Smith continues to demonstrate psychic abilities and superhuman intelligence, coupled with a childlike naïveté. When Harshaw tries to explain religion to him, Smith understands the concept of God only as "one who groks", which includes every extant organism. That leads him to express the Martian concept of life as the phrase "Thou art God" although he knows that to be a bad translation. Many other human concepts such as war, clothing, and jealousy are strange to him, and the idea of an afterlife is a fact that he takes for granted because Martian society is directed by "Old Ones", the spirits of Martians who have "discorporated". It is also customary for loved ones and friends to eat the bodies of the dead in a rite similar to Holy Communion. Eventually, Harshaw arranges freedom for Smith and recognition that human law, which would have granted ownership of Mars to Smith, has no applicability to a planet that is already inhabited by intelligent life.