Contents
All my life I've wanted to go to Earth. Not to live, of course-just to see it. As everybody knows, Terra is a wonderful place to visit but not to live. Not truly suited to human habitation.
Personally, I'm not convinced that the human race originated on Earth. I mean to say, how much reliance should you place on the evidence of a few pounds of old bones plus the opinions of anthropologists who usually contradict each other anyhow when what you are being asked to swallow so obviously flies in the face of all common sense?
Think it through-the surface acceleration of Terra is clearly too great for the human structure; it is known to result in flat feet and hernias and heart trouble. The incident solar radiation on Terra will knock down dead an unprotected human in an amazingly short time- and do you know of any other organism which has to be artificially protected from what is alleged to be its own natural environment in order to stay alive? As to Terran ecology…
Never mind. We humans just couldn't have originated on Earth. Nor (I admit) on Mars, for that matter-although Mars is certainly as near ideal as you can find in this planetary system today. Possibly the Missing Planet was our first home-even though I think of Mars as "home" and will always want to return to it no matter how far I travel in later years . . . and I intend to travel a long, long way.
But I do want to visit Earth as a starter, not only to see how in the world eight billion people manage to live almost sitting in each other's laps (less than half of the land area of Terra is even marginally habitable) but mostly to see oceans ... from a safe distance. Oceans are not only fantastically unlikely but to me the very thought of them is terrifying. All that unimaginable amount of water, unconfined. And so deep that if you fell into it, it would be over your head. Incredible!
But now we are going there!
Perhaps I should introduce us. The Fries Family, I mean. Myself: Podkayne Fries-"Poddy" to my friends and we might as well start off being friendly. Adolescent female: I'm eight plus a few months, at a point in my development described by my Uncle Tom as "frying size and just short of husband high"-.a fair enough description since a female citizen of Mars may contract plenary marriage without guardian's waiver on her ninth birthday, and I stand 157 centimeters tall in my bare feet and mass 49 kilograms. "Five feet two and eyes of blue" my daddy calls me, but he is a historian and romantic. But I am not romantic and would not consider even a limited marriage on my ninth birthday; I have other plans.
Not that I am opposed to marriage in due time, nor do I expect to have any trouble snagging the male of my choice. In these memoirs I shall be frank rather than modest because they will not be published until I am old and famous, and I will certainly revise them
before then. In the meantime I am taking the precaution of writing English in Martian Oldscript-a combination which I'm sure Daddy could puzzle out, only he wouldn't do such a thing unless I invited him to. Daddy is a dear and does not snoopervise me. My brother Clark would pry, but he regards English as a dead language and would never bother his head with Oldscript anyhow.
Perhaps you have seen a book titled: Eleven Years Old: The Pre-Adolescent Adjustment Crisis in the Male. I read it, hoping that it would help me to cope with my brother. Clark is just six, but the "Eleven Years" referred to in that title are Terran years because it was written on Earth. If you will apply the conversion factor of 1.8808 to attain real years, you will see that my brother is exactly eleven of those undersized Earth years old.
That book did not help me much. It talks about "cushioning the transition into the social group"-but there is no present indication that Clark ever intends to join the human race. He is more likely to devise a way to blow up the universe just to hear the bang. Since I am responsible for him much of the time and since he has an I.Q. of 160 while mine is only 145, you can readily see that I need all the advantage that greater age and maturity can give me. At present my standing rule with him is: Keep your guard up and never offer hostages.
Back to me-I'm colonial mongrel in ancestry, but the Swedish part is dominant in my looks, with Polynesian and Asiatic fractions adding no more than a notunpleasing exotic flavor. My legs are long for my height, my waist is 48 centimeters and my chest is 90-not all of which is rib cage, I assure you, even though we old colonial families all run to hypertrophied lung development; some of it is burgeoning secondary sex characteristic. Besides that, my hair is pale
blond and wavy and I'm pretty. Not beautiful-Praxiteles would not have given me a second look-but real beauty is likely to scare a man off, or else make him quite unmanageable, whereas prettiness, properly handled, is an asset.
Up till a couple of years ago I used to regret not being male (in view of my ambitions), but I at last realized how silly I was being; one might as well wish for wings. As Mother says: "One works with available materials" . .. and I found that the materials available were adequate. In fact I found that I like being female; my hormone balance is okay and I'm quite well adjusted to the world and vice versa. I'm smart enough not unnecessarily to show that I am smart; I've got a long upper lip and a short nose, and when I wrinkle my nose and look baffled, a man is usually only too glad to help me, especially if he is about twice my age. There are more ways of computing a ballistic than by counting it on your fingers.
That's me: Poddy Fries, free citizen of Mars, female. Future pilot and someday commander of deep-space exploration parties. Watch for me in the news.
Mother is twice as good-looking as I am and much taller than I ever will be; she looks like a Valkyrie about to gallop off into the sky. She holds a systemwide license as a Master Engineer, Heavy Construction, Surface or Free Fall, and is entitled to wear both the Hoover Medal with cluster and the Christiana Order, Knight Commander, for bossing the rebuilding of Deimos and Phobos. But she's more than just the traditional hairy engineer; she has a social presence which she can switch from warmly charming to frostily intimidating at will, she holds honorary degrees galore, and she publishes popular little gems such as "Design Criteria with Respect to the Effects of Radiation on the Bonding of Pressure-Loaded Sandwich Structures."
It is because Mother is often away from home for professional reasons that Lam, from time to time, the reluctant custodian of my younger brother. Still, I suppose it is good practice, for how can I ever expect to command my own ship if I can't tame a six-year-old savage? Mother says that a boss who is forced to part a man's hair with a wrench has failed at some point, so I try to control our junior nihilist without resorting to force. Besides, using force on Clark is very chancy; he masses as much as I do and he fights dirty.
It was the job Mother did on Deimos that accounts for Clark and myself. Mother was determined to meet her construction dates; and Daddy, on leave from Ares U. with a Guggenheim grant, was even more frantically determined to save every scrap of the ancient Martian artifacts no matter how much it delayed construction; this threw them into such intimate and bitter conflict that they got married and for a while Mother had babies.
Daddy and Mother are Jack Spratt and his wife; he is interested in everything that has already happened, she is interested only in what is going to happen, especially if she herself is making it happen. Daddy's title is Van Loon Professor of Terrestrial History but his real love is Martian history, especially if it happened fifty million years ago. But do not think that Daddy is a cloistered don given only to contemplation and study. When he was even younger than I am now, he lost an arm one chilly night in the attack on the Company Offices during the Revolution-and he can still shoot straight and fast with the hand he has left.
The rest of our family is Great-Uncle Tom, Daddy's father's brother. Uncle Tom is a parasite. So he says. It is true that you don't see him work much, but he was an old man before I was born. He is a Revolutionary veteran, same as Daddy, and is a Past Grand Commander of the Martian Legion and a Senator-at-Large
of the Republic, but he doesn't seem to spend much time on either sort of politics, Legion or public; instead he hangs out at the Elks Club and plays pinochle with other relics of the past. Uncle Tom is really my closest relative, for he isn't as intense as my parents, nor as busy, and will always take time to talk with me. Furthermore he has a streak of Original Sin which makes him sympathetic to my problems. He says that I have such a streak, too, much wider than his. Concerning this, I reserve my opinion.
That's our family and we are all going to Earth. Wups! I left out three-the infants. But they hardly count now and it is easy to forget them. When Daddy and Mother got married, the PEG Board-Population, Ecology, & Genetics-pegged them at five and would have allowed them seven had they requested it, for, as you may have gathered, my parents are rather highgrade citizens even among planetary colonials all of whom are descended from, or are themselves, highly selected and drastically screened stock.
But Mother told the Board that five was all that she had time for and then had us as fast as possible, while fidgeting at a desk job in the Bureau of Planetary Engineering. Then she popped her babies into deep-freeze as fast as she had them, all but me, since I was the first. Clark spent two years at constant entropy, else he would be almost as old as I am-deep-freeze time doesn't count, of course, and his official birthday is the day he was decanted. I remember how jealous I was- Mother was just back from conditioning Juno and it didn't seem fair to me that she would immediately start raising a baby.
Uncle Tom talked me out of that, with a lot of lap sitting, and I am no longer jealous of Clark-merely wary.
So we've got Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon in the subbasement of the crèche at Marsopolis, and we'll uncork
and name at least one of them as soon as we get back from Earth. Mother is thinking of revivifying Gamma and Epsilon together and raising them as twins (they're girls) and then launching Delta, who is a boy, as soon as the girls are housebroken. Daddy says that is not fair, because Delta is entitled to be older than Epsilon by natural priority of birth date. Mother says that is mere worship of precedent and that she does wish Daddy would learn to leave his reverence for the past on the campus when he comes home in the evening.
Daddy says that Mother has no sentimental feelings-and Mother says she certainly hopes not, at least with any problem requiring rational analysis-and Daddy says let's be rational, then . . . twin older sisters would either break a boy's spirit or else spoil him rotten.
Mother says that is unscientific and unfounded. Daddy says that Mother merely wants to get two chores out of the way at once-whereupon Mother heartily agrees and demands to know why proved production engineering principles should not be applied to domestic economy?
Daddy doesn't answer this. Instead he remarks thoughtfully that he must admit that two little girls dressed just alike would be kind of cute ... name them "Margret" and "Marguerite" and call them "Peg" and "Meg"- Clark muttered to me, "Why uncork them at all?
Why not just sneak down some night and open the valves and call it an accident?"
I told him to go wash out his mouth with prussic acid and not let Daddy hear him talk that way. Daddy would have walloped him properly. Daddy, although a historian, is devoted to the latest, most progressive theories of child psychology and applies them by canalizing the cortex through pain association whenever he really wants to ensure that a lesson will not be
forgotten. As he puts it so neatly: "Spare the rod and spoil the child."
I canalize most readily and learned very early indeed how to predict and avoid incidents which would result in Daddy's applying his theories and his hand. But in Clark's case it is almost necessary to use a club simply to gain his divided attention.
So it is now clearly evident that we are going to have twin baby sisters. But it is no headache of mine, I am happy to say, for Clark is quite enough maturing trauma for one girl's adolescence. By the time the twins are a current problem I expect to be long gone and far away.
Interlude
Hi, Pod.
So you think I can't read your worm tracks.
A lot you know about me! Poddy-oh, excuse me, "Captain" Podkayne Fries, I mean, the famous Space Explorer and Master of Men-Captain Poddy dear, you probably will never read this because it wouldn't occur to you that I not only would break your "code" but also write comments in the big, wide margins you leave.
Just for the record, Sister dear, I read Old Anglish just as readily as I do System Ortho. Anglish isn't all that hard and I learned it as soon as I found out that a lot of books I wanted to read had never been translated. But it doesn't pay to tell eveiything you know, or somebody comes along and tells you to stop doing whatever it is you are doing. Probably your older sister.
But imagine calling a straight substitution a "code"! Poddy, if you had actually been able to write Old Martian, it would have taken me quite a lot longer. But
you can't. Shucks, even Dad can't write it without stewing over it and he probably knows more about Old Martian than anyone else in the System.
But you won't crack my code-because I haven't any.
Try looking at this page under ultraviolet light-a sun lamp, for example.
Oh, Unspeakables!
Dirty ears! Hangnails! Snel-frockey! Spit! WE AREN'T GOING!
At first I thought that my brother Clark had managed one of his more charlatanous machinations of malevolent legerdemain. But fortunately (the only fortunate thing about the whole miserable mess) I soon perceived that it was impossible for him to be in fact guilty no matter what devious subversions roil his id. Unless he has managed to invent and build in secret a time machine, which I misdoubt he would do if he could . . . nor am I prepared to offer odds that he can't. Not since the time he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks and charge them to my code number without (so far as anyone could ever prove) disturbing the company's seal on the control box.
We'll never know how he did that one, because, despite the fact that the company offered to Forgive All and pay a cash bonus to boot if only he would please tell them how he managed to beat their unbeatable seal-despite this, Clark looked blank and would not talk. That left only circumstantial evidence, i.e~, it was clearly evident to anyone who knew us both (Daddy and Mother, namely) that I would never order candy-stripe ice cream smothered in hollandaise sauce, or-no, I can't go on; I feel ill. Whereas Clark is widely known to eat anything which does not eat him first.
Even this clinching psychological evidence would never have convinced the company's adjuster had not their own records proved that two of these obscene feasts had taken place while I was a house guest of friends in Syrtis Major, a thousand kilometers away. Never mind, I simply want to warn all girls not to have a Mad Genius for a baby brother. Pick instead a stupid, stolid, slightly subnormal one who will sit quietly in front of the solly box, mouth agape at cowboy classics, and never wonder what makes the pretty images.
But I have wandered far from my tragic tale.
We aren't going to have twins.
We already have triplets.
Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon, throughout all my former life mere topics of conversation, are now Grace, Duncan, and Elspeth in all too solid flesh-unless Daddy again changes his mind before final registration; they've had three sets of names already. But what's in a name?-they are here, already in our home with a nursery room sealed on to shelter them . . . three helpless unfinished humans about canal-worm pink in color and no features worthy of the name. Their limbs squirm aimlessly, their eyes don't track, and a faint, queasy odor of sour milk permeates every room even when they are freshly bathed. Appalling sounds come from one end of each-in which they heterodyne each other-and even more appalling conditions prevail at
the other ends. (I've yet to find all three of them dry at the same time.)
And yet there is something decidedly engaging about the little things; were it not that they are the proximate cause of my tragedy I could easily grow quite fond of them. I'm sure Duncan is beginning to recognize me already.
But, if I am beginning to be reconciled to their presence, Mother's state can only be described as atavistically maternal. Her professional journals pile up unread, she has that soft Madonna look in her eyes, and she seems somehow both shorter and wider than she did a week ago.
First consequence: she won't even discuss going to Earth, with or without the triplets.
Second consequence: Daddy won't go if she won't go-he spoke quite sharply to Clark for even suggesting it.
Third consequence: since they won't go, we can't go. Clark and me, I mean. It is conceivably possible that I might have been permitted to travel alone (since Daddy agrees that I am now a "young adult" in maturity and judgment even though my ninth birthday lies still some months in the fttture), but the question is formal and without content since I am not considered quite old enough to accept full responsible control of my brother with both my parents some millions of kilometers away (nor am I sure that I would wish to, unless armed with something at least as convincing as a morning star) and Daddy is so dismayingly fair with that he would not even discuss permitting one of us to go and not the other when both of us had been promised the trip.
Fairness is a priceless virtue in a parent-but just at the moment I could stand being spoiled and favored instead.
But the above is why I am sure that Clark does not
have a time machine concealed in his wardrobe. This incredible contretemps, this idiot's dream of interlocking mishaps, is as much to his disadvantage as it is to mine.
How did it happen? Gather ye round- Little did we dream that, when the question of a family trip to Earth was being planned in our household more than a month ago, this disaster was already complete and simply waiting the most hideous moment to unveil itself. The facts are these: the crèche at Marsopolis has thousands of newborn babies marbleized at just short of absolute zero, waiting in perfect safety until their respective parents are ready for them. It is said, and I believe it, that a direct hit with a nuclear bomb would not hurt the consigned infants; a thousand years later a rescue squad could burrow down and find that automatic, self-maintaining machinery had not permitted the tank temperatures to vary a hundredth of a degree.
In consequence, we Marsmen (not "Martians," please!-Martians are a non-human race, now almost extinct)-Marsmen tend to marry early, have a full quota of babies quickly, then rear them later, as money and time permit. It reconciles that discrepancy, so increasingly and glaringly evident ever since the Terran Industrial Revolution, between the best biological age for having children and the best social age for supporting and rearing them.
A couple named Breeze did just that, some ten years ago-married on her ninth birthday and just past his tenth, while he was still a pilot cadet and she was attending Ares U. They applied for three babies, were pegged accordingly, and got them all out of the way while they were both finishing school. Very sensible.
The years roll past, he as a pilot and later as master, she as a finance clerk in his ship and later as purser- a happy life. The spacelines like such an arrangement;
married couples spacing together mean a taut, happy ship.
Captain and Mrs. Breeze serve their ten-and-a-half (twenty Terran) years and put in for half-pay retirement, have it confirmed-and immediately radio the crèche to uncork their babies, all three of them.
The radio order is received, relayed back for confirmation; the crèche accepts it. Five weeks later the happy couple pick up three babies, sign for them, and start the second half of a perfect life.
So they thought- But what they had deposited was two boys and a
girl; what they got was two girls and a boy. Ours.
Believe this you must-it took them the better part of a week to notice it. I will readily concede that the difference between a brand-new boy baby and a brand-new girl baby is, at the time, almost irrelevant. Nevertheless there is a slight difference. Apparently it was a case of too much help-between a mother, a mother-in-law, a temporary nurse, and a helpful neighbor, and much running in and out, it seems unlikely that any one person bathed all three babies as one continuous operation that first week. Certainly Mrs. Breeze had not done so-until the day she did . . . and noticed ... and fainted-and dropped one of our babies in the bath water, where it would have drowned had not her scream fetched both her husband and the neighbor lady.
So we suddenly had month-old triplets.
The lawyer man from the crèche was very vague about how it happened; he obviously did not want to discuss how their "foolproof" identification system could result in such a mixup. So I don't know myself- but it seems logically certain that, for all their serial numbers, babies' footprints, record machines, et cetera, there is some point in the system where one clerk read aloud "Breeze" from the radioed order and
another clerk checked a file, then punched "Fries" into a machine that did the rest.
But the fixer man did not say. He was simply achingly anxious to get Mother and Daddy to settle out of court-accept a check and sign a release under which they agreed not to publicize the error.
They settled for three years of Mother's established professional earning power while the little fixer man gulped and looked relieved.
But nobody offered to pay me for the mayhem that had been committed on my life, my hopes, and my ambitions.
Clark did offer a suggestion that was almost a sensible one, for him. He proposed that we swap even with the Breezes, let them keep the warm ones, we could keep the cold ones. Everybody happy-and we all go to Earth.
My brother is far too self-centered to realize it, but the Angel of Death brushed him with its wings at that point. Daddy is a truly noble soul ... but he had had almost more than he could stand.
And so have I. I had expected today to be actually on my way to Earth, my first space trip farther than Phobos-which was merely a school field trip, our "Class Honeymoon." A nothing thing.
Instead, guess what I'm doing.
Do you have any idea how many times a day three babies have to be changed?
Hold it! Stop the machines! Wipe the, tapes! Cancel all bulletins- WE ARE GOING TO EARTH AFTER ALL!!!!
Well, not all of us. Daddy and Mother aren't going, and of course, the triplets are not. But- Never mind; I had better tell it in order.
Yesterday things just got to be Too Much. I had changed them in rotation, only to find as I got the third one dry and fresh that number one again needed service. I had been thinking sadly that just about that moment I should have been entering the dining saloon of S.S. Wanderlust to the strains of soft music. Perhaps on the arm of one of the officers
perhaps even on the arm of the Captain himself had I the chance to arrange an accidental Happy Encounter, then make judicious use of my "puzzled kitten" expression.
And, as I reached that point in my melancholy daydream, it was then that I discovered that my chores
had started all over again. I thought of the Augean Stables and suddenly it was just Too Much and my eyes got blurry with tears.
Mother came in at that point and I asked if I could please have a couple of hours of recess?
She answered, "Why, certainly dear," and didn't even glance at me. I'm sure that she didn't notice that I was crying; she was already doing over, quite unnecessarily, the one that I had just done. She had been tied up on the phone, telling someone firmly that, while it was true as reported that she was not leaving Mars, nevertheless she would not now accept another commission even as a consultant-and no doubt being away from the infants for all of ten minutes had made her uneasy, so she just had to get her hands on one of them.
Mother's behavior had been utterly unbelievable. Her cortex has tripped out of circuit and her primitive instincts are in full charge. She reminds me of a cat we had when I was a little girl-Miss Polka Dot Ma'am and her first litter of kittens. Miss Pokie loved and trusted all of us-except about kittens. If we touched one of them, she was uneasy about it. If a kitten was taken out of her box and placed on the floor to be admired, she herself would hop out, grab the kitten in her teeth and immediately return it to the box, with an indignant waggle to her seat that showed all too plainly what she thought of irresponsible people who didn't know how to handle babies.
Mother is just like that now. She accepts my help simply because there is too much for her to do alone. But she doesn't really believe that I can even pick up a baby without close supervision.
So I left and followed my own blind instincts, which told me to go look up Uncle Tom.
I found him at the Elks Club, which was reasonably certain at that time of day, but I had to wait in the
ladies' lounge until he came out of the card room. Which he did in about ten minutes, counting a wad of money as he came. "Sbny to make you wait," he said, "but I was teaching a fellow citizen about the uncertainties in the laws of chance and I had to stay long enough to collect the tuition. How marches it, Podkayne mavourneen?"
I tried to tell him and got all choked up, so he walked me to the park under the city hail and sat me on a bench and bought us both packages of Chokiatpops and I ate mine and most of his and watched the stars on the ceiling and told him all about it and felt better.
He patted my hand. "Cheer up, Flicka. Always remember that, when things seem darkest, they usually get considerably worse." He took his phone out of a pocket and made a call. Presently he said, "Never mind the protocol routine, miss. This is Senator Fries. I want the Director." Then he added, in a moment, "Hymie? Tom Fries here. How's Judith? Good, good... Hymie, I just called to tell you that I'm coming over to stuff you into one of your own liquid helium tanks. Oh, say about fourteen or a few minutes after. That'll give you time to get out of town. Clearing." He pocketed his phone. "Let's get some lunch. Never commit suicide on an empty stomach, my dear; it's bad for the digestion."
Uncle Tom took me to the Pioneers Club where I have been only once before and which is even more impressive than I had recalled- It has real waiters
men so old that they might have been pioneers themselves, unless they met the first ship. Everybody fussed over Uncle Tom and he called them all by their first names and they all called him "Tom" but made it sound like "Your Majesty" and the master of the hostel came over and prepared my sweet himself with about six other people standing around to hand him
things, like a famous surgeon operating against the swift onrush of death.
Presently Uncle Tom belched behind his napkin and I thanked everybody as we left while wishing that I had had the forethought to wear my unsuitable gown that Mother won't let me wear until I'm nine and almost made me take back-one doesn't get to the Pioneers Club every day.
We took the James Joyce Fogarty Express Tunnel and Uncle Tom sat down the whole way, so I had to sit, too, although it makes me restless; I prefer to walk in the direction a tunnel is moving and get there a bit sooner. But Uncle Tom says that he gets plenty of exercise watching other people work themselves to death.
I didn't really realize that we were going to the Marsopolis Crèche until we were there, so bemused had I been earlier with my own tumultuous emotions. But when we were there and facing a sign reading: OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR-PLEASE USE OTHER DOOR, Uncle Tom said, "Hang around somewhere; I'll need you later," and went on in.
The waiting room was crowded and the only magazines not in use were Kiddie Kapers and Modern Homemaker, so I wandered around a bit and presently found a corridor that led to the Nursery.
The sign on the door said that visiting hours were from 16 to 18.30. Furthermore, it was locked, so I moved on and found another door which seemed much more promising. It was marked: POSITIVELY NO ADMITFANCE-but it didn't say "This Means You" and it wasn't locked, so I went in.
You never saw so many babies in your whole life!
Row upon row upon row, each in its own little transparent cubicle. I could really see only the row nearest me, all of which seemed to be about the same age- and much more finished than the three we had at
home. Little brown dumplings they were, cute as puppies. Most of them were asleep, some w~re awake and kicking and cooing and grabbing at dangle toys that were just in reach. If there had not been a sheet of glass between me and them I would have grabbed me a double armful of babies.
There were a lot of girls in the room, too-well, young women, really. Each of them seemed to be busy with a baby and they didn't notice me. But shortly one of the babies nearest me started to cry whereupon a light came on over its cubicle, and one of the nurse girls hurried over, slid back the cover, picked it up and started patting its bottom. It stopped crying.
"Wet?" I inquired.
She looked up, saw me. "Oh, no, the machines take care of that. Just lonely, so I'm loving it." Her voice came through clearly in spite of the glass-a hear and speak circuit, no doubt, although the pickups were not in evidence. She made soft noises to the baby, then added, "Are you a new employee? You seem to be lost.
"Oh, no," I said hastily, "I'm not an employee. I just-'
"Then you don't belong here, not at this hour. Unless"-she looked at me rather skeptically-"just possibly you are looking for the instruction class for young mothers?"
"Oh, no, no!" I said hastily. "Not yet." Then I added still more hastily, "I'm a guest of the Director."
Well, it wasn't a fib. Not quite. I was a guest of a guest of the Director, one who was with him by appointment. The relationship was certainly concatenative, if not equivalent.
It seemed to reassure her. She asked, "Just what did you want? Can I help you?"
"Uh, just information. I'm making a sort of a survey. What goes on in this room?"
"These are age six-month withdrawal contracts," she told me. "All these babies will be going home in a few days." She put the baby, quiet now, back into its private room, adjusted a nursing nipple for it, made some other sort of adjustments on the outside of the cubicle so that the padding inside sort of humped up and held the baby steady against the milk supply, then closed the top, moved on a few meters and picked up another baby. "Personally," she added, "I think the age sixmonth contract is the best one. A child twelve months old is old enough to notice the transition. But these aren't. They don't care who comes along and pets them when they cry ... but nevertheless six months is long enough to get a baby well started and take the worst of the load off the mother. We know how, we're used to it, we stand our watches in rotation so that we are never exhausted from being 'up with the baby all night' ... and in consequence we aren't short-tempered and we never yell at them-and don't think for a minute that a baby doesn't understand a cross tone of voice simply because he can't talk yet. He knows! And it can start him off so twisted that he may take it out on somebody else, years and years later. There, there, honey," she went on but not to me, "feel better now? Feeling sleepy, huh? Now you just hold still and Martha will keep her hand on you until you are fast asleep."
