“What did he say?”
Hazel took over. “I’m going to cut his gizzard out. I reminded him that he had promised to take care of us when you two got down. He looked saintly and pointed out that he had given us two more cots. Lowell, quit feeding that mop with your own spoon!”
“Yes, Grandma Hazel. May I borrow yours?”
“No. But he did say that we could have the flat the Burkhardts are in, come Venus departure. It has one more cubicle.”
“Better,” agreed Roger Stone, “but hardly a ballroom—and Venus departure is still three weeks away. Edith, we should have kept our nice room in the War God. How about it, Van? Want some house guests? Until you blast for Venus, that is?”
“Certainly.”
“Daddy! You wouldn’t go away again?”
“I’m joking, snub nose.”
“I wasn’t,” answered the liner’s captain. “Until Venus departure—or all the way to Venus and then back to Luna, if you choose. I got official approval of my recommendation this afternoon; you two can drag free in the War God until death or decommission do you part. How about it? Come on to Venus with me?”
“We’ve been to Venus,” announced Meade. “Gloomy place.”
“Whether they take you up or not,” Hazel commented, “that’s quite a concession to get out of Four-Planets. Ordinarily that bunch of highbinders wouldn’t give away a bucketful of space.”
“They were afraid of the award an admiralty court might hand out,” Vandenbergh said drily. “Speaking of courts, I understand you put on a brilliant defense today, Hazel. Are you a lawyer, along with your other accomplishments?”
“No,” answered her son, “but she’s a fast talker.”
“Who’s not a lawyer?”
“You aren’t.”
“Of course I am!”
“When and where? Be specific.”
“Years and years ago, back in Idaho—before you were born. I just never got around to mentioning it.”
Her son looked her over. “Hazel, it occurs to me that the records in Idaho are conveniently far away.”
“None of your sass, boy. Anyway, the courthouse burned down.”
“I thought as much.”
“In any case,” Vandenbergh put in soothingly, “Hazel got the boys off. When I heard about it, I expected that they would have to pay the duty at least. You young fellows must have made quite a tidy profit.”
“We did all right,” Castor admitted.
“Nothing spectacular,” Pollux hedged.
“Figure it up,” Hazel said happily, “because I am going to collect a fee from you of exactly two-thirds your net profit for getting your necks out of a bight.”
The twins stared at her. “Hazel, you wouldn’t?” Castor said uncertainly.
“Wouldn’t I!”
“Don’t tease them, Mother,” Dr. Stone suggested.
“I’m not teasing. I want this to be a lesson to them. Boys, anybody who sits in a game without knowing the house rules is a sucker. Time you knew it.”
Vandenbergh put in smoothly, “It doesn’t matter too much these days when the government—” He stopped suddenly. “What in the world!”
“What’s the matter, Van?” demanded Roger.
Vandenbergh’s face cleared and he grinned sheepishly. “Nothing. Just your flat cat, crawling up my leg. For a moment I thought I had wandered into your television show.”
Roger Stone shook his head. “Not mine, Hazel’s. And it wouldn’t have been a flat cat; it would have been human gore.”
Captain Vandenbergh picked up Fuzzy Britches, stroked it, then returned it to Lowell. “It’s a Martian,” announced Lowell.
“Yes?”
Hazel caught his attention. “The situation has multifarious ramifications not immediately apparent to the unassisted optic. This immature zygote holds it as the ultimate desideratum to consort with the dominate aborigine of the trifurcate variety. Through a judicious use of benign mendacity, Exhibit ‘A’ performs as a surrogate in spirit if not in letter. Do you dig me, boy?”
Vandenbergh blinked. “I think so. Perhaps it’s just as well. They are certainly engaging little pets—though I wouldn’t have one in any ship of mine. They—”
“She means,” Lowell explained, “that I want to see a Martian with legs. I still do. Do you know one?”
Hazel said, “Coach, I tried, but they were too big for me.”
Captain Vandenbergh stared at Lowell. “He’s quite serious about it, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid he is.”
He turned to Dr. Stone. “Ma’am, I’ve fair connections around here and these things can always be arranged, in spite of treaties. Of course, there would be a certain element of danger—not much in my opinion.”
