Fourteen

"You know," said Mike, when we woke up from our rest, "I think it'd be a good idea if we split up, and each of us took some aspect of life here and concentrated on it. We're going to miss a lot anyway, but we'll learn three times as much if we're separated."

"That sounds almost intelligent," said Michele. "I think your stay among the Acosmians has already done you some good."

"Yeah? Well, I suppose it's because it's nice to have intelligent company for a change."

"Even funny-looking intelligent company?"

"Once you've been with 'em for a while, you forget they're funny-looking. They've got so much inside them that it only takes a couple of hours or so. Not," he added, looking at her knavishly, "anywhere near the time it takes to get used to some funny-looking things."

But Michele was up to it. "Of course," she said, "it must be a little harder for you than for us, because we've already become accustomed to foreign-looking objects."

Mike's face fell. "Yes," he said, "it must have been a burden. Well, anyway, I was going to tell you that I'll be spending my time with the guy that made our jets. I call him Newton, by the way--naturally. I'll be studying the physics and chemistry they know here. You two can decide for yourselves what you're going to do with your time; but Newton told me that he'd expect me at any time, and so I'll be going."

"You asked for it, Mike," I said.

"I know I did. And I sure got it. I'm not complaining, I'm just going." And with that, he went into the little chamber where we had the space suits and got dressed. We didn't quite know what to say to each other, and sat there in silence, even after we heard the airlock close.

Finally, Michele said, "But then why does he bait me like that, if he can't take it? After all, he just got through calling me funny-looking and stupid to boot."

"Yes," I answered, "but it's obvious that you're neither one. But it's true that he's foreign-looking to us."

"Well so what? What difference does it make? I never gave it a minute's thought until just now; and the only reason I thought of it was because I had to say something to parry that remark of his."

"I know that, and so do you. But he doesn't. He can't. Just because he's Chinese, he always is in a position where he wonders whether people notice him as Chinese, or whether they think of him as a person who happens to be Chinese. The least remark you make that gives him grounds for believing that you have a prejudice against Chinese people is something he takes deep down as the way you 'really' feel about him, that's escaped finally in the context of a joke.

"There's nothing that can be done about it," I continued, "as long as there are people that are really prejudiced; I've noticed this with some of my Black friends. As soon as you say anything that can be construed as prejudicial, they say, 'Ah, now the truth is really coming out,' precisely because there are people who use contexts like that as an excuse for saying what they really think. And you never know who's doing it and who isn't."

"But my heavens, Paul, we grew up with him around us! Can't he tell that the fact that he looks Chinese means no more to me than the fact that you've got brown eyes? I never once made the least remark about the way he looked until this minute, during all these years."

"Maybe it's the fact that you've avoided the subject that made him think it meant something for you."

"But I avoided the subject for the very reason you've been talking about! What am I supposed to do? If I keep quiet, then he thinks it's because I can't stand the Chinese and am busy 'tolerating' him in spite of what he is--and if I mention it, even as a joke, he takes it seriously, and thinks he's wormed the 'truth' out of me in spite of the way I've acted for years. And I suppose if I mentioned it casually, he'd think I was just showing off my lack of prejudice, so that I could say, 'Look at all the weird friends I have.' You're damned if you do and damned if you don't."

"I know. But that's apparently the way it is."

"But then why doesn't he act that way with you?"

"I don't know. I've been lucky, I guess; I haven't given him an opportunity yet."

"Well, I don't know what to do. I feel like telling him that I am what I am, and if he doesn't like me, it's too damn bad. After all, he's put me in the same position he thinks he's in, with all his snide remarks about women astronauts. Who does he think he is? Just because he's Chinese, everybody has to kowtow to him, and he can ride roughshod over other people's feelings as long as he has a smile on his face? I know how he feels about me; and just because I can give as good as I get, it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt sometimes. But I don't go brooding over it."

"Well, don't worry about it. He'll get over it; he always has, so far."

"The thing that kills me is that he's so likeable in so many ways, and I wouldn't deliberately hurt him for the world. But he keeps asking for it, and it's just my nature that if somebody sticks his chin out, I'll pop him one on it. I never thought it meant anything."

"Well, it's his problem, really, not yours. He knows what you are--or he ought to by now--and the whole thing is his fault, if he takes what you say seriously. You have nothing to apologize for, as I see it. And he as much as admitted that himself. And he has sense enough to realize what the truth really is. You'll see; he'll be back tomorrow as if nothing had happened."

"Well I hope so."

"But what are we going to do today?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. This kind of thing just ruins the day for me. Oh, well. I suppose he's right, that we should split up. But Mike can bury himself in physics if he wants to; I want to see the sights and meet the people and all that. Of course, I'd like to find out about the biology of the people and the plants and animals; but I don't want to spend all my time here at lectures."

"I tell you what. I'll ask St. Peter to introduce you to a biologist here, if there is one, and maybe you can explain yourself to him. I'm sure he won't mind taking you around; and if he does, then we can find someone else. I'll go with St. Peter, and try to learn about the sociology here. It sounds as if it ought to be interesting. We know they have courts, for instance, and there's at least something that could correspond to criminals--these 'unfortunate people,' whoever they are."