She watched the baby for a moment longer, then withdrew her hand, closed the box and hurried on to where another light was burning. "A baby has no sense of time," she added as she removed a squalhing lump of fury from its crib. "When it needs love, it needs it right now. It can't know that-" An older woman had come up behind her. "Yes, Nurse?"
"Who is this you're chatting with? You know the rules."
"But . .. she's a guest of the Director."
The older woman looked at me with a stern nononsense look. "The Directpr sent you in here?"
I was making a split-second choice among three non-responsive answers when I was saved by Fate. A soft voice coming from everywhere at once announced:
"Miss Podkayne Fries is requested to come to the office of the Director. Miss Podkayne Fries, please come to the office of the Director."
I tilted my nose in the air and said with dignity, "That is I. Nurse, will you be so kind as to phone the Director and tell him that Miss Fries is on her way?" I exited with deliberate haste.
The Director's office was four times as big and sixteen times as impressive as the principal's office at school. The Director was short and had a dark brown skin and a gray goatee and a harried expression. In addition to him and to Uncle Tom, of course, there was present the little lawyer man who had had a bad time with Daddy a week earlier-and my brother Clark. I couldn't figure out how he got there. . . except that Clark has an infallible homing instinct for trouble.
Clark looked at me with no expression; I nodded. The Director and his legal beagle stood up. Uncle Tom didn't but he said, "Dr. Hyman Schoenstein, Mr. Poon Kwai Yau-my niece Podkayne Fries. Sit down, honey; nobody is going to bite you. The Director has a proposition to offer you."
The lawyer man interrupted. "I don't think-"
"Correct," agreed Uncle Tom. "You don't think. Or it would have occurred to you that ripples spread out from a splash."
"But- Dr. Schoenstein, the release I obtained from Professor Fries explicitly binds him to silence, for separate good and sufficient consideration, over and above damages conceded by us and made good. This is tantamount to blackmail. I-"
Then Uncle Tom did stand up. He seemed twice as tall as usual and was grinning like a fright mask. "What was that last word you used?"
"I?" The lawyer looked startled. "Perhaps I spoke hastily. I simply meant-"
"I heard you," Uncle Tom growled. "And so did three witnesses. Happens to be one of the words a man can be challenged for on this still free planet. But, since I'm getting old and fat, I may just sue you for your shirt instead. Come along, kids."
The Director spoke quickly. "Tom ... sit down, please. Mr. Poon ... please keep quiet unless I ask for your advice. Now, Tom, you know quite well that you can't challenge nor sue over a privileged communication, counsel to client."
"I can do both or either. Question is: will a court sustain me? But I can always find out."
"And thereby drag out into the open the very point you know quite well I can't afford to have dragged out. Simply because my lawyer spoke in an excess of zeal. Mr. Poon?"
"I tried to withdraw it. I do withdraw it."
"Senator?"
Uncle Tom bowed stiffly to Mr. Poon, who returned it. "Accepted, sir. No offense meant and none taken." Then Uncle Tom grinned merrily, let his potbelly slide back down out of his chest, and said in his normal voice, "Okay, Hymie, let's get on with the crime. Your move."
Dr. Schoenstein said carefully, "Young lady, I have just learned that the recent disruption of family planning in your home-which we all deeply regret- caused an additional sharp disappointment to you and your brother."
"It certainly did!" I answered, rather shrilly I'm afraid.
"Yes. As your uncle put it, the ripples spread out.
Another of those ripples could wreck this establishment, make it insolvent as a private business. This is an odd sort of business we are in here, Miss Fries. Superficially we perform a routine engineering function, plus some not unusual boarding nursery services. But in fact what we do touches the most primitive of human emotions. If confidence in our integrity, or in the perfection with which we carry out the service entrusted to us, were to be shaken-" He spread his hands helplessly. "We couldn't last out the year. Now I can show you exactly how the mishap occurred which affected your family, show you how wildly unlikely it was to have it happen even under the methods we did use ... prove to you how utterly impossible it now is and always will be in the future for such a mistake to take place again, under our new procedures. Nevertheless"- he looked helpless again-"if you were to talk, merely tell the simple truth about what did indeed happen once ... you could ruin us."
I felt so sorry for him that I was about to blurt out that I wouldn't even dream of talking!-even though they had ruined my life-when Clark cut in. "Watch it, Pod! It's loaded."
So I just gave the Director my Sphinx expression and said nothing. Clark's instinctive self-interest is absolutely reliable.
Dr. Schoenstein motioned Mr. Poon to keep quiet. "But, my dear lady, I am not asking you not to talk. As your uncle the Senator says, you are not here to blackmail and I have nothing with which to bargain. The Marsopolis Crèche Foundation, Limited, always carries out its obligations even when they do not result from formal contract. I asked you to come in here in order to suggest a measure of relief for the damage we have unquestionably-though unwittingly-done you and your brother. Your uncle tells me that he had intended to travel with you and your family . .. but
that now he intends to go via the next Triangle Line departure. The Tricorn, I believe it is, about ten days from now. Would you feel less mistreated if we were to pay first-class fares for your brother and you-round trip, of course-in the Triangle Line?"
Would I! The Wanderlust has, as her sole virtue, the fact that she is indeed a spaceship and she was shaping for Earth. But she is an old, slow freighter. Whereas the Triangle Liners, as everyone knows, are utter palaces! I could but nod.
"Good. It is our privilege and we hope you have a wonderful trip. But, uh, young lady ... do you think it possible that you could give us some assurance, for no consideration and simply out of kindness, that you wouldn't talk about a certain regrettable mishap?"
"Oh? I thought that was part of the deal?"
"There is no deal. As your uncle pointed out to me, we owe you this trip, no matter what."
"Why-why, Doctor, I'm going to be so busy, so utterly rushed, just to get ready in time, that I won't have time to talk to anyone about any mishaps that probably weren't your fault anyhow!"
"Thank you." He turned to Clark. "And you, son?" Clark doesn't like to be called "son" at best. But don't think it affected his answer. He ignored the vocative and said coldly, "What about our expenses?"
Dr. Schoenstein flinched. Uncle Tom guffawed and said, "That's my boy! Doc, I told you he had the simple rapacity of a sand gator. He'll go far-if somebody doesn't poison him."
"Any suggestions?"
"No trouble. Clark. Look me in the eye. Either you stay behind and we weld you into a barrel and feed you through the bunghole so that you can't talk-while your sister goes anyhow-or you accept these terms. Say a thousand each-no, fifteen hundred-for travel expenses, and you keep your snapper shut forever
about the baby mix-up ... or I personally, with the aid of four stout, blackhearted accomplices, will cut your tongue out and feed it to the cat. A deal?"
"I ought to get ten percent commission on Sis's fifteen hundred. She didn't have sense enough to ask for it."
"No cumshaw. I ought to be charging you commission on the whole transaction. A deal?"
"A deal," Clark agreed.
Uncle Tom stood up. "That does it, Doc. In hjs own unappetizing way he is as utterly reliable as she is. So relax. You, too, Kwai Yau, you can breathe again. Doe, you can send a cheek around to me in the morning. Come on, kids."
"Thanks, Tom. If that is the word. I'll have the cheek over before you get there. Uh ... just one thing . .
"What, Doe?"
"Senator, you were here long before I was born, so
I don't know too much about your early life. Just the
traditional stories and what it says about you in Who's
Who on Mars. Just what were you transported for?
You were transported? Weren't you?"
Mr. Poon looked horror-stricken, and I was. But Uncle Tom didn't seem offended. He laughed heartily and answered, "I was accused of freezing babies for profit. But it was a frameup-I never did no such thing nohow. Come on, kids. Let's get out of this ghouls' nest before they smuggle us down into the subbasement."
Later that night in bed I was dreamily thinking over the trip. There hadn't even been the least argument with Mother and Daddy; Uncle Tom had settled it all by phone before we got home. I heard a sound from the nursery, got up and paddled in. It was Duncan, the little darling, not even wet but lonely. So I picked
him up and cuddled him and he cooed and then he was wet, so I changed him.
I decided that he was just as pretty or prettier than all those other babies, even though he was five months younger and his eyes didn't track. When I put him down again, he was sound asleep; I started back to bed.
And stopped- The Triangle Line gets its name from serving the three leading planets, of course, but which direction a ship makes the Mars-Venus-Earth route depends on just where we all are in our orbits.
But just where were we?
I hurried into the living room and searched for the Daily War Whoop-found it, thank goodness, and fed it into the viewer, flipped to the shipping news, found the predicted arrivals and departures.
Yes, yes, yes! I am going not only to Earth-but to Venus as well!
Venus! Do you suppose Mother would let me- No, best just say nothing now. Uncle Tom will be more tractable, after we get there.
I'm going to miss Duncan-he's such a little doll.
I haven't had time to write in this journal for days. Just getting ready to leave was almost impossible-and would have been truly impossible had it not been that most preparations-all the special Terra inoculations and photographs and passports and such-were mostly done before Everything Came Unstuck. But Mother came out of her atavistic daze and was very helpful. She would even let one of the triplets cry for a few moments rather than leave me half pinned up.
I don't know how Clark got ready or whether he had any preparations to make. He continued to creep around silently, answering in grunts if he answered at all. Nor did Uncle Tom seem to find it difficult. I saw him only twice during those frantic ten days (once to borrow baggage mass from his allowance, which he let me have, the dear!) and both times I had to dig him out of the card room at the Elks Club. I asked him how he managed to get ready for so important a trip and still have time to play cards?
"Nothing to it," he answered. "I bought a new toothbrush. Is there something else I should have done?"
So I hugged him and told him he was an utterly utter beast and he chuckled and mussed my hair.
Query: Will I ever become that blasé about space travel? I suppose I must if I am to be an astronaut. But Daddy says that getting ready for a trip is half the fun ... so perhaps I don't want to become that sophisticated.
Somehow Mother delivered me, complete with baggage and all the myriad pieces of paper-tickets and medical records and passport and universal identification complex and guardians' assignment-and-guarantee and three kinds of money and travelers' cheques and birth record and police certification and security clearance and I don't remember-all checked off, to the city shuttle port. I was juggling one package of things that simply wouldn't go into my luggage, and I had one hat on my head and one in my hand; otherwise everything came out even.
(I don't know where that second hat went. Somehow it never got aboard with me. But I haven't missed it.)
Good-bye at the shuttle port was most teary and exciting. Not just with Mother and Daddy, which was to be expected (when Daddy put his arm around me tight, I threw both mine around him and for a dreadful second I didn't want to leave at all), but also because about thirty of my classmates showed up (which I hadn't in the least expected), complete with a banner that two of them were carrying reading:
BON VOYAGE-PODKAYNE
I got kissed enough times to start a fair-sized epidemic if any one of them had had anything, which apparently they didn't. I got kissed by boys who had never even tried to, in the past-and I assure you that
it is not utterly impossible to kiss me, if the project is approached with confidence and finesse, as I believe that one's instincts should be allowed to develop as well as one's overt cortical behavior.
The corsage Daddy had given me for going away got crushed and I didn't even notice it until we were aboard the shuttle. I suppose it was somewhere about then that I lost that hat, but I'll never know-I would have lost the last-minute package, too, if Uncle Tom had not rescued it. There were photographers, too, but not for me-for Uncle Tom. Then suddenly we had to scoot aboard the shuttle right now because a shuttle can't wait; it has to boost on the split second even though Deimos moves so much more slowly than Phobos. A reporter from the War Whoop was still trying to get a statement out of Uncle Tom about the forthcoming Three-Planets conference but he just pointed at his throat and whispered, "Laryngitis"- then we were aboard just before they sealed the airlock.
It must have been the shortest case of laryngitis on record; Uncle Tom's voice had been all right until we got to the shuttle port and it was okay again once we were in the shuttle.
One shuttle trip is exactly like another, whether to Phobos or Deimos. Still, that first tremendous whoosh! of acceleration is exciting as it pins you down into your couch with so much weight that you can't breathe, much less move-and free fall is always strange and eerie and rather stomach fluttering even if one doesn't tend to be nauseated by it, which, thank you, I don't.
Being on Deimos is just like being in free fall, since neither Deimos nor Phobos has enough surface gravitation for one to feel it. They put suction sandals on us before they unstrapped us so that we could walk, just as they do on Phobos. Nevertheless Deimos is different from Phobos for reasons having nothing to do
with natural phenomena. Phobos is, of course, legally a part of Mars; there are no formalities of any sort about visiting it. All that is required is the fare, a free day, and a yen for a picnic in space.