Dr. Stone answered, “Captain, I have never considered danger to be an evaluating factor.”
“Um, no, you wouldn’t, ma’am. Shall I try it?”
“If you would be so kind.”
“It will pay interest on my debt. I’ll let you know.” He dismissed the matter and turned again to the twins. “What profit-tax classification does your enterprise come under?”
“Profit tax?”
“Haven’t you figured it yet?”
“We didn’t know there was one.”
“I can see you haven’t done much importing and exporting, not on Mars anyhow. If you are a Commonwealth citizen, it all goes into income tax, of course. But if you come from out planet, you pay a single-shot tax on each transaction. Better find yourself a tax expert; the formula is somewhat complicated.”
“We won’t pay it!” said Pollux.
His father answered quietly, “Haven’t you two been in jail enough lately?”
Pollux shut up. For the next few minutes they exchanged glances, whispers, and shrugs. Presently Castor stood up. “Dad, Mother—may we be excused?”
“Certainly. If you can manage to squeeze out.”
“No dessert, boys?”
“We aren’t very hungry.”
They went into town, to return an hour later not with a tax expert but with a tax guide they had picked up at the Chamber of Commerce. The adults were still seated in the general room, chatting; the table had been folded up to the ceiling. They threaded through the passageway of knees into their cubicle; they could be heard whispering in there from time to time.
Presently they came out. “Excuse us, folks. Uh, Hazel?”
“What is it, Cas?”
“You said your fee was two-thirds of our net.”
“Huh? Did your leg come away in my hand, chum? I wouldn’t—”
“Oh, no, we’d rather pay it.” He reached out, dropped half a dozen small coins in her hand. “There it is.”
She looked at it. “This is two-thirds of all you made on the deal?”
“After taxes.”
“Of course,” added Pollux, “it wasn’t a total loss. We had the use of the bicycles for a couple of hundred million miles.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FLAT CATS FACTORIAL
VANDENBERGH MADE GOOD
his offer. Lowell and he went by stratorocket to the treaty town of Richardson, were gone about three days. When Lowell came back he had seen a Martian, he had talked with one. But he had been cautioned not to talk about it and his family could get no coherent account out of him.
But the simple matter of housing was more difficult than the presumably impossible problem of meeting a Martian. Roger Stone had had no luck in finding larger and more comfortable quarters, even after he had resigned himself to fantastic rentals. The town was bursting with tourists and would be until Venus departure, at which time those taking the triangular trip would leave—a majority, in fact. In the meantime they crowded the restaurants, took pictures of everything including each other, and ran their bicycles over the toes of pedestrians. Further packing a city already supersaturated were sand rats in from the desert and trying to arrange some way, any way, to get out to the Hallelujah Node in the Asteroid Belt.
Dr. Stone said one night at dinner, “Roger, tomorrow is rent day. Shall I pay it for a full month? Mr. d’Avril says that the Burkhardts are talking about staying on.”
“Pay it for six days only,” Hazel advised. “We can do better than this after Venus departure—I hope.”
Roger Stone looked up and scowled. “Look here, why pay the rent at all?”
“What are you saying, dear?”
“Edith, I’ve been chewing this over in my mind. When we first came here our plans, such as they were, called for living here through one wait.” He referred to the fifteen months elapsed time from arrival Mars to Earth departure from Mars, using the economical orbits. “Then we planned to shape orbit home. Fair enough, if this overrated tourist trap had decent housing. But I haven’t been able to start writing my book. When Buster isn’t climbing into my lap, his pet is slithering down the back of my neck.”
“What do you suggest, dear?”
“Go to Phobos tomorrow, get the old Rock ready to go, and blast for Venus when the others do.”
“Loud cheers!” agreed Meade. “Let’s go!”
Dr. Stone said, “Meade, I thought you didn’t like Venus?”
“I don’t. But I don’t like it here and I’m tired all the time. I’d like to get back into free fall.”
“You shouldn’t be tired. Perhaps I had better check you over.”
“Oh, Mother, I’m perfectly well! I don’t want to be poked at.”
Lowell grinned. “I know why she wants to go to Venus. Mr. Magill.”