"That sounds like a reasonable division of labor, as long as you don't mind overlapping, in case I get interested in something myself."

"Oh sure," I said. "There's no reason we shouldn't 'please ourselves,' as St. Peter said.

So we went outside, and sure enough, St. Peter was there waiting for us. He gave us an Acosmian greeting, and smiled an Acosmian smile: a shape that looked like the top of an exclamation mark.

"I have not been idle in your absence," he said. "First of all, the one Michael calls 'Newton' came and asked for your words, and I gave them to him."

"All of them?"

"Well, we can speak a bit faster than your machine spoke to us, if we have to," he said; "and he was rather anxious not to have an impediment between him and his understanding of Michael. In any case, I had hardly finished when your earth began to transmit a book you call the Bible. It seems rather unevenly written, if I may say so; but it has something, I think. In fact, I must confess that I had rather lower expectations of your writings; but I believe this one will repay some study."

He smiled again. "I did learn one rather significant fact of immediate relevance to me. And I might remark that if I have no keys, since we have no use for keys here, I trust I shall still be able to unlock for you something of this kingdom in your heavens."

Both of us stood there staring at him, until it began to dawn on us that he had discovered his name--at which point I stammered, "I . . . well . . . " He laughed.

"I presume you had no expectation that I would lock you out--or deny you."

"It was just an impulse, you understand," said Michele in confusion. "We never had the faintest idea you'd find out who we named you after."

"But I am flattered! You could have named me after a dog or an amoeba. It will be fascinating to see who Cleopatra was named after."

"Oh, good Lord!" I said, thinking of Shakespeare's play, which they inevitably would listen to, now that earth was beaming literature up at us. "You mustn't take these names we give seriously! We had to name you something."

"Do not be alarmed; we understand," he said. But both of us made a mental resolution to be extremely circumspect in picking names in the future.

I then explained to him that Michele was interested in biology, but that she would also like to see the city, and that we had decided to go our separate ways; and so . . .

"I understand," he said. "Cleopatra would be overjoyed to take Michele. He is interested in biology. In fact, it was because of his interest that I brought him to see you."

"Him?" said Michele.

"What, is Cleopatra a feminine name?" he asked. "Now I must discover who she was." And he laughed again.

"Do not be alarmed," he remarked when he had unspiraled himself. "A feminine name will do for us just as well as a masculine one. We have no differentiation of sexes; we are all hermaphroditic. But I am curious. What prompted you to put a feminine name on him? You must forgive me if I call him 'him'; he is, as it were, neuter to me, and I use the pronoun in that neutral sense."

"Well," I said, rather lamely, "We thought he might be your wife."

"Ah, I see," he replied. "Yes, it would be natural for you to think thus, I suppose. But as it happens, I have no wife, and neither does he, though we are very good friends. In fact we have spoken of it once; but no one has stopped changing recently, and so there has been no occasion for it."

"I don't understand," said Michele.

"No, naturally you would not. Among us, being married is a serious undertaking, since it involves caring for the child until he reaches the period of making his decision on what he is to be; and this can occupy what would be the equivalent of many years, I would assume, among you."

"We take caring for our children seriously too--and it does take a long time," she said.

"Yes, but it must be very different among you. Your Solomon, for instance, had seven hundred wives; and so obviously you have a different motive for marrying from ours--or your population is in great need of expansion. In any case, caring for the children of seven hundred wives would be an undertaking that I would shudder to contemplate."

"That was in very ancient times," I said. "We marry only one person now."

"Still, I gather that you take it somewhat more lightly than we. And since our population is at its optimum, those who wish to marry wait until someone decides to stop changing, and then they marry."

"What is it to stop changing?" said Michele.

"Let me first explain what our life is, since it is quite unlike yours. A child begins by discovering the many possibilities he has in life, and those which he is naturally more suited for and inclined towards."

"That's like our children."

"Yes, I gathered that. Then at some point, he makes a decision as to which of these possibilities he will try to realize; and from that time on, he is no longer a child, but an adult, and he leaves his parents, who then are free from their marriage once again, though most continue to live together afterwards as friends.

"The young adult then develops himself until he has fully realized all of the possibilities he has decided upon; and when he has become completely himself, he stops developing, and passes into a state in which his whole life, from beginning to end, is eternally present to him.

"In this state, he can no longer be affected in any way by anyone around him--by anything, in fact--though he can still affect his surroundings. He is like what it seems your Jesus was like after his resurrection; or better, since only a few people see him afterwards, and only sporadically, more like Jesus seems to have been after his ascension.

"It is not quite the same, of course. But the point is that when a person has stopped changing, he ceases, in a sense, to be a member of the community, and we have another child to replace him."

"I see, I think," I said. I really didn't. "You make marrying a very rational kind of procedure. Among us, there is a very powerful emotion that induces people to marry."

"Oh, it is emotional among us also," he said. "Those who have married say that the sexual act is one of the most pleasurable acts that can be performed."

