6

Nonetheless, there were those who chose not to teep and therefore suffered from Dysaesthesia Martia,¹ as Barrow labeled it. Jane was such a one. Perhaps it was because of her early experiences of people who teeped, or perhaps she worried that it would damage her abilities with language.

But, she was also curious. And so, she went to one of the Alien saucers to see what was going on. There were long lines, but that had always been the case from the first day the Aliens arrived. There was also a large crowd of the newly teeping standing around in stunned silence. Occasionally, they bumped into each other and fell down when they tried to move. Some of them had curled up into fetal balls on the pavement, apparently overwhelmed by the experience. Now, teeping, by greatly increasing the activity of the mind, generally increases, of necessity, that particular mode of its activity by which Martians were able to construct out of the raw material of social interaction an elaborate and intellectual pleasure.² The result was, of course, that they occasionally lost control of their bodily functions—especially when first they encountered teeping.

Such were the expressions on their faces, it surprised Jane that none of them were screaming. Indeed, the scene would have been almost entirely silent had it not been for a full, mellow voice singing sacred songs to the guitar.³

It wasn’t difficult for Jane to find the source of the voice. He was standing on a bench across the street from the Alien saucer. His appearance was the freshest you could imagine, one of the best faring men alive—young, strong, right virtuous, and rich and wise.⁴ Except for the guitar on a sling around his neck, he was entirely naked.

It was Jane’s custom to leave naked men singing on benches alone, but because she had kept herself so secluded these months since Franklin left—in order to focus on her writing—her usual reserve deserted her. This earnest young man playing his guitar and singing to a crowd of people who paid him no attention caught hers. She walked up to him and said, ‘I have to ask what you are doing.’

‘I’m a missionary,’ he answered.

‘Is that why you are singing or why you aren’t wearing any clothes?’

‘You can make fun of me if you like, but I don’t have to waste my time talking to you,’ said the man.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jane. ‘I wasn’t making fun of you. And I really am curious.’

‘Look,’ said the man. ‘I don’t like standing up here naked, but it’s a small price to pay for the souls of an entire species.’

‘By the looks of them, they’re pretty far gone,’ said Jane, nodding at the crowd of dull-eyed, drooling teepers.

‘I’m not here for them,’ said the man.

‘The Aliens?’ said Jane. ‘Are you trying to convert the Aliens?’ perhaps she allowed a little too much incredulity to creep into her voice, because the man once again became defensive.

‘I told you I was a missionary.’

‘I didn’t know there even were missionaries anymore,’ said Jane.

‘For crying out loud!’ he exclaimed, and he jumped down from the bench and began striding down the sidewalk away from Jane.

She hurried after him.

‘Wait!’ she called. ‘I didn’t mean it that way!’

The man did not stop, nor even turn around.

‘Wait!’ Jane shouted. ‘I’m not making fun of you.’

When the man still didn’t stop, Jane yelled, ‘I write epic poetry!’

This was a strange enough statement that the naked man with the guitar stopped and turned around.

‘I’m serious,’ said Jane breathlessly as she caught up to him. ‘I spend all day every day writing epic poetry. It hardly puts me in a position to make fun of a missionary.’

The man smiled a little at this, and Jane said, ‘I’m Jane.’

‘My name is John,’ said the man. ‘But everybody usually calls me Rudy.’

‘Nice to meet you, Rudy.’

‘Thanks, now do you mind if I put on some clothes?’

This was how Jane met the infamous Johann Rudolph Theophilius Leider.