But Deimos is a free port, leased in perpetuity to Three-Planets Treaty Authority. A known criminal, with a price on his head in Marsopolis, could change ships there right under the eyes of our own police- and we couldn't touch him. Instead, we would have to start most complicated legal doings at the Interplanetary High Court on Luna, practically win the case ahead of time and, besides that, prove that the crime was a crime under Three-Planet rules and not just under our own laws ... and then all that we could do would be to ask the Authority's proctors to arrest the man if he was still around-which doesn't seem likely.
I knew about this, theoretically, because there had been about a half page on it in our school course Essentials of Martian Government in the section on "Extraterritoriality." But now I had plenty of time to think about it because, as soon as we left the shuttle, we found ourselves locked up in a room misleadingly called the "Hospitality Room" while we waited until they were ready to "process" us. One wall of the room was glass and I could see lots and lots of people hurrying around in the concourse beyond, doing all manner of interesting and mysterious things. But all we had to do was to wait beside our baggage and grow bored.
I found that I was growing furious by the minute, not at all like my normally sweet and lovable nature. Why, this place had been built by my own mother!- and here I was, caged up in it like white mice in a bio lab.
(Well, I admit that Mother didn't exactly build Deimos; the Martians did that, starting with a spare asteroid that they happened to have handy. But some
millions of years back they grew tired of space travel and devoted all their time to the whichness of what and how to unscrew the inscrutable-so when Mother took over the job, Deimos was pretty run down; she had to start in from the ground up and rebuild it completely.)
In any case, it was certain that everything that I could see through that transparent wall was a product of Mother~s creative, imaginative and hardheaded engineering ability. I began to fume. Clark was off in a corner, talking privately to some stranger-"stranger" to me, at least; Clark, for all his antisocial disposition, always seems to know somebody, or to know somebody who knows somebody, anywhere we go. I sometimes wonder if he is a member of some vast underground secret society; he has such unsavory acquaintances and never brings any of them home.
Clark is, however, a very satisfactory person to fume with, because, if he isn't busy, he is always willing to help a person hate anything that needs hating; he can even dig up reasons why a situation is even more vilely unfair than you thought it was. But he was busy, so that left Uncle Tom. So I explained to him bitterly how outrageous I thought it was that we should be penned up like animals-free Mars citizens on one of Mars' own moons!-simply because a sign read: Passengers must wait until called-by order of ThreePlanets Treaty Authority.
"Politics!" I said bitterly. "I could run it better myself."
"I'm sure you could," he agreed gravely, "but, Flicka, you don't understand."
"I understand all too well!"
"No, honey bun. You understand that there is no good reason why you should not walk straight through that door and enjoy yourself by shopping until it is time to go inboard the Tricorn. And you are right
about that, for there is no need at all for you to be locked up in here when you could be out there making some freeport shopkeeper happy by paying him a high price which seems to you a low price. So you say 'Politics!' as if it were a nasty word-and you think that settles it."
He sighed. "But you don't understand. Politics is not evil; politics is the human race's most magnificent achievement. When politics is good, it's wonderful
and when politics is bad-well, it's still pretty good."
"I guess I don't understand," I said slowly.
"Think about it. Politics is just a name for the way we get things done ... without fighting. We dicker and compromise and everybody thinks he has received a raw deal, but somehow after a tedious amount of talk we come up with some jury-rigged way to do it without getting anybody's head bashed in. That's politics. The only other way to settle a dispute is by bashing a few heads in ... and that is what happens when one or both sides is no longer willing to dicker. That's why I say politics is good even when it is bad
because the only alternative is force-and somebody gets hurt."
"Uh ... it seems to me that's a funny way for a revolutionary veteran to talk. From what I've heard, Uncle Tom, you were one of the bloodthirsty ones who started the shooting. Or so Daddy says."
He grinned. "Mostly I ducked. If dickering won't work, then you have to fight. But I think maybe it takes a man who has been shot at to appreciate how much better it is to fumble your way through a political compromise rather than have the top of your head blown off." He frowned and suddenly looked very old. "When to talk and when to fight- That is the most difficult decision to make wisely of all the decisions in life." Then suddenly he smiled and the years dropped away. "Mankind didn't invent fighting; it was here long
before we were. But we invented politics. Just think of it, hon- Homo sapiens is the most cruel, the most vicious, the most predatory, and certainly the most deadly of all the animals in this solar system. Yet he invented politics! He figured out a way to let most of us, most of the time, get along well enough so that we usually don't kill each other. So don't let me hear you using 'politics' as a swear word again."
"I'm sony, Uncle Tom," I said humbly.
"Like fun you are. But if you let that idea soak for twenty or thirty years, you may- Oh, oh! There's your villain, baby girl-the politically appointed bureaucrat who has most unjustly held you in durance vile. So scratch his eyes out. Show him how little you think of his silly rules."
I answered this with dignified silence. It is hard to tell when Uncle Tom is serious because he loves to pull my leg, always hoping that it will come off in his hand. The Three-Planets proctor of whom he was speaking had opened the door to our bullpen and was looking around exactly like a zookeeper inspecting a cage for cleanliness. "Passports!" he called out. "Diplomatic passports first." He looked us over, spotted Uncle Tom. "Senator?"
Uncle Tom shook his head. "I'm a tourist, thanks."
"As you say, sir. Line up, please-reverse alphabetical order"-which put us near the tail of the line instead of near the head. There followed maddening delays for fully two hours-passports, health clearance, outgoing baggage inspection-Mars Republic does not levy duties on exports but just the same there is a whole long list of things you can't export without a license, such as ancient Martian artifacts (the first explorers did their best to gut the place and some of the most priceless are in the British Museum or the Kremlin; I've heard Daddy fume about it), some things you can't export under any circumstances, such as
certain narcotics, and some things you can take aboard ship only by surrendering them for safekeeping by the purser, such as guns and other weapons.
Clark picked outgoing inspection for some typical abnormal behavior. They had passed down the line copies of a long list of things we must not have in our baggage-a fascinating list; I hadn't known that there were so many things either illegal, immoral, or deadly. When the Fries contingent wearily reached the inspection counter, the inspector said, all in one word:
"Nything-t'-d'clare?" He was a Marsman and as he looked up he recognized Uncle Tom. "Oh. Howdy, Senator. Honored to have you with us. Well, I guess we needn't waste time on your baggage. These two young people with you?"
"Better search my kit," Uncle Tom advised. "I'm smuggling guns to an out-planet branch of the Legion. As for the kids, they're my niece and nephew. But I don't vouch for them; they're both subversive characters. Especially the girl. She was soap-boxing revolution just now while we waited."
The inspector smiled and said, "I guess we can allow you a few guns, Senator-you know how to use them. Well, how about it, kids? Anything to declare?"
I said, "Nothing to declare," with icy dignity-when suddenly Clark spoke up.
"Sure!" he piped, his voice cracking. "Two kilos of happy dust! And whose business is it? I paid for it. I'm not going to let it be stolen by a bunch of clerks." His voice was surly as only he can manage and the expression on his face simply ached for a slap.
That did it. The inspector had been just about to glance into one of my bags, a purely formal inspection, I think-when my brattish brother deliberately stirred things up. At the very word "happy dust" four other inspectors closed in. Two were Venusmen, to judge by
their accents, and the other two might have been from Earth.
Of course, happy dust doesn't matter to us Marsmen. The Martians use it, have always used it, and it is about as important to them as tobacco is to humans, but apparently without any ill effects. What they get out of it I don't know. Some of the old sand rats among us have picked up the habit from the Martians-but my entire botany class experimented with it under our teacher's supervision and nobody got any thrill out of it and all I got was blocked sinuses that wore off before the day was out. Strictly zero squared.
But with the native Venerians it is another matter- when they can get it. It turns them into murderous maniacs and they'll do anything to get it. The (black market) price on it there is very high indeed . .. and possession of it by a human on Venus is at least an automatic life sentence to Saturn's moons.
They buzzed around Clark like angry' jetta wasps.
But they did not find what they were looking for. Shortly Uncle Tom spoke up and said, "Inspector? May I make a suggestion?"
"Eh? Certainly, Senator."
"My nephew, I am sorry to say, has caused a disturbance. Why don't you put him aside-chain him up, I would-and let all these other good people go through?"
The inspector blinked. "I think that is an excellent idea."
"And I would appreciate it if you would inspect myself and my niece now. Then we won't hold up the others."
"Oh, that's not necessary." The inspector slapped seals on all of Uncle's bags, closed the one of mine he had started to open, and said, "I don't need to paw through the young lady's pretties. But I think we'll
take this smart boy and search him to the skin and X-ray him."
"Do that."
So Uncle and I went on and checked at four or five other desks-fiscal control and migration and reservations and other nonsense-and finally wound up with our baggage at the centrifuge for weighing in. I never did get a chance to shop.
To my chagrin, when I stepped off the merry-goround the record showed that my baggage and myself were nearly three kilos over my allowance, which didn't seem possible. I hadn't eaten more breakfast than usual-less actually-and I hadn't drunk any water because, while I do not become ill in free fall, drinking in free fall is very tricky; you are likely to get water up your nose or something and set off an embarrassing chain reaction.
So I was about to protest bitterly that the weight-
master had spun the centrifuge too fast and produced
a false mass reading. But it occurred to me that I did
not know for surely certain that the scales Mother and
I had used were perfectly accurate. So I kept quiet.
Uncle Tom just reached for his purse and said, "How much?"
The weightmaster said, "Mmm ... let's spin you first, Senator."
Uncle Tom was almost two kilos under his allowance. The weightmaster shrugged and said, "Forget it, Senator. I'm minus on a couple of other things; I think I can swallow it. If not, I'll leave a memo with the purser. But I'm fairly sure I can."
"Thank you. What did you say your name was?"
"Mio. Miles M. Milo-Aasvogel Lodge number seventy-four. Maybe you saw our crack drill team at the Legion convention two years ago- I was left pivot."
"I certainly did, I certainly did!" They exchanged that secret grip that they think other people don't
know and Uncle Tom said, "Well, thanks, Miles. Be seeing you."
"Not at all-Tom. No, don't bother with your baggage." Mr. Mio touched a button and called out, "In the Tricorn! Get somebody out here fast for the Senator's baggage."
It occurred to me, as we stopped at the passenger tube sealed to the transfer station to swap our suction sandals for little magnet pads that clipped to our shoes, that we need not have waited for anything at anytime-if only Uncle Tom had been willing to use the special favors he so plainly could demand.
But, even so, it pays to travel with an important person-even though it's just your Uncle Tom whose stomach you used to jump up and down on when you were small enough for such things. Our tickets simply read FIRST CLASS-Im sure, for I saw all three of them-but where we were placed was in what they call the "Owner's Cabin," which is actually a suite with three bedrooms and a living room. I was dazzled!
But I didn't have time to admire it just then. First they strapped our baggage down, then they strapped us down-to seat couches which were against one wall of the living room. That wall plainly should have been the floor, but it slanted up almost vertically with respect to the tiny, not-quite-nothing weight that we had. The warning sirens were already sounding when someone dragged Clark in and strapped him to one of the couches. He was looking mussed up but cocky.
"Hi, smuggler," Uncle Tom greeted him amiably. "They find it on you?"
"Nothing to find."
"That's what I thought. I trust they gave you a rough time."
"Naah!"
I wasn't sure I believed Clark's answer; I've heard that a skin and person search can be made quite
annoying indeed, without doing anything the least bit illegal, if the proctors are feeling unfriendly. A "rough time" would be good for Clark's soul, I am sure-but he certainly did not act as if the experience had caused him any discomfort. I said, "Clark, that was a very foolish remark you made to the inspector. And it was a lie, as well-a silly, useless lie."
"Sign off," he said curtly. "If I'm smuggling anything, it's up to them to find it; that's what they're paid for. 'Any-thing-t'-d'clare?' "he added in a mimicking voice. "What nonsense! As if anybody would declare something he was trying to smuggle."
"Just the same," I went on, "if Daddy had heard you say-"
"Podkayne."
"Yes, Uncle Tom?"
"Table it. We're about to start. Let's enjoy it."
"But- Yes, Uncle."
There was a slight drop in pressure, then a sudden surge that would have slid us out of our couches if we had not been strapped-but not a strong one, not at all like that giant whoosh! with which we had left the surface. It did not last long, then we were truly in free fall for a few moments ... then there started a soft, gentle push in the same direction, which kept on.
Then the room started very slowly to turn around
almost unnoticeable except for a slight dizziness it gave one.
Gradually, gradually (it took almost twenty minutes) our weight increased, until at last we were back to our proper weight ... at which time the floor, which had been all wrong when we came in, was where it belonged, under us, and almost level. But not quite- Here is what had happened. The first short boost was made by the rocket tugs of Deimos Port picking up the Tricorn and hurling her out into a free orbit of her own. This doesn't take much, because the
attraction between even a big ship like the Tricorn and a tiny, tiny satellite such as Deimos isn't enough to matter; all that matters is getting the very considerable mass of the ship shoved free.
