Jubal said, «Did you do that? Or Ben?»
«Ben. He's always forgetting his cigarettes; they chase him all over the Nest.»
«Hmm … fair-sized mud pies he makes.»
«Ben is advancing much faster than he admits. He's a very holy person.»
«Umph. Dawn, you are the Dawn Ardent I met at Foster Tabernacle, aren't you?»
«Oh, you remember!» She looked as if he had handed her a lollipop.
«Of course. But you've changed. You seem much more beautiful.»
«That because I am,» she said simply. «You mistook me for Gillian. And she is more beautiful, too.»
«Where is that child? I expected to see her at once.»
«She's working.» Dawn paused. «But I told her and she's coming in.» She paused again. «I am to take her place. If you will excuse me.»
«Run along, child.» She got up and left as Dr. Mahmoud sat down.
Jubal looked at him sourly. «You might have had the courtesy to let me know that you were in this country instead of letting me meet my goddaughter through the good offices of a snake.»
«Oh, Jubal, you're always in a bloody hurry.»
«Sir, when one is of — » Jubal was interrupted by hands placed over his eyes. A voice demanded:
«Guess who?»
«Beelzebub?»
«Try again.»
«Lady Macbeth?»
«Closer. Third guess, or forfeit.»
«Gillian, stop that, come around, and sit beside me.»
«Yes, Father.» She obeyed.
«And knock off calling me “Father” anywhere but home. Sir, I was saying that when one is of my age, one is necessarily in a hurry about some things. Each sunrise is a precious jewel … for it may never be followed by its sunset.»
Mahmoud smiled. «Jubal, are you under the impression that if you stop cranking, the world stops going around?»
«Most certainly, sir — from my viewpoint.» Miriam joined them silently, sat down on Jubal's free side; he put an arm around her. «While I might not yearn to see your ugly face again … nor even the somewhat more acceptable one of my former secretary — »
Miriam whispered, «Boss, are you honing for a kick in the stomach? I'm exquisitely beautiful; I have it on highest authority.»
«Quiet. — new goddaughters are another category. Through your failure to drop me a postcard, I might have missed seeing Fatima Michele. In which case I would have returned to haunt you.»
«In which case,» Miriam pointed out, «you could look at Micky at the same time … rubbing strained carrots in her hair. A disgusting sight.»
«I was speaking metaphorically.»
«I wasn't. She's a sloppy trencherman.»
«Why,» asked Jill quietly, «were you speaking metaphorically, Boss?»
«Eh? “Ghost” is a concept I feel no need for, other than as a figure of speech.»
«It's more than that,» insisted Jill.
«Uh, as may be. I prefer to meet baby girls in the flesh, including my own.»
Dr. Mahmoud said, «But that is what I was saying, Jubal. You aren't about to die. Mike has grokked you. He says you have many years ahead.»
Jubal shook his head. «I set a limit of three figures years ago.»
«Which three figures, Boss?» Miriam inquired innocently. «The three Methuselah used?»
He shook her shoulders. «Don't be obscene!»
«Stinky says women should be obscene but not heard.»
«Your husband speaks rightly. The day my clock first shows three figures I discorporate, whether Martian style or my own crude methods. You can't take that away from me. Going to the showers is the best part of the game.» «I grok you speak rightly, Jubal,» Jill said slowly, «about its being the best part of the game. But don't count on it any time soon. Your fullness is not yet. Allie cast your horoscope just last week.»
«A horoscope? Oh, my God! Who is “Allie”? How dare she! Show her to me! Swelp me, I'll turn her into the Better Business Bureau.»
«I'm afraid you can't, Jubal,» Mahmoud put in, «as she is working on our dictionary. As to who she is, she's Madame Alexandra Vesant.»
Jubal looked delighted. «Becky? Is she in this nut house, too?»
«Yes, Becky. We call her “Allie” because we've got another Becky. Don't scoff at her horoscopes, Jubal; she has the Sight.»
«Oh, balderdash, Stinky. Astrology is nonsense and you know it.»
«Oh, certainly. Even Allie knows it. And most astrologers are clumsy frauds. Nevertheless Allie practices it even more assiduously than she used to, using Martian arithmetic and Martian astronomy — much fuller than ours. It's her device for grokking. It could be a pool of water, or a crystal ball, or the entrails of a chicken. The means do not matter. Mike has advised her to go on using the symbols she is used to. The point is: she has the Sight.»
«What the hell do you mean by “the Sight”, Stinky?»
«The ability to grok more of the universe than that piece near you. Mike has it from years of Martian discipline; Allie was an untrained semi-adept. That she used as meaningless a symbol as astrology is beside the point. A rosary is meaningless, too — a Muslim rosary, I'm not criticizing our competitors.» Mahmoud reached into his pocket, got out one, started fingering it. «If it helps to turn your hat around during a poker game — then it helps. It is irrelevant that the hat has no magic powers.»
Jubal looked at the Islamic device and ventured a question. «You are still one of the Faithful? I thought perhaps you had joined Mike's church all the way.»
Mahmoud put away the beads. «I have done both.»
«Huh? Stinky, they're incompatible.»
«Only on the surface. You could say that Maryam took my religion and I took hers. But, Jubal my beloved brother, I am still God's slave, submissive to His will … and nevertheless can say: “Thou art God, I am God, all that groks is God.” The Prophet never asserted that he was the last of all prophets nor did he claim to have said all there was to say. Submission to God's will is not to be a robot, incapable of choice and thus of sin. Submission can include — doesinclude — utter responsibility for the fashion in which I, and each of us, shape the universe. It is ours to turn into a heavenly garden … or to rend and destroy.» He smiled. «“With God all things are possible”, if I may borrow — except the one Impossible. God cannot escape Himself, He cannot abdicate His own total responsibility — He forever must remain submissive to His own will. Islam remains — He cannot pass the buck. It is His — mine … yours … Mike's.»
Jubal heaved a sigh. «Stinky, theology always gives me the pip. Where's Becky? I've seen her only once in twenty-odd years; that's too long.»
«You'll see her. But she can't stop now, she's dictating. Let me explain. Up to now, I've spent part of each day in rapport with Mike — just a few moments although it feels like an eight-hour day. Then I immediately dictated all that he poured into me onto tape. From those tapes other people, trained in Martian phonetics, made longhand transcriptions. Then Maryam typed them, using a special typer — and this master copy Mike or I — Mike by choice, but his time is choked — would correct by hand.
«But now Mike groks that he is going to send Maryam and me away to finish the job — or, more correctly, he has grokked that we will grok such a necessity. So Mike is getting months and years of tape completed in order that I can take it away and break it into phonetics. Besides that, we have stacks of Mike's lectures — in Martian — that need to be transcribed when the dictionary is finished.
«I am forced to assume that Maryam and I will be leaving soon, because, busy as Mike is, he's changed the method. There are eight bedrooms here equipped with tape recorders. Those who can do it — Patty, Jill, myself, Maryam, your friend Allie, some others — take turns in those rooms. Mike puts us into trance, pours language — definitions, idioms, concepts — into us for moments that feel like hours … then we dictate at once what he has poured into us, while it's fresh. But it can't be just anybody. It requires a sharp accent and the ability to join trance rapport and then spill out the results. Sam, for example, has everything but the accent — he manages, God knows how, to speak Martian with a Bronx accent. Can't use him, it would cause endless errata. That is what Allie is doing — dictating. She's in the semi-trance needed for total recall and, if you interrupt her, she'll lose what she hasn't recorded.»