis so rich that he makes crepes suzettes with Napoleon brandy and needssome tax losses-so how much guarantee would he like?“.Are YOU serious, Boss? I’ll have to dig it out of the group already sackedfor Mr. Douglas.“.Of course I’m not serious. The gonif would show up here tomorrow, with hisfamily. But you’ve given me a fine Idea for a story, so run along. Front!“Mike was not uninterested in the .disgusting“ picture. He grokked correctly (ifonly theoreticly) what the letter and the picture symbolized-and studied thepicture with the clear-eyed delight With which he studied each passingbutterfly. He found both butterflies and women tremendously interesting-infact, all the grokking world around him was enchanting and he wanted todrink so deep of it all that his own grokking would be perfect.
He understood, intellectually, the mechanical and biological processes beingoffered to him in these letters but he wondered why these strangers wantedhis help in quickening their eggs? Mike understood (without ............