The second gentle shove, the one that kept up and never went away, was the ship's own main drive-onetenth of a standard gee. The Tricorn is a constantboost ship; she doesn't dillydally around with economical orbits and weeks and months in free fall. She goes very fast indeed ... because even 0.1 gee adds up awfully fast.
But one-tenth gee is not enough to make comfortable passengers who have been used to more. As soon as the Captain had set her on her course, he started to spin her and kept it up until the centrifugal force and the boost added up (in vector addition, of course) to exactly the surface gravitation of Mars (or 37 percent of a standard gee) at the locus of the first-class staterooms.
But the floors will not be quite level until we approach Earth, because the inside of the ship had been constructed so that the floors would feel perfectly level when the spin and the boost added up to exactly one standard gravity-or Earth-Normal.
Maybe this isn't too clear. Well, it wasn't too clear to me, in school; I didn't see exactly how it worked out until (later) I had a chance to see the controls used to put spin on the ship and how the centrifugal force was calculated. Just remember that the Tricorn- and her sisters, the Trice and the Triad and the Triangulum and the Tricolor are enormous cylinders. The thrust is straight along the main axis; it has to be. Centrifugal force pushes away from the main axis- how else? The two forces add up to make the ship's "artificial gravity" in passenger country-but, since one force (the boost) is kept constant and the other (the spin) can be varied, there can be only one rate of spin
which will add in with the boost to make those floors perfectly level.
For the Tricorn the spin that will produce level floors and exactly one Earth gravity in passenger country is 5.42 revolutions per minute-I know because the Captain told me so.. . and I checked his arithmetic and he was right. The floor of our cabin is just over thirty meters from the main axis of the ship, so it all comes out even.
As soon as they had the floor back under us and had announced the "all clear" I unstrapped me and hurried out. I wanted a quick look at the ship; I didn't even wait to unpack.
There's a fortune awaiting the man who invents a really good deodorizer for a spaceship. That's the one thing you can't fail to notice.
Oh, they try, I grant them that. The air goes through precipitators each time it is cycled; it is washed, it is perfumed, a precise fraction of ozone is added, and the new oxygen that is put in after the carbon dioxide is distilled out is as pure as a baby's mind; it has to be, for it is newly released as a by-product of the photosynthesis of living plants. That air is so pure that it really ought to be voted a medal by the Society for the Suppression of Evil Thoughts.
Besides that, a simply amazing amount of the crew's time is put into cleaning, polishing, washing, sterilizing-oh, they try!
But nevertheless, even a new, extra-fare luxury liner like the Tricorn simply reeks of human sweat and ancient sin, with undefinable overtones of organic decay and unfortunate accidents and matters best forgotten. Once I was with Daddy when a Martian tomb was being unsealed-and I found out why xenoarchaeologists always have gas masks handy. But a spaceship smells even worse than that tomb.
It does no good to complain to the purser. He'll listen with professional sympathy and send a crewman around to spray your stateroom with something which (I suspect) merely deadens your nose for a while. But his sympathy is not real, because the poor man simply cannot smell anything wrong himself. He has lived in ships for years; it is literally impossible for him to smell the unmistakable reek of a ship that has been lived in-and, besides, he knows that the air is pure; the ship's instruments show it. None of the professional spacers can smell it.
But the purser and all of them are quite used to having passengers complain about the "unbearable stench"-so they pretend sympathy and go through the motions of correcting the matter.
Not that I complained. I was looking forward to having this ship eating out of my hand, and you don't accomplish that sort of coup by becoming known first thing as a complainer. But other first-timers did, and I certainly understood why-in fact I began to have a glimmer of a doubt about my ambitions to become skipper of an explorer ship.
But- Well, in about two days it seemed to me that they had managed to clean up the ship quite a bit, and shortly thereafter I stopped thinking about it. I began to understand why the ship's crew can't smell the things the passengers complain about. Their nervous systems simply cancel out the old familiar stinks-like a cybernetic skywatch canceling out and ignoring any object whose predicted orbit has previously been programmed into the machine.
But the odor is still there. I suspect that it sinks right into polished metal and can never be removed, short of scrapping the ship and melting it down. Thank goodness the human nervous system is endlessly adaptable.
* * *
But my own nervous system didn't seem too adaptable during that first hasty tour of the Tricorn; it is a good thing that I had not eaten much breakfast and had refrained from drinking anything. My stomach did give me a couple of bad moments, but I told it sternly that I was busy-I was very anxious to look over the ship; I simply didn't have time to cater to the weaknesses to which flesh is heir.
Well, the Tricorn is lovely all right-every bit as nice as the travel folders say that she is . . . except for that dreadful ship's odor. Her ballroom is gorgeous and so big that you can see that the floor curves to match the ship. . . only it is not curved when you walk across it. It is level, too-it is the only room in the ship where they jack up the floor to match perfectly with whatever spin is on the ship. There is a lounge with a simulated sky of outer space, or it can be switched to blue sky and fleecy clouds. Some old biddies were already in there, gabbling.
The dining saloon is every bit as fancy, but it seemed hardly big enough-which reminded me of the warning in the travel brochure about first and second tables, so I rushed back to our cabin to urge Uncle Tom to make reservations for us quickly before all the best tables were filled.
He wasn't there. I took a quick look in all the rooms and didn't find him-but I found Clark in my room, just closing one of my bags!
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
He jumped and then looked perfectly blank. "I was just looking to see if you had any nausea pills." He said woodenly.
"Well, don't dig into my things! You know better." I came up and felt his cheek; he wasn't feverish. "I don't have any. But I noticed where the surgeon's office is. If you are feeling ill, I'll take you straight there and let him dose you."
He pulled away. "Aw, I'm all right-now."
"Clark Fries, you listerj to me. If you-" But he wasn't listening; he slid past me, ducked into his own room and closed the door; I heard the lock click.
I closed the bag he had opened-and noticed something. It was the bag the inspector had been just about to search when Clark had pulled that silly stunt about "happy dust."
My younger brother never does anything without a reason. Never.
His reasons may be, and often are, inscrutable to others. But if you just dig deeply enough, you will always find that his mind is never a random-choice machine, doing things pointlessly. It is as logical as a calculator-and about as cold.
I now knew why he had made what seemed to be entirely unnecessary trouble for himself at outgoing inspection.
I knew why I had been unexpectedly three kilos over my allowance on the centrifuge.
The only thing I didn't know was: What had he smuggled aboard in my baggage?
And why?
Interlude
Well, Pod, I am glad to see that you've resumed keeping your diary. Not only do I find your girlish viewpoints entertaining but also you sometimes (not often) provide me with useful bits of information.
If I can do anything for you in return, do let me know, Perhaps you would like help in straightening out your grammar? Those incomplete sentences you are so fond of indicate incomplete thinking. You know that, don't you?
For example, let us consider a purely hypothetical case: a delivery robot with an unbeatable seal. Since the seal is in fact unbeatable, thinking about the seal simply leads to frustration. But a complete analysis of the situation leads one to the obvious fact that any cubical or quasi-cubical object has six sides, and that the seal applies to only one of these six sides.
Pursuing this line of thought one may note that, while the quasi cube may not be moved without cutting its connections, the floor under it may be lowered
as much as forty-eight centimeters-if one has all afternoon in which to work.
Were this not a hypothetical case I would now suggest the use of a mirror and light on an extension handle and some around-the-corner tools, plus plenty of patience.
That's what you lack, Pod-patience.
I hope this may shed some light on the matter of the hypothetical happy dust-and do feel free to come to me with your little problems.
Clark kept his stateroom door locked all the time the first three days we were in the Tn corn-I know, because I tried it every time he left the suite.
Then on the fourth day he failed to lock it at a time when it was predictable that he would be gone at least an hour, as he had signed up for a tour of the ship- the parts passengers ordinarily are not allowed in, I mean. I didn't mind missing it myself, for by then I had worked out my own private "Poddy special" escort service. Nor did I have to worry about Uncle Tom; he wasn't making the tour, it would have violated his noexercise rule, but he had acquired new pinochle cronies and he was safely in the smoking room.
Those stateroom door locks are not impossible to pick-not for a girl equipped with a nail file, some bits of this and that, and free run of the purser's office-me, I mean.
But I found I did not have to pick the lock; the catch had not quite caught. I breathed the conventional sigh
of relief, as I figured that the happy accident put me at least twenty minutes ahead of schedule.
I shan't detail the search, but I flatter myself that the Criminal Investigation Bureau could not have done it more logically nor more quickly if limited, as I was, to bare hands and no equipment. It had to be something forbidden by that list they had given us on Deimos-and I had carefully kept and studied my copy. It had to mass slightly over three kilos. It had to bulk so large and be sufficiently fixed in its shape and dimensions that Clark was forced to hide it in baggage-otherwise I am sure he would have concealed it on his person and coldly depended on his youth and "innocence," plus the chaperonage of Uncle Tom, to breeze him through the outgoing inspection. Otherwise he would never have taken the calculated risk of hiding it in my baggage, since he couldn't be sure of recovering it without my knowing.
Could he have predicted that I would at once go sightseeing without waiting to unpack? Well, perhaps he could, even though I had done so on the spur of the moment. I must reluctantly admit that Clark can outguess me with maddening regularity. As an opponent, he is never to be underrated. But still it was for him a "calculated risk," albeit a small one.
Very well. Largish, rather massy, forbidden-but I didn't know what it looked like and I had to assume that anything which met the first two requirements might be disguised to appear innocent.
Ten minutes later I knew that it had to be in one of his three bags, which I had left to the last on purpose as the least likely spots. A stateroom aboard ship has many cover plates, access holes, removable fixtures, and the like, but I had done a careful practice run in my own room; I knew which ones were worth opening, which ones could not be opened without power tools, which ones could not be opened without
leaving unmistakable signs of tampering. I checked these all in great haste, then congratulated Clark on having the good sense not to use such obvious hiding places.
Then I checked everything readily accessible-out in the open, in his wardrobe, etc.-using the classic "Purloined Letter" technique, i.e., I never assumed that a book was a book simply because it looked like a book, nor that a jacket on a hanger was simply that and nothing more.
Null, negative, nothing- Reluctantly, I tackled his three pieces of luggage, first noting carefully exactly how they were stacked and in what order.
The first was empty. Oh, the linings could have been tampered with, but the bag was no heavier than it should have been and any false pocket in the linings could not have held anything large enough to meet the specifications.
The second bag was the same-and the bag on the bottom seemed to be the same ... until I found an envelope in a pocket of it. Oh, nothing nearly mass enough, nor gross enough; just an ordinary envelope for a letter-but nevertheless I glanced at it.
And was immediately indignant!
It had printed on it:
MIsS PODKAYNE FRIES
PASSENGER, S.S. Tricorn
For delivery in ship
Why, the little wretch! He had been intercepting my mail! With fingers trembling with rage so badly that I could hardly do so I opened it-and discovered that it had already been opened and was angrier than ever. But, at least, the note was still inside. Shaking, I pulled it out and read it.
Just six words-
Hi, Pod. Snooping again, I see.
-in Clark's handwriting.
I stood there, frozen, for a long moment, while I blushed scarlet and chewed the bitter realization that I had been hoaxed to perfection-again.
There are only three people in the world who can make me feel stupid-and Clark is two of them.
I heard a throat-clearing sound behind me and whirled around. Lounging in the open doorway (I had left it closed) was my brother. He smiled at me and said, "Hello, Sis. Looking for something? Need any help?"
I didn't waste time pretending that I didn't have jam all over my face; I simply said, "Clark Fries, what did you smuggle into this ship in my baggage?"
He looked blank-a look of malignant idiocy which has been known to drive well-balanced teachers to their therapists. "What in the world are you talking about, Pod?"
"You know what I'm talking about! Smuggling!"
"Oh!" His face lit up in a sunny smile. "You mean those two kilograms of happy dust. Goodness, Sis, is that still worrying you? There never were any two kilos of happy dust; I was just having my little joke with that stuffy inspector. I thought you knew that."
"I do not mean any 'two kilos of happy dust'! I am talking about at least three kilos of something else that you hid in my baggage!"
He looked worried. "Pod, do you feel well?"
"Ooooooh!-dandruffl Clark Fries, you stop that! You know what I mean! When I was centrifuged, my bags and I weighed three kilos over my allowance. Well?"
He looked at me thoughtfully, sympathetically. "It has seemed to me that you were getting a bit fat- but I didn't want to mention it. I thought it was all
this rich food you've been tucking away here in the ship. You really ought to watch that sort of thing, Pod. After all, if a girl lets her figure go to pieces- Well, she doesn't have much else. So I hear.'
Had that envelope been a blunt instrument I would have blunted him. I heard a low growling sound, and realized that I was making it. So I stopped. "Where's the letter that was in this envelope?"