“Don’t be a snoop, Snoop!” Meade went on with quiet dignity, “In case anyone is interested, I am not interested in Second Officer Magill—and I wouldn’t be going in the Caravan in any case. Besides, I found out he already has a wife in Colorado.”
Hazel said, “Well, that’s legal. He’s still eligible off Earth.”
“Perhaps it is, but I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” Roger Stone cut in. “Meade, you weren’t really getting interested in this wolf in ship’s clothing, were you?”
“Of course not, Daddy!” She added, “But I suppose I’ll get married one of these days.”
“That’s the trouble with girls,” Castor commented. “Give them educations—boom! They get married. Wasted.”
Hazel glared at them. “Oh, so? Where would you be if I hadn’t married?”
“It didn’t happen that way,” Roger Stone cut in, “so there is no use talking about other possibilities. They probably aren’t really possibilities at all, if only we understood it.”
Pollux: “Predestination.”
Castor: “Very shaky theory.”
Roger grinned. “I’m not a determinist and you can’t get my goat. I believe in free will.”
Pollux: “Another very shaky theory.”
“Make up your minds,” their father told them. “You can’t have it both ways.”
“Why not?” asked Hazel. “Free will is a golden thread running through the frozen matrix of fixed events.”
“Not mathematical,” objected Pollux.
Castor nodded. “Just poetry.”
“And not very good poetry.”
“Shut up!” ordered their father. “Boys, it’s quite evident that you have gone to considerable trouble to change the subject. Why?”
The twins swapped glances; Castor got the go-ahead. “Uh, Dad, the way we see it, this Venus proposition hasn’t been thought out.”
“Go on. I suppose you have an alternative suggestion?”
“Well, yes. But we didn’t mean to bring it up until after Venus departure.”
“I begin to whiff something. What you mean is that you intended to wait until the planetary aspects were wrong—too late to shape orbit for Venus.”
“Well, there was no use in letting the matter get cluttered up with a side issue.”
“What matter? Speak up.”
Castor said worriedly, “Look, Dad, we aren’t unreasonable. We can compromise. How about this: you and Mother and Buster and Meade go to Venus in the War God. Captain Van would love to have you do it—you know that. And—”
“Slow up. And what would you be doing? And Hazel? Mother, are you in on this?”
“Not that I know of. But I’m getting interested.”
“Castor, what’s on your mind? Speak up.”
“Well, I will if you’ll just let me, sir. You and the rest of the family could have a pleasant trip back home—in a luxury liner. Hazel and Pol and I—well, I suppose you know that Mars will be in a favorable position for the Hallelujah Node in about six weeks?”
“For a cometary-type orbit, that is,” Pollux added.
“So it’s the Asteroids again,” their father said slowly. “We settled that about a year ago.”
“But we’re a year older now.”
“More experienced.”
“You’re still not old enough for unlimited licenses. I suppose that is why you included your grandmother.”
“Oh, no! Hazel is an asset.”
“Thank you, boys.”
“Hazel, you had no inkling of this latest wild scheme?”
“No. But I don’t think it’s so wild. I’m caught up and then some on my episodes—and I’m tired of this place. I’ve seen the Martian ruins; they’re in a poor state of repair. I’ve seen a canal; it has water in it. I understand that the rest of the planet is much the same, right through to chapter eighty-eight. And I’ve seen Venus. I’ve never seen the Asteroids.”
“Right!” agreed Castor. “We don’t like Mars. The place is one big clip joint.”
“Sharp operators,” added Pollux.
“Sharper than you are, you mean,” said Hazel.
“Never mind, Mother. Boys, it is out of the question. I brought my ship out from Luna; I intend to take her back.” He stood up. “You can give Mr. d’Avril notice, dear.”
“Dad!”
“Yes, Castor?”
“That was just a compromise offer. What we really hoped you would do—what we wanted you to do—was for all of us to go out to the Hallelujah.”
“Eh? Why, that’s silly! I’m no meteor miner.”
“You could learn to be. Or you could just go for the ride. And make a profit on it, too.”
“Yes? How?”
