Ben Caxton came quickly alert when he saw Jill. He was not fooled by lighting and distance — this was Jill! She looked at him and smiled. He half listened to the invocation while thinking that he had been convinced that the space behind the Man from Mars was surely a stereo tank. But he would swear that he could walk up those steps and pinch her.
He was tempted to — but it would be a crummy trick to ruin Mike's show. Wait till Jill was free —
«Cybele!»
Jill's costume suddenly changed.
«Isis!»
— again.
«Frigg!» . . . «Ge!» . . . «Devil!» . . . «Ishtar!»…«Maryam!»
«Mother Eve!Mater Deum Magna! Loving and Beloved, Life undying — »
Caxton stopped hearing. Jill was Mother Eve, clothed in glory. Light spread and he saw that she was in a Garden, beside a tree on which was twined a great serpent.
Jill smiled, reached up and smoothed the serpent's head — turned back and opened her arms.
Candidates moved forward to enter the Garden.
Patty returned and touched Caxton on the shoulder. «Ben — Come, dear.»
Caxton wanted to stay and drink in the glorious vision of Jill … he wanted to join that procession. But he got up and left. He looked back and saw Mike put his arms around the first woman in line … turned to follow Patricia and failed to see the candidate's robe vanish as Mike kissed her — did not see Jill kiss the first male candidate … and his robe vanished.
«We'll go around,» Patty explained, «to give them time to get into the Temple. Oh, we could barge in, but it would waste Michael's time, getting them back in the mood — and he does work so very hard.»
«Where are we going?»
«To pick up Honey Bun. Then back to the Nest. Unless you want to take part in the initiation. But you haven't learned Martian yet; you'd find it confusing.»
«Well — I'd like to see Jill.»
«Oh. She said to tell you she's going to duck upstairs and see you. Down this way, Ben.»
A door opened, Ben found himself in that garden. The serpent raised her head as they came in. «There, dear!» Patricia said. «You were Mama's good girl!» She unwrapped the boa and flaked it down into a basket. «Duke brought her down but I have to arrange her on the tree and tell her not to wander off. You were lucky, Ben; a transition to Eighth happens very seldom.»
Ben carried Honey Bun and learned that a fourteen-foot snake is a load; the basket had steel braces. When they reached the top, Patricia stopped. «Put her down, Ben.» She took off her robe and handed it to him, then draped the snake around her. «This is Honey Bun's reward for being a good girl; she expects to cuddle up to Mama. I've got a class almost at once, so I'll carry her until the last moment. It's not a goodness to disappoint a snake; they're like babies, they can't grok in fullness.»
They walked fifty yards to the entrance of the Nest proper. Ben took off her sandals and socks after he removed his shoes. They went inside and Patty stayed with him while Ben shucked down to shorts — stalling, trying to make up his mind to discard shorts, too. He was now fairly certain that clothing inside the Nest was as unconventional (and possibly as rude) as hob-nailed boots on a dance floor. The warning on the exit door, the absence of windows, the womblike comfort of the Nest, Patricia's lack of attire plus the fact that she had suggested that he could do likewise — all added up to domestic nudity.
Patricia's behavior he discounted from a feeling that a tat-toed lady might have odd habits about clothing, but coming into the living room they passed a man headed out toward the baths and «little nests» — and he wore less than Patricia by one snake and many pictures. He greeted them with «Thou art God» and went on. There was more evidence in the living room: a body sprawled on a couch — a woman.
Caxton knew that many families were casually naked in their homes — and this was a «family» — all water brothers. But he was unable to make up his mind between the urbanity of removing his symbolic fig leaf… and the certainty that if he did and strangers came in who were dressed, he would feel silly! Hell, he might blush!
«What would you have done, Jubal?»
Harshaw lifted his eyebrows. «Are you expecting me to be shocked, Ben? The human body is often pleasing, frequently depressing — and never significant per se. So Mike runs his household along nudist lines. Shall I cheer? Or must I cry?»