"And you're never tempted to marry just for the sake of the pleasure?"

"I don't understand. Of course we are. That is one of the main reasons we marry. The child is a responsibility we accept as a result of it, not the reason, in a sense, for our marrying. How can one 'want' something which does not exist, and will have characteristics one cannot predict beforehand?"

"I meant, aren't you tempted to marry without rationally calculating that there happens to be a need of another child, and so on?"

"Ah, you mean simply for the pleasure. Well, no. If the act produces a child, one must take that into account as well as the pleasure, must one not?"

"One should, I admit," I said. "But among us, the emotion is strong enough so that it often outweighs rational considerations."

"You mean, your emotions outweigh your reason? Ah, then much of your Bible becomes clear--I suppose the 'law in my members' your Paul talks about is actually emotions, then. You see, I am learning. But this is very interesting. For us, emotions are a reason for doing something, but only one reason; and if the act does not seem good for other reasons, then the emotion disappears--that is, it does not vanish, exactly, but it does not insist, so to speak, against other reasons."

"You really are a blessed people, then," said Michele. "The way we are, it seems that all we need is for us to discover that an act is not good for us, and our emotions insist and insist on that very act; and we have to struggle with them--and sometimes--too often--they win."

"Life is very strange indeed," said St. Peter. "You are much to be pitied, if that is the case. I do not know what I would do if I had to fight with my own mind about what I should do--I cannot conceive what it would be like. You must have much more courage than I can imagine myself to have."

"Well, there isn't much we can do about it."

"No, but the fact that against strong promptings of your emotions you can ever do the reasonable thing is a rather amazing feat. Not to mention that one and the same mind can be at war with itself. It is very puzzling; extremely so. I take your word that it happens--as your Bible clearly confirms--but to me it does not make sense."

"It doesn't make a great deal of sense to us either," she said.

"But it's not all fighting against yourself," I remarked. "We have our times of happiness--a lot of them, in fact."

"Yes, I can see from what I read also that you have some helps, apparently, that we do not have, because we have no need of them. It is just that from my point of view a life like yours seems so unnatural that it is almost inconceivable. It simply demonstrates how little we know of reality.

"But we must not spend all our time here in discussion; you will be wanting to learn things. Let us try out your new jet-propulsion and see if we can find Cleopatra. Michael seemed able to use his without difficulty."

We started out, and found that the jets worked beautifully. As we wound our way among the buildings of the city, St. Peter said, "Incidentally, I asked Michael if he would, together with Newton, devise an instrument analogous to ours for recording our speech into books. Ours will work visually; but since the sounds you produce are basically of the same nature (he was, of course referring to the radio waves), then there should be no trouble modifying it so that it can reproduce them. In that way, we will have your literature at our disposal in both languages, and I am sure that there will be several people besides me who will be interested in hearing and recording it, so that I will be able to devote myself to you, Paul, while you are here."

"That would be very nice," I said, "and it's extremely kind of you."

"Not at all," he answered. "I find I can learn as much from you as from your literature. But here we are. This is what I suppose you would call a 'club'; it is a place outside our homes where we meet socially; and Cleopatra is frequently here."

We went in, and in the huge room were several sets of people, talking among themselves. A few were alone in various niches, floating in front of what looked like television sets, but turned out to be books. You inserted a coin about the size of a half-dollar into them; on the coin (which was, of course, plastic) was somehow encoded the entire book, which consisted of anywhere from three to eight hours reading, depending on how fast you ran the machine. A hologram of a generalized kind of reader--not a real person, but a kind of diagram of one, for clarity's sake, apparently--appeared inside the box, and he went through the series of shapes of what was recorded on the little poker-chip.

We excited considerable interest in the club, and many stopped to ask what we were, and were answered by St. Peter; and we suffered a repetition of what we had gone through out at the ship. The first week or two of our stay had these moments scattered through it, everywhere we went, until the news of our arrival had filtered through the population. The people of Acosmia were a people, as St. Peter said, "of great curiosity," but they did not seem in any great hurry to learn; everything would come in its proper time, and there was no need to rush things.

One of the things that St. Peter did in the club was to create a coin or letter of introduction for us, which had on it what we were, how we spoke, and a kind of basic dictionary of our language. He explained what he had in mind, and asked us to excuse him as he went before one of the book-machines and spoke to it in his Acosmian language of shapes. It only took him about ten minutes.

"This will have to do for now," he said, as he handed Michele a coin and gave me two. "It does not have your sounds recorded on it as yet, because our books are not yet prepared to produce them; but it will at least acquaint those who meet you with information as to your nature and tell them where to go to discover more. It will alleviate the difficulty of your trying to explain yourselves over and over again. I will seek out Newton when you are in the ship during your rest period, and together we will produce something more satisfactory."

Cleopatra, we then discovered, was not there, but had in fact gone to the ship looking for us, as St. So we retraced our steps, and Michele finally went away with her biologist with the feminine name, and I began my own education under St. Peter's tutelage about this fascinating and beautiful people.