Castor wet his lips. “The sand rats are offering fabulous prices just for cold-sleep space. We could carry about twenty of them, at least. And we could put them down on Ceres on the way, let them outfit there.”
“Cas! I suppose you are aware that only seven out of ten cold-sleep passengers arrive alive in a long orbit?”
“Well…they know that. That’s the risk they are taking.”
Roger Stone shook his head. “We aren’t going, so I won’t have to find out if you are as cold-blooded as you sound. Have you ever seen a burial in space?”
“No, sir.”
“I have. Let’s hear no more about cold-sleep freight.”
Castor passed it to Pollux, who took over: “Dad, if you won’t listen to us all going, do you have any objections to Cas and me going?”
“Eh? How do you mean?”
“As Asteroid miners, of course. We’re not afraid of cold-sleep. If we haven’t got a ship, that’s how we would have to go.”
“Bravo!” said Hazel. “I’m going with you, boys.”
“Please, Mother!” He turned to his wife. “Edith, I sometimes wonder if we brought the right twins back from the hospital.”
“They may not be yours,” said Hazel, “but they are my grandsons, I’m sure of that. Hallelujah, here I come! Anybody coming with me?”
Dr. Stone said quietly, “You know, dear, I don’t much care for Venus, either. And it would give you leisure for your book.”
The Rolling Stone shaped orbit from Phobos outward bound for the Asteroids six weeks later. This was no easy lift like the one from Luna to Mars; in choosing to take a “cometary” or fast orbit to the Hallelujah the Stones had perforce to accept an expensive change-of-motion of twelve a
nd a half miles per second for the departure maneuver. A fast orbit differs from a maximum-economy orbit in that it cuts the orbit being abandoned at an angle instead of being smoothly tangent to it…much more expensive in reaction mass. The far end of the cometary orbit would be tangent to the orbit of the Hallelujah; matching at that point would be about the same for either orbit; it was the departure from Phobos-circum-Mars that would be rugged.
The choice of a cometary orbit was not a frivolous one. In the first place, it would have been necessary to wait more than one Earth year for Mars to be in the proper relation, orbit-wise, with the Hallelujah Node for the economical orbit; secondly, the travel time itself would be more than doubled—five hundred and eighty days for the economical orbit versus two hundred and sixty-one days for the cometary orbit (a mere three days longer than the Luna-Mars trip).
Auxiliary tanks for single-H were fitted around the Stone’s middle, giving her a fat and sloppy appearance, but greatly improving her mass-ratio for the ordeal. Port Pilot Jason Thomas supervised the refitting; the twins helped. Castor got up his nerve to ask Thomas how he had managed to conn the Stone in to a landing on their arrival. “Did you figure a ballistic before you came aboard, sir?”
Thomas put down his welding torch. “A ballistic? Shucks, no, son, I’ve been doing it so long that I know every little bit of space hereabouts by its freckles.”
Which was all the satisfaction Cas could get out of him. The twins talked it over and concluded that piloting must be something more than a mathematical science.
In addition to more space for single-H certain modifications were made inside the ship. The weather outside the orbit of Mars is a steady “clear but cold”; no longer would they need reflecting foil against the Sun’s rays. Instead one side of the ship was painted with carbon black and the capacity of the air-heating system was increased by two coils. In the control room a time-delay variable-baseline stereoscopic radar was installed by means of which they would be able to see the actual shape of the Hallelujah when they reached it.
All of which was extremely expensive and the Galactic Overlord had to work overtime to pay for it. Hazel did not help with the refitting. She stayed in her room and ground out, with Lowell’s critical help, more episodes in the gory but virtuous career of Captain John Sterling—alternating this activity with sending insulting messages and threats of blackmail and/or sit-down strike to her producers back in New York; she wanted an unreasonably large advance and she wanted it right now. She got it, by sending on episodes equal to the advance. She had to write the episodes in advance anyhow; this time the Rolling Stone would be alone, no liners comfortably near by. Once out of radio range of Mars, they would not be able to contact Earth again until Ceres was in range of the Stone’s modest equipment. They were not going to Ceres but would be not far away; the Hallelujah was riding almost the same orbit somewhat ahead of that tiny planet.