«Damn it, Jubal, it's easy to be Olympian. But I've never seen you take off your pants in company.»
«Nor will you. But I grok you were not motivated by modesty. You were suffering from a morbid fear of appearing ridiculous — a neurosis with a long, pseudo-Greek name.»
«Nonsense! I wasn't certain what was polite.»
«Nonsense to you, sir — you knew what was polite… but were afraid of looking silly… or feared being surprised in the gallant reflex. But I grok Mike has reasons for this custom — Mike always has reasons.»
«Oh, yes. Jill told me.»
Ben was in the foyer, his back to the living room and his hands on his shorts, having told himself to take the plunge — when arms came snugly around his waist. «Ben darling! How wonderful!»
Then Jill was in his arms, her mouth warm and greedy against his — and he was glad he had not finished stripping. She was no longer «Mother Eve»; she was wearing a priestess robe. Nevertheless he was happily aware that he held a double armful of live, warm, and gently squirming girl.
«Golly!» she said, breaking from the kiss. «I've missed you, you old beast. Thou art God.»
«Thou art God,» he conceded. «Jill, you're prettier than ever.»
«Yes,» she agreed. «It does that. What a thrill it gave me to catch your eye at the blow-off!»
« “Blow-off”?»
«Jill means,» Patricia put in, «the end of the service where she is All Mother, Mater Deum Magna. Kids, I must rush.»
«Never hurry, Pattycake.»
«I gotta rush so I won't have to hurry. Ben, I must put Honey Bun to bed and go down and take my class — so kiss me good-night. Please?»
Ben found himself kissing a woman wrapped in a giant snake. He tried to ignore Honey Bun and treat Patty as she deserved.
Pat then kissed Jill. «Night, dears.» She left unhurriedly.
«Ben, isn't she a lamb?»
«She is. Although she had me baffled at first.»
«I grok. Patty baffles everybody — because she never has doubts; she automatically does the right thing. She's much like Mike. She's the most advanced of any of us — she ought to be high priestess. But she won't take it because her tattoos would make some duties difficult — be a distraction — and she doesn't want them taken off.»
«How could you take off that much tattooing? With a flens ing knife? It would kill her.»
«Not at all, dear. Mike could take them off, not leave a trace, and not hurt her. But she doesn't think of them as belonging to her; she's just their custodian. Come sit down. Dawn will fetch supper — I must eat while we visit or I won't have a chance until tomorrow. Tell me what you think? Dawn tells me you saw an outsiders' service.»
«Yes.»
«Well?»
«Mike,» Caxton said slowly, «could sell shoes to snakes.»
«Ben, I grok something is bothering you.»
«No,» he answered. «Not anything I can put my finger on.»
«I'll ask you again in a week or two. No hurry.»
«I won't be here a week.»
«You have columns on the spike?»
«Three. But I shouldn't stay that long.»
«I think you will … then you'll phone in a few, probably about the Church. By then you will grok to stay much longer.»
«I don't think so.»
«Waiting is, until fullness. You know it's not a church?»
«Patty said something of the sort.»
«Let's say it's not a religion. It is a church, in every legal and moral sense. But we're not trying to bring people to God; that's a contradiction, you can't say it in Martian. We're not trying to save souls, souls can't be lost. We're not trying to get people to have faith, what we offer is not faith but truth — truth they can check. Truth for here-and-now, truth as matter of fact as an ironing board and as useful as bread … so practical that it can make war and hunger and violence and hate as unnecessary as… well, as clothes in the Nest. But they have to learn Martian. That's the hitch — finding people honest enough to believe what they see, willing to work hard — it is hard — to learn the language it must be taught in. This truth can't be stated in English any more than Beethoven's Fifth can be.» She smiled. «But Mike never hurries. He screens thousands… finds a few… and some trickle into the Nest and he trains them further. Someday Mike will have us so thoroughly trained that we can start other nests, then it can snowball. But there's no hurry. None of us is really trained. Are we, dear?»