A devout agnostic, Jubal rated all religions, from the animism of Kalahari Bushmen to the most intellectualized faith, as equal. But emotionally he disliked some more than others and the Church of the New Revelation set his teeth on edge. The Fosterites' flat-footed claim to gnosis through a direct line to Heaven, their arrogant intolerance, their football-rally and sales-convention services — these depressed him. If people must go to church, why the devil couldn't they be dignified, like Catholics, Christian Scientists, or Quakers?

If God existed (concerning which Jubal maintained neutrality) and if He wanted to be worshipped (a proposition which Jubal found improbable but nevertheless possible in the light of his own ignorance), then it seemed wildly unlikely that a God potent to shape galaxies would be swayed by the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered as «worship.»

But with bleak honesty Jubal admitted that the Fosterites might own the Truth, the exact Truth, nothing but the Truth. The Universe was a silly place at best … but the least likely explanation for it was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that abstract somethings «just happened» to be atoms that «just happened» to get together in ways which «just happened» to look like consistent laws and some configurations «just happened» to possess self-awareness and that two «just happened» to be the Man from Mars and a bald-headed old coot with Jubal inside.

No, he could not swallow the «just-happened» theory, popular as it was with men who called themselves scientists. Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe — random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.

What then? «Least hypothesis» deserved no preference; Occam's Razor could not slice the prime problem, the Nature of the Mind of God (might as well call it that, you old scoundrel; it's an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable not banned by four letters — and as good a tag for what you don't understand as any).

Was there any basis for preferring any sufficient hypothesis over another? When you did not understand a thing: No! Jubal admitted that a long life had left him not understanding the basic problems of the Universe.

The Fosterites might be right.

But, he reminded himself savagely, two things remained: his taste and his pride. If the Fosterites held a monopoly on Truth, if Heaven were open only to Fosterites, then he, Jubal Harshaw, gentleman, preferred that eternity of painfilled damnation promised to «sinners» who refused the New Revelation. He could not see the naked Face of God … but his eyesight was good enough to pick out his social equals — and those Fosterites did not measure up!

But he could see how Mike had been misled; the Fosterite «going to Heaven» at a selected time did sound like the voluntary «discorporation» which, Jubal did not doubt, was the practice on Mars. Jubal suspected that a better term for the Fosterite practice was «murder» — but such had never been proved and rarely hinted. Foster had been the first to «go to Heaven» on schedule, dying at a prophesied instant; since then, it had been a Fosterite mark of special grace … it had been years since any coroner had had the temerity to pry into such deaths.

Not that Jubal cared — a good Fosterite was a dead Fosterite.

But it was going to be hard to explain.

No use stalling, another cup of coffee wouldn't make it easier — «Mike, who made the world?»

«Beg pardon?»

«Look around you. All this. Mars, too. The stars. Everything. You and me and everybody. Did the Old Ones tell you who made it?»

Mike looked puzzled. «No, Jubal.»

«Well, have you wondered? Where did the Sun come from? Who put the stars in the sky? Who started it? All, everything, the whole world, the Universe … so that you and I are here talking.» Jubal paused, surprised at himself. He had intended to take the usual agnostic approach … and found himself compulsively following his legal training, being an honest advocate in spite of himself, attempting to support a religious belief he did not hold but which was believed by most human beings. He found that, willy-nilly, he was attorney for the orthodoxies of his own race against — he wasn't sure what. An unhuman viewpoint. «How do your Old Ones answer such questions?»

«Jubal, I do not grok … that these are “questions.” I am sorry.»

«Eh? I don't grok your answer.»

Mike hesitated. «I will try. But words are … are not … rightly. Not “putting.” Not “mading.” A nowing. World is. World was. World shall be. Now.»

«“As it was in the beginning, so it is now and ever shall be, World without end — ”»

Mike smiled happily. «You grok it!»

«I don't grok it,» Jubal answered gruffly, «I am quoting something, uh, an “Old One” said.» He decided to try another approach; God the Creator was not the aspect of Deity to use as an opening — Mike did not grasp the idea of Creation. Well, Jubal wasn't sure that he did, either — long ago he had made a pact with himself to postulate a created Universe on even-numbered days, a tail-swallowing eternal-and-uncreated Universe on odd-numbered days — since each hypothesis, whole paradoxical, avoided the paradoxes of the other — with a day off each leap year for sheer solipsist debauchery. Having tabled an unanswerable question he had given no thought to it for more than a generation.

Jubal decided to explain religion in its broadest sense and tackle the notion of Deity and Its aspects later.

Mike agreed that learnings came in various sizes, from little learnings that a nestling could grok on up to great learnings which only an Old One could grok in fullness. But Jubal's attempt to draw a line between small learnings and great so that «great learnings» would have the meanings of «religious questions» was not successful; some religious questions did not seem to Mike to be questions (such as «Creation») and others seemed to him to be «little» questions, with answers obvious to nestlings — such as life after death.

Jubal dropped it and passed on to the multiplicity of human religions. He explained that humans had hundreds of ways by which «great learnings» were taught, each with its own answers and each claiming to be the truth.

«What is “truth”?» Mike asked.

(«What is Truth?» asked a Roman judge, and washed his hands. Jubal wished that he could do likewise.) «An answer is truth when you speak rightly, Mike. How many hands do I have?»

«Two hands. I see two hands,» Mike amended.

Anne glanced up from reading. «In six weeks I could make a Witness of him.»

«Quiet, Anne. Things are tough enough. Mike, you spoke rightly; I have two hands. Your answer is truth. Suppose you said that I had seven hands?»

Mike looked troubled. «I do not grok that I could say that.»

«No, I don't think you could. You would not speak rightly if you did; your answer would not be truth. But, Mike — listen carefully — each religion claims to be truth, claims to speak rightly. Yet their answers are as different as two hands and seven hands. Fosterites say one thing, Buddhists say another, Moslems still another — many answers, all different.»

Mike seemed to be making great effort. «All speak rightly? Jubal, I do not grok.»

«Nor I.»

The Man from Mars looked troubled, then suddenly smiled. «I will ask the Fosterites to ask your Old Ones and then we will know, my brother. How will I do this?»

A few minutes later Jubal found, to his disgust, that he had promised Mike an interview with some Fosterite bigmouth. Nor had he been able to dent Mike's assumption that Fosterites were in touch with human «Old Ones.» Mike's difficulty was that he didn't know what a lie was — definitions of «lie» and «falsehood» had been filed in his mind with no trace of grokking. One could «speak wrongly» only by accident. So he had taken the Fosterite service at its face value.