“I have not. I quit using henna months ago. Get with it, pal, and we’ll get rid of that white fringe you’ve got. Replace it with a real lawn.”

“Becky, I refuse to grow any younger for any reason. I came by my decrepitude the hard way and I propose to enjoy it. Quit prattling and let a man eat.”

“Yes, sir. You old goat.”

Jubal was just leaving the table as the Man from Mars came in. “Father! Oh, Jubal!” Mike hugged and kissed him.

Jubal gently unwound himself from the embrace. “Be your age, son. Sit down and enjoy your breakfast. I’ll sit with you.”

“I didn’t come here looking for breakfast, I came looking for you. We’ll find a place and talk.”

“All right.”

They went to the livingroom of one of the suites, Mike pulling Jubal by the hand like an excited small boy welcoming his favorite grandparent. Mike picked a big comfortable chair for Jubal and sprawled himself on a couch opposite and close to him. This room was on the side of the wing having the private landing flat; there were high French windows opening to it. Jubal got up and shifted his chair slightly so that he would not be facing so directly into the light in looking at his foster son; not to his surprise but mildly to his annoyance the heavy chair shifted as if it had been no more massive than a child’s balloon, his hand merely guided it.

Two men and a woman were in the room when they arrived. These left shortly, leisurely, severally, and unostentatiously. After that they were alone, except that they were both served with Jubal’s favorite brandy—by hand, to Jubal’s pleasure; he was quite ready to agree that the remote control these people had over objects around them was a labor-saver and probably a money-saver (certainly on laundry!—his spaghetti-splashed shirt had been so fresh that he had put it on again today), and obviously a method much to be preferred for household convenience to the blind balkiness of mechanical gadgets. Nevertheless he was not used to telecontrol done without wires or waves; it startled Jubal the way horseless carriages had disturbed decent, respectable horses about the time Jubal was born.

Duke served the brandy. Mike said, “Hi, Cannibal. Thanks. Are you the new butler?”

“De nada, Monster. Somebody has to do it and you’ve got every brain in the place slaving away over a hot microphone.”

“Well, they’ll all be through in a couple of hours and you can revert to your useless, lecherous existence. The job is done, Cannibal. Pau. Thirty. Ended.”

“The whole damn Martian language all in one lump? Monster, I had better check you for burned-out capacitors.”

“Oh, no, no! Only the primer knowledge that I have of it—had of it, my brain’s an empty sack. But highbrows like Stinky will be going back to Mars for a century to fill in what I never learned. But I did turn out quite a job—about six weeks of subjective time since around five this morning or whenever it was we adjourned the meeting—and now the stalwart steady types can finish it and I’m free to visit with Jubal with nothing on my mind.” Mike stretched and yawned. “Feels good. Finishing a job always feels good.”

“You’ll be slaving away at something else before the day is out. Boss, this Martian monster can’t take it or leave it alone. I know for a fact that this is the first time he has simply relaxed and done nothing for over two months. He ought to sign up with ‘Workers Anonymous.’ Or you ought to visit us more often. You’re a good influence on him.”

“God forbid that I should ever be a good influence on anybody.”

“And you get out of here, Cannibal, and quit telling lies about me.”

“Lies, hell. You turned me into a compulsive truthteller . . . and it’s a great handicap in some of the joints where I hang out.” Duke left them.

Mike lifted his glass. “Share water, my brother Father Jubal.”

“Drink deep, son.”

“Thou art God.”

“Take it easy, Mike. I’ll put up with that from the others and answer it politely. But don’t you come godding at me. I knew you when you were ‘only an egg.’”

“Okay, Jubal.”

“That’s better. When did you start drinking in the morning? Do that at your age and you’ll ruin your stomach. You’ll never live to be a happy old soak, like me.”

Mike looked at his partly emptied glass. “I drink when it’s a sharing to do so. It doesn’t have any effect on me, nor on most of the others, unless we want it to. Once I let it have its effect without stopping it, until I passed out. It’s an odd sensation. Not a goodness, I grok. Just a way to discorporate for a while without discorporating. I can get a similar effect, only much better and with no damage to be repaired afterwards, by withdrawing.”