The Rolling Stones

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “Very well. In the first place, spaceships do not make hundred-and-eighty-degree turns.”

  “This one does!”

  “In the second place, what in blazes is this ‘Galactic Overlord’ nonsense? When did he creep in?”

  “Oh, that! Son, your show was dying on its feet, so I gave it a transfusion.”

  “But ‘Galactic Overlords’—now, really! It’s not only preposterous; it’s been used over and over again.”

  “Is that bad? Next week I’m going to equip Hamlet with atomic propulsion and stir it in with The Comedy of Errors. I suppose you think Shakespeare will sue me?”

  “He will if he can stop spinning.” Roger Stone shrugged. “I’ll send it in. There’s no time left to do another one and the contract doesn’t say it has to be good; it just says I have to deliver it. They’ll rewrite it in New York anyway.”

  His mother answered, “Even money says your fan mail is up twenty-five per cent on this episode.”

  “No, thank you. I don’t want you wearing yourself out writing fan mail—not at your age.”

  “What’s wrong with my age? I used to paddle you twice a week and I can still do it. Come on; put up your dukes!”

  “Too soon after breakfast.”

  “Sissy! Pick your way of dying—Marquis of Queensbury, dockside, or kill-quick.”

  “Send around your seconds; let’s do this properly. In the meantime—” He turned to his sons. “Boys, have you any plans for today?”

  Castor glanced at his brother, then said cautiously, “Well, we were thinking of doing a little more shopping for ships.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  Pollux looked up sharply. “You mean we get the money?” His brother glared at him. Their father answered, “No, your money stays in the bank—where it belongs.”

  “Then why bother to shop?” He got an elbow in the ribs for this remark.

  “I’m interested in seeing what the market has to offer,” Mr. Stone answered. “Coming, Edith?”

  Dr. Stone answered, “I trust your judgment, my dear.”

  Hazel gulped more coffee and stood up. “I’m coming along.”

  Buster bounced down out of his chair. “Me, too!”

  Dr. Stone stopped him. “No, dear. Finish your oatmeal.”

  “No! I’m going, too. Can’t I, Grandma Hazel?”

  Hazel considered it. Riding herd on the child outside the pressurized city was a full-time chore; he was not old enough to be trusted to handle his vacuum-suit controls properly. On this occasion she wanted to be free to give her full attention to other matters. “I’m afraid not, Lowell. Tell you what, sugar, I’ll keep my phone open and we’ll play chess while I’m away.”

  Buster clouded up. “It’s no fun to play chess by telephone. I can’t tell what you are thinking.”

  Hazel stared at him. “So that’s it? I’ve suspected it for some time. Maybe I can win a game once. No, don’t start whimpering—or I’ll take your slide rule away from you for a week.” The child thought it over, shrugged, and his face became placid. Hazel turned to her son. “Do you suppose he really does hear thoughts?”

  Her son looked at his least son. “I’m afraid to find out.” He sighed and added, “Why couldn’t I have been born into a nice, normal, stupid family? Your fault, Hazel.”

  His mother patted his arm. “Don’t fret, Roger. You pull down the average.”

  “Hummph! Give me that spool. I’d better shoot it off to New York before I lose my nerve.”

  Hazel fetched it; Mr. Stone took it to the apartment phone, punched in the code for RCA New York with the combination set for highspeed transcription relay. As he slipped the spool into its socket he added, “I shouldn’t do this. In addition to that ‘Galactic Overlord’ nonsense, Hazel, you messed up the continuity by killing off four of my standard characters.”

  Hazel kept her eye on the spool; it had started to revolve. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it all worked out. You’ll see.”

  “Eh? What do you mean? Are you intending to write more episodes? I’m tempted to go limp and let you struggle with it—I’m sick of it and it would serve you right. Galactic Overlords indeed!”

  His mother continued to watch the spinning spool in the telephone. At highspeed relay the thirty-minute spool zipped through in thirty seconds. Shortly it went spung! and popped up out of the socket; Hazel breathed relief. The episode was now either in New York, or was being held automatically in the Luna City telephone exchange, waiting for a break in the live Luna-to-Earth traffic. In either case it was out of reach, as impossible to recall as an angry word.

  “Certainly I plan to do more episodes,” she told him. “Exactly seven, in fact.”

  “Huh? Why seven?”

  “Haven’t you figured out why I am killing off characters? Seven episodes is the end of this quarter and a new option date. This time they won’t pick up your option because every last one of the characters will be dead and the story will be over. I’m taking you off the hook, son.”

  “What? Hazel, you can’t do that! Adventure serials never end.”

  “Does it say so in your contract?”

  “No, but—”

  “You’ve been grousing about how you wanted to get off this golden treadmill. You would never have the courage to do it yourself, so your loving mother has come to your rescue. You’re a free man again, Roger.”

  “But—” His face relaxed. “I suppose you’re right. Though I would prefer to commit suicide, even literary suicide, in my own way and at my own time. Mmm…see here, Hazel, when do you plan to kill off John Sterling?”

  “Him? Why, Our Hero has to last until the final episode, naturally. He and the Galactic Overlord do each other in at the very end. Slow music.”

