Jesus On Mars

'Of course.'

Orme, hearing this, said, 'If it'd been Martian years, he'd be about four hundred and eight years old. Wait'll the folks back home hear about this!'

Bronski considered briefly the implications of his statement. He shuddered.

'May I ask what age you are, Hfathon?'

'One hundred and sixty-nine.'

Orme whistled and said, 'He doesn't look much over fifty. Of course, he's Krsh, so it's hard to tell with him. They all look alike to me, anyway.'

Bronski said, 'Sha'ul seems to be about thirty. How old is he?'

'Eighty-two.'

Bronski said, 'This longevity is unnatural, isn't it? I mean, do you use chemicals or some sort of scientific preparations to slow your ageing?’

Hfathon said, 'Don't your people?'

Bronski thought about lying. But sooner or later the Martians would know the truth.

'No. We've been able to slow down ageing in laboratory animals to some extent, but nothing like what you have accomplished. So far, we've nothing for human beings.'

Hfathon and Zhkeesh sucked in their breaths.

'You still die like the beasts? As you did two thousand years ago?'

Bronski said nothing. The two Krsh must realise what the news would do to Terrestrials. Once they found out, they'd clamour for the treatment or elixir or whatever it was. If, that is, the Earth governments released the news. Though the world birth rate had declined since the Sixties, overpopulation was a terrible problem.

Hfathon said, 'Let's start the lesson. But first, please take these.'

He withdrew two large green pills from the inner pocket of his robe.

'Swallow these. They won't harm you. They're memory aids. You'll be able to learn quicker and to retain the knowledge one hundred per cent. We'll double the speed of progress.'

Bronski held up the square pill between thumb and forefinger.

'Why weren't these given to us when we started?'

'You were. In minute amounts in your food and wine and water. Each day the dosage was increased. You've built up an immunity to the side effects, some of which are unpleasant.'

Bronski explained to Orme what the pills were for.

Orme said, 'The quicker we speak the language, the sooner we get out of this prison.'

They swallowed the pills with a water chaser.

Orme stood blinking for a moment, then said, 'I don't feel a thing.'

'What did you expect? Lightning? A sudden increase of IQ?'

'I don't feel any smarter.'

But the pills worked. They mastered sixty new vocabulary items, didn't forget any, and grasped much more of the Krsh syntax than they'd been able to do in previous sessions. Moreover Orme had much less trouble in reproducing the sounds.

'Will these pills - what do you call them?'

'Gbredut.'

'...gbredut... help a person of low intelligence?'

'Not as much as one of higher intelligence.'

'Man,' Orme said, 'these will be of great value on Earth. Now, if I could get a monopoly on these...'

'Can't you think of anything else but how to get rich?' Bronski said.

'I think of lots of other things, but there's no reason why I should pass up an opportunity like this.'

Hfathon sharply recalled them to their task, but Orme couldn't keep from imagining how much money he could make if he could get a franchise on Earth. Of course, this pill-he'd name it the 'wogglebug' pill after the giant insect of Oz who gave his students instant-learning pills so they could spend all their time playing - would be of immense benefit. He wouldn't charge high prices for it - he wouldn't have to.

But what if the Martians just gave the gbredut to Earth? Or would they even permit Earth to have it? After all, its possession gave the Martians an edge.

But if they were as ethical as they claimed to be, they wouldn't withhold this boon any more than they would deny the longevity treatment. Or would they?

After the lesson was finished, which Hfathon said had gone well, and the two Krsh had left, Orme spoke to Bronski.

'Do you think we could get away with not swallowing the pills tomorrow? We could palm them. The only thing is, we'd have to fool them into thinking we'd learned everything. That'll be a strain, but we might pull it off.'

Bronski stared at him.

'You want to keep some so they can be analysed when we get back to Earth?'

'That's the idea.'

'And so you can become a plutocrat?'

'What's wrong with that? Somebody'll be doing it. Why not me? I won't be hurting anybody.'

'Why don't you just ask them for a sample? Or for the formula? They might give it to you.'

'And if they refuse? Then they'll know I'm up to something and they'll watch me like a cat watches a mousehole.'

That night they were permitted to talk to Shirazi and Danton. They verified that they were in separate prisons. Neither one seemed embarrassed at being caught in bed together, though they didn't like the consequences.

Nadir said, 'If I understood my interrogator, a man named lyyobh, we have a choice. We can go into a work company, and then when we're free we'll wear a label for a year proclaiming us adulterers. That's a better deal than we'd have received under the old Mosaic life. We'd have been signed to death. The other choice is marriage.'

'You already have a wife!'

'Yes, but I told them, and it's the truth, that I am a Muslim. I had to explain what that was, but they regarded me as some sort of heretical Jew. Anyway, I said that a Muslim could have more than one wife. That was the law of the land.

'lyyobh said that monogamy was the custom here, though in the beginning, when the population was low, polygamy was permitted. If I understand him correctly, the Krsh can determine the sex of an unborn child, so they produce three girls to one boy. That way, a man could have three wives and produce many more offspring.'

'What about cloning?'

'I don't know. I'd guess their religion would taboo it. Or it would result in too much genetic similarity. Anyway, they have decided that Madeleine and I can either marry or suffer punishment.'

'I wouldn't take a second making up my mind,' Orme said.

Madeleine said, 'Neither did we. We're not in love, but we're very compatible in bed, and we won't have to suffer from sexual tension. The only thing is, my contraceptive will be absorbed in six months. Nadir didn't get any insertion, so he'll be fertile. We'll have to quit having conventional sex after six months. I'm not taking any chance of getting pregnant.' She said this matter-of- factly.

Orme said, 'You're lucky. Bronski and I only have each other, and he looks prettier every day.'

Bronski looked indignant. Orme laughed.

Madeleine said, 'You talk rather lewdly for a devout Baptist.'

'Talk doesn't hurt anything. In fact, it helps relieve the tension. Anyway, that's between my God and me. How are the lessons going?'

Nadir said they were progressing as well as could be expected. Orme said that they could expect to go faster in a few days, and he told them about the 'wogglebug' pills. They were interested in these, but the news about the prolonged longevity of the Martians amazed them.

'If they refuse to give the Earth the formula, there'll be a war,' the Iranian said.

'Probably,' Orme said. 'But I'm not sure they will tell Earth about it. One of the reasons they're so hot about our learning their language is that they want to find out just what kind of people we are. I think they might decide to stay completely isolated when they do. Isn't that right, Avram?'

'We don't really have enough data to go on.'

Another week passed. Nadir returned to Madeleine's quarters after they were married. Their marriage hadn't been performed by a rabbi since they were considered pagans. But Nadir told them that under the law of the land, all he had to do was to announce publicly that he and the woman were married in the eyes of God. This was not true. Since the Martians didn't know any better, they couldn't object. Everybody was happy about the marriage, although Nadir was worried about what might happen when he returned to Scotland.