Clark looked surprised. "Why, it's right there, in your other hand."
"This? This is all there was? No letter from somebody else?"
"Why, just that note from me, Sis. Didn't you like it? I thought that it just suited the occasion. .. I knew you would find it your very first chance." He smiled. "Next time you want to paw through my things, let me know and I'll help. Sometimes I have experiments running-and you might get hurt. That can happen to people who aren't very bright and don't look before they leap. I wouldn't want that to happen to you, Sis."
I didn't bandy any more words; I brushed past him and went to my own room and locked the door and bawled.
Then I got up and did very careful things to my face. I know when I'm licked; I don't have to have a full set of working drawings. I resolved never to mention the matter to Clark again.
But what was I to do? Go to the Captain? I already knew the Captain pretty well; his imagination extended as far as the next ballistic prediction and no further. Tell him that my brother had been smuggling something, I didn't know what-and that he had better search the entire ship most carefully, because, whatever it was, it was not in my brother's room? Don't be triple silly, Poddy. In the first place, he would laugh at you; in the second place, you don't want Clark to be caught- Mother and Daddy wouldn't like it.
Tell Uncle Tom about it? He might be just as unbelieving ... or, if he did believe me, he might go to the Captain himself-with just as disastrous results.
I decided not to go to Uncle Tom-at least not yet. Instead I would keep my eyes and ears open and try to find an answer myself.
In any case I did not waste much time on Clark's sins (if any, I had to admit in bare honesty); I was in my first real spaceship-halfway to my ambition thereby-and there was much to learn and do.
Those travel brochures are honest enough, I guess- but they do not give you the full picture.
For example, take this phrase right out of the text of the Triangle Line's fancy folder ... romantic days in ancient Marsopolis, the city older than time; exotic nights under the hurtling moons of Mars
Let's rephrase it into everyday language, shall we? Marsopolis is my hometown and I love it-but it is as romantic as bread and butter with no jam. The parts people live in are new and were designed for function, not romance. As for the ruins outside town (which the Martians never called "Marsopolis"), a lot of high foreheads including Daddy have seen to it that the best parts are locked off so that tourists will not carve their initials in something that was old when stone axes were the last thing in superweapons. Furthermore, Martian ruins are neither beautiful, nor picturesque, nor impressive, to human eyes. The way to appreciate them is to read a really good book with illustrations, diagrams, and simple explanations-such as Daddy's Other Paths Than Ours. (Adv.)
As for those exotic nights, anybody who is outdoors after sundown on Mars other than through sheer necessity needs to have his head examined. It's chilly out there. I've seen Deimos and Phobos at night exactly twice, each time through no fault of my own-
and I was so busy keeping from freezing to death that I wasted no thought on "hurtling moons."
This advertising brochure is just as meticulously accurate and just as deceptive in effect-concerning the ships themselves. Oh, the Tricorn is a palace; I'll vouch for that. It really is a miracle of engineering that anything so huge, so luxurious, so fantastically adapted to the health and comfort of human beings, should be able to "hurtle" (pardon the word) through space.
But take those pictures- You know the ones I mean: full color and depth,
showing groups of handsome young people of both sexes chatting or playing games in the lounge, dancing gaily in the ballroom-or views of a "typical stateroom."
That "typical stateroom" is not a fake. No, it has simply been photographed from an angle and with a lens that makes it look at least twice as big as it is. As for those handsome, gay, young people-well, they aren't along on the trip I'm making. It's my guess that they are professional models.
In the Tricor'n this trip the young and handsome passengers like those in the pictures can be counted on the thumb of one hand. The typical passenger we have with us is a great-grandmother, Terran citizenship, widowed, wealthy, making her first trip into space-and probably her last, for she is not sure she likes it.
Honest, I'm not exaggerating; our passengers look like refugees from a geriatrics clinic. I am not scoffing at old age. I understand that it is a condition I will one day attain myself, if I go on breathing in and out enough times-say about 900,000,000 more times, not counting heavy exercise. Old age can be a charming condition, as witness Uncle Tom. But old age is not an accomplishment; it is just something that happens to you despite yourself, like falling downstairs.
And I must say that I am getting a wee bit tired of having youth treated as a punishable offense.
Our typical male passenger is the same sort, only not nearly so numerous. He differs from his wife primarily in that, instead of looking down his nose at me, he is sometimes inclined to pat me in a "fatherly" way that I do not find fatherly, don't like, avoid if humanly possible-and which nevertheless gets me talked about.
I suppose I should not have been surprised to find the Tnicorn a super-deluxe old folks' home, but (I may as well admit it) my experience is still limited and I was not aware of some of the economic facts of life.
The Tricorn is expensive. It is very expensive. Clark and I would not be in it at all if Uncle Tom had not twisted Dr. Schoenstein's arm in our behalf. Oh, I suppose Uncle Tom can afford it, but, by age group though not by temperament, he fits the defined category. But Daddy and Mother had intended to take us in the Wanderlust, a low-fare, economy-orbit freighter. Daddy and Mother are not poor, but they are not rich-and after they finish raising and educating five children it is unlikely that they will ever be rich.
Who can afford to travel in luxury liners? Ans.: Rich old widows, wealthy retired couples, high-priced executives whose time is so valuable that their corporations gladly send them by the fastest ships-and an occasional rare exception of some other sort.
Clark and I are such exceptions. We have one other exception in the ship, Miss-well, I'll call her Miss Girdle Fitz-Snugglie, because if I used her right name and perchance anybody ever sees this, it would be all too easily recognizable. I think Girdie is a good sort. I don't care what the gossips in this ship say. She doesn't act jealous of me even though it appears that the younger officers in the ship were all her personal property until I boarded-all the trip out from Earth,
I mean. I've cut into her monopoly quite a bit, but she isn't catty to me; she tre~ats me warmly woman-towoman, and I've learned quite a lot about Life and Men from her... more than Mother ever taught me.
(It is just possible that Mother is slightly naïve on subjects that Girdie knows best. A woman who tackles engineering and undertakes to beat men at their own game might have had a fairly limited social life, wouldn't you think? I must study this seriously
because it seems possible that much the same might happen to a female space pilot and it is no part of my Master Plan to become a soured old maid.)
Girdle is about twice my age, which makes her awfully young in this company; nevertheless it may be that I cause her to look just a bit wrinkled around the eyes. Contrariwise, my somewhat unfinished look may make her more mature contours appear even more Helen-of-Troyish. As may be, it is certain that my presence has relieved the pressure on her by giving the gossips two targets instead of one.
And gossip they do. I heard one of them say about her: "She's been in more laps than a napkin!"
If so, I hope she had fun.
Those gay ship's dances in the mammoth ballroom! Like this: they happen every Tuesday and Saturday night, when the ship is spacing. The music starts at 20.30 and the Ladies' Society for Moral Rectitude is seated around the edge of the floor, as if for a wake. Uncle Tom is there, as a concession to me, and very proudsome and distinguished he looks in evening formal. I am there in a party dress which is not quite as girlish as it was when Mother helped me pick it out, in consequence of some very careful retailoring I have done with my door locked. Even Clark attends because there is nothing else going on and he's afraid he might miss something-and looking so nice I'm proud of
him, because he has to climb into his own monkey suit or he can't come to the ball.
Over by the punch bowl are half a dozen of the ship's junior officers, dressed in mess jacket uniforms and looking faintly uncomfortable.
The Captain, by some process known only to him, selects one of the widows and asks her to dance. Two husbands dance with their wives. Uncle Tom offers me his arm and leads me to the floor. Two or three of the junior officers follow the Captain's example. Clark takes advantage of the breathless excitement to raid the punch bowl.
But nobody asks Girdle to dance.
This is no accident. The Captain has given the Word (I have this intelligence with utter certainty through My Spies) that no ship's officer shall dance with Miss Fitz-Snugglie until he has danced at least two dances with other partners-and I am not an "other partner," because the proscription, since leaving Mars, has been extended to me.
This should be proof to anyone that a captain of a ship is, in sober fact, the Last of the Absolute Monarchs.
There are now six or seven couples on the floor and the fun is at its riotous height. The floor will never again be so crowded. Nevertheless nine-tenths of the chairs are still occupied and you could ride a bicycle around the floor without endangering the dancers. The spectators look as if they were knitting at the tumbrels. The proper finishing touch would be a guillotine in the empty space in the middle of the floor.
The music stops; Uncle Tom takes me back to my chair, then asks Girdie to dance-since he is a Cash Customer, the Captain has not attempted to make him toe the mark. But I am still out of bounds, so I walk over to the punch bowl, take a cup out of Clark's
hands, finish it, and say, "Come on, Clark. I'll let you practice on me."
"Aw, it's a waltz!" (Or a "flea hop," or a "chassé," or "five step"-but whatever it is, it is just too utterly impossible.)
"Do it-or I'll tell Madame Grew that you want to dance with her, only you're too shy to ask her."
"You do and I'll trip her! I'll stumble and trip her."
However, Clark is weakening, so I move in fast. "Look, Bub, you either take me out there and walk on my feet for a while-or I'll see to it that Girdle doesn't dance with you at all."
That does it. Clark is in the throes of his first case of puppy love, and Girdle is such a gent that she treats him as an equal and accepts his attentions with warm courtesy. So Clark dances with me. Actually he is quite a good dancer and I have to lead him only a tiny bit. He likes to dance-but he wouldn't want anyone, especially me, to think that he likes to dance with his sister. We don't look too badly matched, since I am short. In the meantime Girdle is looking very good indeed with Uncle Tom, which is quite an accomplishment, as Uncle Tom dances with great enthusiasm and no rhythm. But Girdle can follow anyone-if her partner broke his leg, she would follow, fracturing her own at the same spot. But the crowd is thinning out now; husbands that danced the first dance are too tired for the second and no one has replaced them.
Oh, we have gay times in the luxury liner Tricorn!
Truthfully we do have gay times. Starting with the third dance Girdle and I have our pick of the ship's officers, most of whom are good dancers, or at least have had plenty of practice. About twenty-two o'clock the Captain goes to bed and shortly after that the chaperones start putting away their whetstones and fading, one by one. By midnight there is just Girdie and myself and half a dozen of the younger officers-
and the Purser, who has dutifully danced with every woman and now feels that he owes himself the rest of the night. He is quite a good dancer, for an old man.
Oh, and there is usually Mrs. Grew, too-but she isn't one of the chaperones and she is always nice to Girdie. She is a fat old woman, full of sin and chuckles. She doesn't expect anyone to dance with her but she likes to watch-and the officers who aren't dancing at the moment like to sit with her; she's fun.
About one o'clock Uncle Tom sends Clark to tell me to come to bed or he'll lock me out. He wouldn't but I do-my feet are tired.
Good old Tricorn!
The Captain is slowly increasing the spin of the ship to make the fake gravity match the surface gravitation of Venus, which is 84 percent of one standard gravity or more than twice as much as I have been used to all my life. So, when I am not busy studying astrogation or ship handling, I spend much of my time in the ship's gymnasium, hardening myself for what is coming, for I have no intention of being at a disadvantage on Venus in either strength or agility.
If I can adjust to an acceleration of 0.84 gee, the later transition to the full Earth-normal of one gee should be sugar pie with chocolate frosting. So I think.
I iis~tall~ l,~r~e (J~~ ~VTrI1t~ISiliIT1 ~ili to nivcclf. \Eoct ç~f
passengt'rs are Fart1~ ~neii or \enht~II1en \\ ho feel
need to prepare for the iiea~ V gravitation of Venus.
if th~ dozen-odd Marsmeii I aiii the only one who ani~ to take senouslv the coming burden-and the lociudhil of aliens in the ship we never see; each rtn iiains in his specially conditioned stateroom. The
ship's officers do i~ise the gym; some of them are quite fanatic about keeping fit. But they use it mostly at hours when passengers are not likely to use it.
So, on this day (Ceres thirteenth actually but the Tricorn uses Earth dates and time, which made it March ninth-I don't mind the strange dates but the short Earth day is costing me a half-hour's sleep each night)-on Ceres thirteenth I went charging into the gym, so angry I could spit venom and intending to derive a double benefit by working off my mad (at least to the point where I would not be clapped in irons for assault), and by strengthening my muscles, too.
And found Clark inside, dressed in shorts and with a massy barbell.
I stopped short and blurted out, "What are you doing here?"
He grunted, "Weakening my mind."
Well, I had asked for it; there is no ship's regulation forbidding Clark to use the gym. His answer made sense to one schooled in his devious logic, which I certainly should be. I changed the subject, tossed aside my robe, and started limbering exercises to warm up. "How massy?" I asked.
"Sixty kilos."
I glanced at a weight meter on the wall, a loaded spring scale marked to read in fractions of standard gee; it read 52%. I did a fast rough in my mind-fiftytwo thirty-sevenths of sixty-or unit sum, plus nine hundred over thirty-seven, so add about a ninth, top and bottom for a thousand over forty, to yield twentyfive-or call it the same as lifting eighty-five kilos back home on Mars. "Then why are you sweating?"