  “Yes. Yes, surely…that’s the way it would have to be. But you can’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I insist on writing that scene myself. I’ve hated that mealy-mouthed Galahad ever since I thought him up. I’m not going to let anyone else have the fun of killing him; he’s mine!”

  His mother bowed. “Your honor, sir.”

  Mr. Stone’s face brightened; he reached for his pouch and slung it over his shoulder. “And now let’s go look at some spaceships!”

  “Geronimo!”

  As the four left the apartment and stepped on the slideway that would take them to the pressure lift to the surface Pollux said to his grandmother, “Hazel, what does ‘Geronimo’ mean?”

  “Ancient Druid phrase meaning ‘Let’s get out of here even if we have to walk.’ So pick up your feet.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE SECOND-HAND MARKET

  THEY STOPPED AT THE LOCKER ROOMS

  at East Lock and suited up. As usual, Hazel unbelted her gun and strapped it to her vacuum suit. None of the others was armed; aside from civic guards and military police no one went armed in Luna City at this late date except a few of the very old-timers like Hazel herself. Castor said, “Hazel, why do you bother with that?”

  “To assert my right. Besides, I might meet a rattlesnake.”

  “Rattlesnakes? On the Moon? Now, Hazel!”

  “‘Now, Hazel’ yourself. More rattlesnakes walking around on their hind legs than ever wriggled in the dust. Anyhow, do you remember the reason the White Knight gave Alice for keeping a mouse trap on his horse?”

  “Uh, not exactly.”

  “Look it up when we get home. You kids are ignorant. Give me a hand with this helmet.”

  The conversation stopped, as Buster was calling his grandmother and insisting that they start their game. Castor could read her lips through her helmet; when he had his own helmet in place and his suit radio switched on he could hear them arguing about which had the white men last game. Hazel was preoccupied thereafter as Buster, with the chess board in front of him, was intentionally hurrying the moves, whereas Hazel was kept busy visualizing the board.

  They had to wait at the lock for a load of tourists, just arri
ved in the morning shuttle from Earth, to spill out. One of two women passengers stopped and stared at them. “Thelma,” she said to her companion, “that little man—he’s wearing a gun.”

  The other woman urged her along. “Don’t take notice,” she said. “It’s not polite.” She went on, changing the subject. “I wonder where we can buy souvenir turtles around here? I promised Herbert.”

  Hazel turned and glared at them; Mr. Stone took her arm and urged her into the now empty lock. She continued to fume as the lock cycled. “Groundhogs! Souvenir turtles indeed!”

  “Mind your blood pressure, Hazel,” her son advised.

  “You mind yours.” She looked up at him and suddenly grinned. “I should ha’ drilled her, podnuh—like this.” She made a fast draw to demonstrate, then, before returning the weapon to its holster, opened the charge chamber and removed a cough drop. This she inserted through the pass valve of her helmet and caught it on her tongue. Sucking it, she continued, “Just the same, son, that did it. Your mind may not be made up; mine is. Luna is getting to be like any other ant hill. I’m going out somewhere to find elbow room, about a quarter of a billion miles of it.”

  “How about your pension?”

  “Pension be hanged! I got along all right before I had it.” Hazel, along with the other remaining Founding Fathers—and mothers—of the lunar colony, had been awarded a lifetime pension from a grateful city. This might be for a long period, despite her age, as the “normal” human life span under the biologically easy conditions of the Moon’s low gravity had yet to be determined; the Luna City geriatrics clinic regularly revised the estimate upwards.

  She continued, “How about you? Are you going to stay here, like a sardine in a can? Better grab your chance, son, before they run you for office again. Queen to King’s Bishop Three, Lowell.”

  “We’ll see. Pressure is down; let’s get moving.”

  Castor and Pollux carefully stayed out of the discussion; things were shaping up.

  As well as Dealer Dan’s lot, the government salvage yard and that of the Bankrupt Hungarian were, of course, close by the spaceport. The Hungarian’s lot sported an ancient sun-tarnished sign—BARGAINS! BARGAINS!! BARGAINS!!! GOING OUT OF BUSINESS—but there were no bargains there, as Mr. Stone decided in ten minutes and Hazel in five. The government salvage yard held mostly robot freighters without living quarters—one-trip ships, the interplanetary equivalent of discarded packing cases—and obsolete military craft unsuited for most private uses. They ended up at Ekizian’s lot.

  Pollux headed at once for the ship he and his brother had picked out. His father immediately called him back. “Hey, Pol! What’s your hurry?”

  “Don’t you want to see our ship?”

  “Your ship? Are you still laboring under the fancy that I am going to let you two refugees from a correction school buy that Detroiter?”

  “Huh? Then what did we come out here for?”

  “I want to look at some ships. But I am not interested in a Detroiter VII.”

  Pollux said, “Huh? See here, Dad, we aren’t going to settle for a jumpbug. We need a—” The rest of his protest was cut off as Castor reached over and switched off his walkie-talkie; Castor picked it up:

  “What sort of a ship, Dad? Pol and I have looked over most of these heaps, one time or another.”

