Grokipedia
Author Robert Heinlein coined "GROK"
“Stranger In A Strange Land” by Robert Heinlein
under Lyle Drive in only nineteen days. The Champion landed just south of Lacus Soli, as Captain van Tromp intended to search for the Envoy. The second expedition reported to Earth by radio daily, but three dispatches were of more than scientific interest. The first was:
\"Rocket Ship Envoy located. No survivors.\"
The second worldshaker was:
\"Mars is inhabited.\"
The third was:
\"Correction to despatch 23-105: One survivor of Envoy located.\"
CAPTAIN WILLEM VAN TROMP was a man of humanity and good sense. He radioed ahead:
\"My passenger must not, repeat, must not be subjected to the strain of a public reception. Provide low-gee shuttle, stretcher and ambulance service, and an armed guard.\"
He sent his ship's surgeon Dr. Nelson along to make sure that Valentine Michael Smith was installed in a suite in Bethesda Medical Center, transferred gently into a hydraulic bed, and protected from outside contact by marine guards. Van Tromp himself went to an extraordinary session of the Federation High Council. At the moment when Valentine Michael Smith was being lifted into bed, the High Minister for Science was saying testily, \"Granted, Captain, that your authority as military commander of what was nevertheless primarily a scientific expedition gives you the right to order unusual medicalservice to protect a person temporarily in your charge, I do not see why you now presume to interfere with the proper functions of my department. Why, Smith is a veritable treasure trove ofscientific information!\"
\"Yes. I suppose he is, sir.\"
\"Then why-\" The science minister broke off and turned to the High Minister for Peace and Military Security.
\"David? This matter is obviously now in my jurisdiction. Will you issue the necessary instructions to your people? After all, one can't keep persons of the caliber of Professor Kennedy and Doctor Okajima, to mention just two, cooling their heels indefinitely. They won'tstand for it.\"
The peace minister did not answer but glanced inquiringly at Captain van Tromp. The captain shook his head.
\"No, sir.\"
\"Why not?\" demanded the science minister. \"You have admitted that he isn't sick.\"
\"Give the captain a chance to explain, Pierre,\" the peace minister advised. \"Well, Captain?\"
\"Smith isn't sick, sir,\" Captain van Tromp said to the peace minister, \"but he isn't well,either. He has never before been in a one-gravity field. He now weighs more than two and one half times what he is used to and his muscles aren't up to it. He's not used to Earth-normal air pressure.He's not used to anything and the strain is likely to be too much for him. Hell's bells, gentlemen,I'm dog tired myself just from being at one-gee again-and I was born on this planet.\"
Around the time that I read this novel,
I bought a garter snake that I named GREK.
GREK escaped its terrarium during Christmas Vacation, and I finally found it
coiled around the trunk of our artificial
Christmas Tree ...
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