"I am not sweating!" He put the barbell down. "Let's see you lift it."
"All right." As he moved I squatted down to raise the barbell-and changed my mind.
Now, believe me, I work out regularly with ninety kilos at home and I had been checkii~ig that weight meter on the wall each day and loading that same barbell to match the weight I use at home, plus a bit extra each day. My objective (hopeless, it is beginning to seem) is eventually to lift as much mass under Venus conditions as I had been accustomed to lifting at home.
So I was certain I could lift sixty kilos at 52 percent of standard gee.
But it is a mistake for a girl to beat a male at any test of physical strength ... even when it's. your brother. Most especially when it's your brother and he has a fiendish disposition and you've suddenly had a glimmering of a way to put his fiendish proclivities to work. As I have said, if you're in a mood to hate something or somebody, Clark is the perfect partner.
So I grunted and strained, making a good show, got it up to my chest, started it on up-and squeaked, "Help me!"
Clark gave a one-handed push at the center of the bar and we got it all the way up. Then I said, "Catch for me," through clenched teeth, and he eased it down. I sighed. "Gee, Clark, you must be getting awful strong."
"Doing all right."
It works; Clark was now as mellow as his nature permits. I suggested companion tumbling-if he didn't mind being the bottom half of the team?-because I wasn't sure I could hold him, not at point-five-two gee
did he mind?
He didn't mind at all; it gave him another chance to be muscular and masculine-and I was certain he could lift me; I massed eleven kilos less than the barbell he had just been lifting. When he was smaller, we used to do quite a bit of it, with me lifting him-it was a way to keep him quiet when I was in charge of
him. Now that he is as big as I am (and stronger, I fear), we still tumble a little, but taking turns at the ground-and-air parts-back home, I mean.
But with my weight almost half again what it ought to be I didn't risk any fancy capers. Presently, when he had me in a simple handstand over his head, I broached the subject on my mind. "Clark, is Mrs. Royer any special friend of yours?"
"Her?" He snorted and added a rude noise. "Why?"
"I just wondered. She-Mmm, perhaps I shouldn't repeat it."
He said, "Look, Pod, you want me to leave you standing on the ceiling?"
"Don't you dare!"
"Then don't start to say something and not finish it."
"All right. But steady while I swing my feet down to your shoulders." He let me do so, then I hopped down to the floor. The worst part about high acceleration is not how much you weigh, though that is bad enough, but how fast you fall-and I suspected that Clark was quite capable of leaving me head downwards high in the air if I annoyed him.
"What's this about Mrs. Royer?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing much. She thinks Marsmen are trash, that's all."
"She does, huh? That makes it mutual."
"Yes. She thinks it's disgraceful that the Line allows us to travel first class-and the Captain certainly ought not to allow us to eat in the same mess with decent people."
"Tell me more."
"Nothing to tell. We're riffraff, that's all. Convicts. You know."
"Interesting. Very, very interesting."
"And her friend Mrs. Garcia agrees with her. But I
suppose I shouldn't have repeated it. After all, they are entitled to their own opinions. Arei~'t they?"
Clark didn't answer, which is a very bad sign. Shortly thereafter he left without a word. In a sudden panic that I might have started more than I intended to, I called after him but he just kept going. Clark is not hard of hearing but he can be very hard of listening.
Well, it was too late now. So I put on a weight harness, then loaded myself down all over until I weighed as much as I would on Venus and started trotting on the treadmill until I was covered with sweat and ready for a bath and a change.
Actually I did not really care what bad luck overtook those two harpies; I simply hoped that Clark's sleightof-hand would be up to its usual high standards so that it could not possibly be traced back to him. Nor even guessed at. For I had not told Clark half of what was said.
Believe you me, I had never guessed, .until we were in the Tri corn, that anyone could despise other persons simply over their ancestry or where they lived. Oh, I had encountered tourists from Earth whose manners left something to be desired-but Daddy had told me that all tourists, everywhere, seem obnoxious simply because tourists are strangers who do not know local customs ... and I believed it, because Daddy is never wrong. Certainly the occasional visiting professor that Daddy brought home for dinner was always charming, which proves that Earthmen do not have to have bad manners.
I had noticed that the passengers in the Tnicorn seemed a little bit stand-offish when we first boarded, but I did not think anything of it. After all, strangers do not run up and kiss you, even on Mars-and we Marsmen are fairly informal, I suppose; we're still a frontier society. Besides that, most passengers had been in the ship at least from Earth; they had already
formed their friendships and cliques. We were like new kids in a strange school.
But I said "Good morning!" to anyone I met in the passageway and if I was not answered I just checked it off to hard-of-hearing-so many of them obviously could be hard of hearing. Anyhow, I wasn't terribly interested in getting chummy with passengers; I wanted to get acquainted with the ship's officers, pilot officers especially, so that I could get some practical experience to chink in what I already knew from reading. It's not easy for a girl to get accepted for pilot training; she has to be about four times as good as a male candidate-and every little bit helps.
I got a wonderful break right away. We were seated at the Captain's table!
Uncle Tom, of course. I am not conceited enough to think that "Miss Podkayne Fries, Marsopolis" means anything on a ship's passenger list (but wait ten years!)-whereas Uncle Tom, even though he is just my pinochle-playing, easygoing oldest relative, is nevertheless senior Senator-at-Large of the Republic, and it is certain that the Marsopolis General Agent for the Triangle Line knows this and no doubt the agent would see to it that the Purser of the Triconn would know it if he didn't already.
As may be-I am not one to scorn gifts from heaven, no matter how they arrive. At our very first meal I started working on Captain Darling. That really is his name, Barrington Babcock Darling-and does his wife call him "Baby Darling"?
But of course a captain does not have a name aboard ship; he is "the Captain," "the Master," "the Skipper," or even "the Old Man" if it is a member of the ship's company speaking not in his august presence. But never a name-simply a majestic figure of impersonal authority.
(I wonder if I will someday be called "the Old
Woman" when I am not in earshot? Somehow it doesn't sound quite the same.)
But Captain Darling is not too majestic or impersonal with me. I set out to impress him with the idea that I was awfully sweet, even younger than I am, terribly impressed by him and overawed ... and not too bright. It does not do to let a male of any age know that one has brains, not on first acquaintance; intelligence in a woman is likely to make a man suspicious and uneasy, much like Caesar's fear of Cassius' "lean and hungry look." Get a man solidly on your side first; after that it is fairly safe to let him become gradually aware of your intellect. He may even feel unconsciously that it rubbed off from his own.
So I set out to make him feel that it was a shame that I was not his daughter. (Fortunately he only has sons.) Before that first meal was over I confided in him my great yearning to take pilot training ... suppressing, of course, any higher ambition.
Both Uncle Tom and Clark could see what I was up to. But Uncle Tom would never give me away and Clark just looked bored and contemptuous and said nothing, because Clark would not bother to interfere with Armageddon unless there was ten percent in it for him.
But I do not mind what my relatives think of my tactics; they work. Captain Darling was obviously amused at my grandiose and "impossible" ambition... but he offered to show me the control room.
Round one to Poddy, on points.
I am now the unofficial ship's mascot, with free run of the control room-and I am almost as privileged in the engineering department. Of course the Captain does not really want to spend hours teaching me the practical side of astrogation. He did show me through the control room and gave me a kindergarten explanation of the work-which I followed with wide-eyed
awe-but his interest in me is purely social. He wants to not-quite hold me in his lap (he is much too practical and too discreet to do anything of the sort!), so I not-quite let him and make it a point to keep up my social relations with him, listening with my best astonished-kitten look to his anecdotes while he feeds me liters of tea. I really am a good listener because you never can tell when you will pick up something useful-and all in the world any woman has to do to be considered "charming" by men is to listen while they talk.
But Captain Darling is not the only astrogator in the ship.
He gave me the run of the control room; I did the rest. The second officer, Mr. Savvonavong, thinks it is simply amazing how fast I pick up mathematics. You see, he thinks he taught me differential equations. Well, he did, when it comes to those awfully complicated ones used in correcting the vector of a constant-boost ship, but if I hadn't worked hard in the supplementary course I was allowed to take last semester, I wouldn't know what he was talking about. Now he is showing me how to program a ballistic computer.
The junior third, Mr. Clancy, is still studying for his unlimited license, so he has all the study tapes and reference books I need and is just as helpful. He is near enough my age to develop groping hands .. . but only a very stupid male will make even an indirect pass unless a girl manages to let him know that it won't be resented, and Mr. Clancy is not stupid and I am very careful to offer neither invitation nor opportunity.
I may kiss him-two minutes before I leave the ship for the last time. Not sooner.
They are all very helpful and they think it is cute of nie to be so dead serious about it. But, in truth, practical astrogation is much harder than I had ever dreamed.
* * *
I had guessed that part of the resentment I sensed- resentment that I could not fail to notice despite my cheery "Good mornings!"-lay in the fact that we were at the Captain's table. To be sure, the Welcome in the Tn corn! booklet in each stateroom states plainly that new seating arrangements are made at each port and that it is the ship's custom to change the guests at the Captain's table each time, making the selections from the new passengers.
But I don't suppose that warning makes it any pleasanter to be bumped, because I don't expect to like it when I'm bumped off the Captain's table at Venus.
But that is only part- Only three of the passengers were really friendly to
me: Mrs. Grew, Girdie, and Mrs. Rover. Mrs. Royer I met first and at first I thought that I was going to like her, in a bored sort of way, as she was awfully friendly and I have great capacity for enduring boredom if it suits my purpose. I met her in the lounge the first day and she immediately caught my eye, smiled, invited me to sit by her, and quizzed me about myself.
I answered her questions, mostly. I told her that Daddy was a teacher and that Mother was raising babies and that my brother and I were traveling with our uncle. I didn't boast about our family; boasting is not polite and it often is not believed-far better to let people find out nice things on their own and hope they won't notice any unnice things. Not that there is anything imnice about i)addv and Mother.
I told her that tun name \Va~ Poddv Fries.
Poddv~ she said. ''I thought I saw something else
the passenger list.''
"Oh. It's really 'Podkavne,' " I explained. "For the \lartian saint. you know."
But she didn't know. She answered, "It seems very odd to give a girl a man's name."
Well, my name is odd, even among Marsmen. But not for that reason. "Possibly," I agreed. "But with Martians gender is rather a matter of opinion, wouldn't you say?"
She blinked. "You're jesting."
I started to explain-how a Martian doesn't select which of three sexes to be until just before it matures
and how, even so, the decision is operative only during a relatively short period of its life.
But I gave up, as I could see that I was talking to a blank wall. Mrs. Royer simply could not imagine any pattern other than her own. So I shifted quickly. "Saint Podkayne lived a very long time ago. Nobody actually knows whether the saint was male or female. There are just traditions."
Of course the traditions are pretty explicit and many living Martians claim descent from Saint Podkayne. Daddy says that we know Martian history of millions of years ago much more accurately than we know human history a mere two thousand years ago. In any case, most Martians include "Podkayne" in their long lists of names (practically genealogies in synopsis) because of the tradition that anyone named for Saint Podkayne can call on him (or "her"-or "it") in time of trouble.
As I have said, Daddy is romantic and he thought it would be nice to give a baby the luck, if any, that is attached to the saint's name. I am neither romantic nor superstitious, but it suits me just fine to have a name that belongs to me and to no other human. I like being Podkayne "Poddy" Fries- It's better than being one of a multitude of Elizabeths, or Dorothys, or such.
But I could see that it simply puzzled Mrs. Royer, so we passed to other matters, speaking from her seniority as an "old space hand," based on her one
just-completed trip out from Earth, she told me a great many things about ships . and space fravel, most of which weren't so, but I indulged her. She introduced me to a number of people and handed me a large quantity of gossip about passengers, ship's officers, et cetera. Between times she filled me in on her aches, pains, and symptoms, what an important executive her son was, what a very important person her late husband had been, and how, when I reached Earth, she really must see to it that I met the Right People. "Perhaps such things don't matter in an outpost like Mars, my dear child, but it is Terribly Important to get Started Right in New York."
I tabbed her as garrulous, stupid, and well intentioned.
But I soon found that I couldn't get rid of her. If I passed through the lounge-which I had to do in order to reach the control room-she would snag me and I couldn't get away short of abrupt rudeness or flat lies.
She quickly started using me for chores. "Podkayne darling, would you mind just slipping around to my stateroom and fetching my mauve wrap? I feel a tiny chill. It's on the bed, I think-or perhaps in the wardrobe-that's a dear." Or, "Poddy child, I've rung and I've rung and the stewardess simply won't answer. Would you get my book and my knitting? Oh, and while you're at it, you might bring me a nice cup of tea from the pantry."
Those things aren't too bad; she is probably creaky in the knees and I'm not. But it went on endlessly... and shortly, in addition to being her personal stewardess, I was her private 'nurse. First she asked me to read her to sleep. "Such a blinding headache and your voice is so soothing, my sweet."
I read to her for an hour and then found myself rubbing her head and temples for almost as long. Oh
well, a person ought to manage a little kindness now and then, just for practice-and Mother sometimes has dreadful headaches when she has been working too hard; I know that a rub does help.:
That time she tried to tip me. I refused it. She insisted. "Now, now, child, don't argue with your Aunt Flossie."
I said, "No, really, Mrs. Royer. If you want to give it to the fund for disabled spacemen as a thank-you, that's all right. But I can't take it."
She said pish and tosh and tried to shove it into my pocket. So I slid out and went to bed.
I didn't see her at breakfast; she always has a tray in her room. But about midmorning a stewardess told me that Mrs. Royer wanted to see me in her room. I was hardly gruntled at the summons, as Mr. Savvonavong had told me that if I showed up just before ten during his watch, I could watch the whole process of a ballistic correction and he would explain the steps to me. If she wasted more than five minutes of my time, I would be late.
But I called on her. She was as cheery as ever. "Oh, there you are, darling! I've been waiting ever so long! That stupid stewardess- Poddy dear, you did such wonders for my head last night ... and this morning I find that I'm positively crippled with my back. You can't imagine, dear; it's ghastly! Now if you'll just be an angel and give me a few minutes massage-oh, say a half hour-I'm sure it'll do wonders for me. You'll find the cream for it over there on the dressing table, I think ... And now, if you'll just help me slide out of this robe . .
"Mrs. Royer-"
"Yes, dear? The cream is in that big pink tube. Use just-"
"Mrs. Royer, I can't do it. I have an appointment."
"What, dear? Oh, tosh, let them wait. No one is
ever on time aboard ship. Perhaps you had better warm your hands before-'
"Mrs. Royer, I am not going to do it. If something is wrong with your back, I shouldn't touch it; I might injure you. But I'll take a message to the Surgeon if you like and ask him to come see you."
Suddenly she wasn't at all cheery. "You mean you won't do it!"
"Have it your way. Shall I tell the Surgeon?"
"Why, you impertinent-Get out of here!"
I got.
I met her in a passageway on my way to lunch. She stared straight through me, so I dldn t speak either. She was walking as nimbly as I was; I guess her back had taken a turn for the better. I saw her twice more that day and twice more she simply couldn't see me.
The following morning I was using the viewer in the lounge to scan one of Mr. Clancy's study tapes, one on radar approach and contact. The viewer is off in a corner, behind a screen of fake potted palms, and perhaps they didn't notice me. Or perhaps they didn't care.
I stopped the scan to give my eyes and ears a rest, and heard Mrs. Garcia talking to Mrs. Royer.
"... that I simply can't stand about Mars is that it is so commercialized. Why couldn't they have left it primitive and beautiful?"
MRS. ROYER: "What can you expect? Those dreadful people!"
The ship's official language is Ortho but many passengers talk English among themselves-and often act as if no one else could possibly understand it. These two weren't keeping their voices down. I went on listening.
MRS. GARCIA: "Just what I was saying to Mrs. Rimski. After all, they're all criminals."
MRS. ROYER: "Or worse. Have you noticed that
little Martian girl? The niece_-or so they claim-of that big black savage?"
I counted ten backwards in Old Martian and reminded myself of the penalty for murder. I didn't mind being called a "Martian." They didn't know any better, and anyhow, it's no insult; the Martians were civilized before humans learned to walk. But "big black savage"!- Uncle Tom is as dark as I am blond; his Maori blood and desert tan make him the color of beautiful old leather . . . and I love the way he looks. As for the rest-he is learned and civilized and gentle . . . and highly honored wherever he goes.
MRS. GARCIA: "I've seen her. Common, I would say. Flashy but cheap. A type that attracts a certain sort of man."
MRS. ROYER: "My dear, you don't know the half of it. I've tried to help her-I really felt sorry for her, and I always believe in being gracious, especially to one's social inferiors."
MRS. GARCIA: "Of course, dear."
MRS. ROYER: "I tried to give her a few hints as to proper conduct among gentle people. Why, I was even paying her for little trifles, so that she wouldn't be uneasy among her betters. But she's an utterly ungrateful little snip-she thought she could squeeze more money out of me. She was rude about it, so rude that I feared for my safety. I had to order her out of my room, actually."
MRS. GARCIA: "You were wise to drop her. Blood will tell-bad blood or good blood-blood will always tell. And mixed blood is the Very Worst Sort. Criminals to start with ... and then that Shameless Mixing of Races. You can see it right in that family. The boy doesn't look a bit like his sister, and as for the unclehmmm- My dear, you halfway hinted at something.
Do you suppose that she is not his niece but something, shall we say, a bit closer?"
MRS. ROYER: "I wouldn't put it past one of them!" MRS. GARCIA: "Oh, come, 'fess up, Flossie. Tell me what you found out."
MRS. ROYER: "I didn't say a word. But I have eyes-and so have you."
MRS. GARCIA: "Right in front of everyone!"
MRS. ROYER: "What I can't understand is why the Line permits them to mix with us. Perhaps they have to sell them passage-treaties or some such nonsense-but we shouldn't be forced to associate with them ... and certainly not to eat with them!"
MRS. GARCIA: "I know. I'm going to write a very strong letter about it as soon as I get home. There are limits. You know, I had thought that Captain Darling was a gentleman ... but when I saw those creatures actually seated at the Captain's table . . . well, I didn't believe my eyes. I thought I would faint."
MRS. ROYER: "I know. But after all, the Captain does come from Venus."
MRS. GARCIA: "Yes, but Venus was never a prison colony. That boy ... he sits in the very chair I used to sit in, right across from the Captain."
(I made a mental note to ask the Chief Steward for a different chair for Clark; I didn't want him contaminated.)
After that they dropped us "Martians" and started dissecting Girdle and complaining about the food and the service, and even stuck pins in some of their shipboard coven who weren't present. But I didn't listen:
I simply kept quiet and prayed for strength to go on doing so, because if I had made my presence known I feel sure that I would have stabbed them both with their own knitting needles.
Eventually they left-to rest a while to fortiI~' themselves for lunch-and I rushed out and changed into
my gym suit and hurried to the gymnasium to work up a good sweat instead of engaging in violent crime.
It was there that I found Clark and told him just enough-or maybe too much.
Mr. Savvonavong tells me that we are likely to have a radiation storm almost any time now and that we'll have an, emergency drill today to practice for it. The solar weather station on Mercury reports that "flare" weather is shaping up and has warned all ships in space and all manned satellites to be ready for it. The flares are expected to continue for about- Wups! The emergency alarm caught me in the middle of a sentence. We've had our drill and I think the Captain has all the passengers properly scared now. Some ignored the alarm, or tried to, whereupon crewmen in heavy armor fetched them. Clark got fetched. He was the very last they tracked down, and Captain Darling gave him a public scolding that was a work of art and finished by warning Clark that if he failed to be the first passenger to reach shelter the next time the alarm sounded, Clark could expect to spend the rest of the trip in the shelter, twenty-four hours of the day, instead of having free run of passenger country.
Clark took it with his usual wooden face, but I think it hit home, especially the threat to confine him. I'm sure the speech impressed the other passengers; it was the sort that raises blisters at twenty paces. Perhaps the Captain intended it mostly for their benefit.
Then the Captain changed his tone to that of a patient teacher and explained in simple words what we could expect, why it was necessary to reach shelter at once even if one were taking a bath, why we would be perfectly safe if we did.
The solar flares trigger radiation, he told us, quite ordinary radiation, much like X-rays ("and other sorts," I mentally added), the sort of radiation which is found in space at all times. But the intensity reaches levels from a thousand to ten thousand times as high as "normal" space radiation-and, since we are already inside the orbit of Earth, this is bad medicine indeed; it would kill an unprotected man about as quickly as shooting him through the head.
Then he explained why we would not require a thousand to ten thousand times as much shielding in order to be safe. It's the cascade principle. The outer hull stops over 90 percent of any radiation; then comes the "cofferdam" (cargo holds and water tanks) which absorbs some more; then comes the inner hull which is actually the floor of the cylinder which is first-class passenger country.
This much shielding is plenty for all normal conditions; the radiation level in our staterooms is lower than it is at home, quite a lot lower than it is most places on Earth, especially in the mountains. (I'm looking forward to seeing real mountains. Scary!)
Then one day comes a really bad storm on the Sun and the radiation level jumps suddenly to 10,000 times
normal-and you could get a killing dose right in your own bed and wake up dying.
No trouble. The emergehcy shelter is at the center of the ship, four shells farther in, each of which stops more than 90 percent of what hits it. Like this:
10,000
1,000 (after the first inner shell, the ceiling of passenger country.)
100 (after the second inner shell)
10 (third)
1 (fourth-and you're inside the shelter)
But actually the shielding is better than that and it is safer to be in the ship's shelter during a bad solar storm than it is to be in Marsopolis.
The only trouble is-and no small matter-the shelter space is the geometrical core of the ship, just abaft the control room and not a whole lot bigger; passengers and crew are stacked into it about as intimately as puppies in a basket. My billet is a shelf space half a meter wide, half a meter deep, and just a trifle longer than I am-with other females brushing my elbows on each side of me. I am not a claustrophobe, but a coffin would be roomier.
Rations are canned ones, kept there against emergencies; sanitary facilities can only be described as "dreadful." I hope this storm is only a solar squall and is followed by good weather on the Sun. To finish the trip to Venus in the shelter would turn a wonderful experience into a nightmare.
The Captain finished by saying, "We will probably have five to ten minutes' warning from Hermes Station. But don't take five minutes getting here. The instant the alarm sounds head for the shelter at once as fast as possible. If you are not dressed, be sure you have clothes ready to grab-and dress when you get
here. If you stop to worry about anything, it may kill you.
"Crewmen will search all passenger spaces the moment the alarm sounds-and each one is ordered to use force to send to shelter any passenger who fails to move fast. He won't argue with you-he'll hit you, kick you, drag you-and I'll back him up.
"One last word. Some of you have not been wearing your personal radiation meters. The law permits me to levy a stiff fine for such failure. Ordinarily I overlook such technical offenses-it's your health, not mine. But during this emergency, this regulation will be enforced. Fresh personal meters are now being passed out to each of you; old ones will be turned over to the Surgeon, examined, and exposures entered in your records for future guidance."
He gave the "all clear" order then and we all went back down to passenger country, sweaty and mussed- at least I was. I was just washing my face when the alarm sounded again, and I swarmed up those four decks like a frightened cat.
But I was only a close second. Clark passed me on the way.
It was just another drill. This time all passengers were in the shelter within four minutes. The Captain seemed pleased.
I've been sleeping raw but I'm going to wear pajamas tonight and all nights until this is over, and leave a robe where I can grab it. Captain Darling is a darling but I think he means exactly what he says-and I won't play Lady Godiva; there isn't a horse in the whole ship.
Neither Mrs. Royer nor Mrs. Garcia were at dinner this evening, although they were both amazingly agile both times the alarm sounded. They weren't in the lounge after dinner; their doors are closed,
and I saw the Surgeon coming out of Mrs. Garcia's room.
I wonder. Surely Clark' wouldn't poison them? Or would he? I don't dare ask him because of the remote possibility that he might tell me.
I don't want to ask the Surgeon, either, because it might attract attention to the Fries family. But I surely would like to have ESP sight (if there truly is such a thing) long enough to find out what is behind those two closed doors.
I hope Clark hasn't let his talents run away with him. Oh, I'm as angry at those two as ever. . . because there is just enough truth in the nasty things they said to make it hurt. I am of mixed races and I know that some people think that is bad, even though there is no bias against it on Mars. I do have "convicts" among my ancestors-but I've never been ashamed of it. Or not much, although I suppose I'm inclined to dwell more on the highly selected ones. But. a "convict" is not always a criminal. Admittedly there was that period in the early history of Mars when the commissars were running things on Earth, and Mars was used as a penal colony; everybody knows that and we don't try to hide
it.
But the vast majority of the transportees were political prisoners-"counterrevolutionists," "enemies of the people." Is this bad?
In any case there was the much longer period, involving fifty times as many colonists, when every new Marsman was selected as carefully as a bride selects her wedding gown and much more scientifically. And finally, there is the current period, since our Revolution and Independence, when we dropped all bars to immigration and welcome anyone who is healthy and has normal intelligence.
No, I'm not ashamed of my ancestors or my people, whatever their skin shades or backgrounds; I'm proud
of them. It makes me boiling mad to hear anyone sneer at them. Why, I'll bet those two couldn't qualify for permanent visa even under our present "open door" policy! Feeble-minded- But I do hope Clark hasn't done anything too drastic. I wouldn't want Clark to have to spend the rest of his life on Titan; I love the little wretch.
Sort of.