  “Well, nothing fancy. A conservative family job. Let’s look at that Hanshaw up ahead.”

  Hazel said, “I thought you said Hanshaws were fuel hogs, Roger?”

  “True, but they are very comfortable. You can’t have everything.”

  “Why not?”

  Pollux had switched his radio back on immediately. He put in, “Dad, we don’t want a runabout. No cargo space.” Castor reached again for his belt switch; he shut up.

  But Mr. Stone answered him. “Forget about cargo space. You two boys would lose your shirts if you attempted to compete with the sharp traders running around the system. I’m looking for a ship that will let the family make an occasional pleasure trip; I’m not in the market for a commercial freighter.”

  Pollux shut up; they all went to the Hanshaw Mr. Stone had pointed out and swarmed up into her control room. Hazel used both hands and feet in climbing the rope ladder but was only a little behind her descendants. Once they were in the ship she went down the hatch into the power room; the others looked over the control room and the living quarters, combined in one compartment. The upper or bow end was the control station with couches for pilot and co-pilot. The lower or after end had two more acceleration couches for passengers; all four couches were reversible, for the ship could be tumbled in flight, caused to spin end over end to give the ship artificial “gravity” through centrifugal force—in which case the forward direction would be “down,” just the opposite of the “down” of flight under power.

  Pollux looked over these arrangements with distaste. The notion of cluttering up a ship with gadgetry to coddle the tender stomachs of groundhogs disgusted him. No wonder Hanshaws were fuel hogs!

  But his father thought differently. He was happily stretched out in the pilot’s couch, fingering the controls. “This baby might do,” he announced, “if the price is right.”

  Castor said, “I thought you wanted this for the family, Dad?”

  “I do.”

  “Be pretty cramped in here once you rigged extra couches. Edith won’t like that.”

  “You let me worry about your mother. Anyhow, there are enough couches now.”

  “With only four? How do you figure?”

  “Me, your mother, your grandmother, and Buster. If Meade is along we’ll rig something for the baby. By which you may conclude that I am really serious about you two juvenile delinquents finishing your schooling. Now don’t blow your safeties!—I have it in mind that you two can use this crate to run around in—after you finish school. Or even during vacations, once you get your unlimited licenses. Fair enough?”

  The twins gave him the worst sort of argument to answer; neither of them said anything. Their expressions said everything that was necessary. Their father went on, “See here—I’m trying to be fair and I’m trying to be generous. But how many boys your age do you know, or have even heard of, who have their own ship? None—right? You should get it through your heads that you are not supermen.”

  Castor grabbed at it. “How do you know that we are not ‘supermen’?”

  Pollux followed through with, “Conjecture, pure conjecture.”

  Before Mr. Stone could think of an effective answer his mother poked her head up the power room hatch. Her expression seemed to say that she had whiffed a very bad odor. Mr. Stone said, “What’s the trouble, Hazel? Power plant on the blink?”

  “‘On the blink,’ he says! Why, I wouldn’t lift this clunker at two gravities.”

  “What’s the matter with it?”

  “I never saw a more disgracefully abused—No, I won’t tell you. Inspect it yourself; you don’t trust my engineering ability.”

  “Now see here, Hazel, I’ve never told you I don’t trust your engineering.”

  “No, but you don’t. Don’t try to sweet-talk me; I know. So check the power room yourself. Pretend I haven’t seen it.”

  Her son turned away and headed for the outer door, saying huffily, “I’ve never suggested that you did not know power plants. If you are talking about that Gantry design, that was ten years ago; by now you should have forgiven me for being right about it.”

  To the surprise of the twins Hazel did not continue the argument but followed her son docilely into the air lock. Mr. Stone started down the rope ladder; Castor pulled his grandmother aside, switched off both her radio and his and pushed his helmet into contact with hers so that he might speak with her in private. “Hazel, what was wrong with the power plant? Pol and I went through this ship last week—I didn’t spot anything too bad.”

  Hazel looked at him pityingly. “You’ve been losing sleep lately? It’s obvious—only four couches.”

  “Oh.
” Castor switched on his radio and silently followed his brother and father to the ground.

  Etched on the stern of the next ship they visited was Cherub, Roma, Terra, and she actually was of the Carlotti Motors Angel series, though she resembled very little the giant Archangels. She was short—barely a hundred fifty feet high—and slender, and she was at least twenty years old. Mr. Stone had been reluctant to inspect her. “She’s too big for us,” he protested, “and I’m not looking for a cargo ship.”

  “Too big how?” Hazel asked. “‘Too big’ is a financial term, not a matter of size. And with her cargo hold empty, think how lively she’ll be. I like a ship that jumps when I twist its tail—and so do you.”

  “Mmmm, yes,” he admitted. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t cost anything to look her over.”

  “You’re talking saner every day, son.” Hazel reached for the rope ladder.

  The ship was old and old-fashioned and she had plied many a lonely million miles of space, but, thanks to the preservative qualities of the Moon’s airless waste, she had not grown older since the last time her jets had blasted. She had simply slumbered timelessly, waiting for someone to come along and appreciate her sleeping beauty. Her air had been salvaged; there was no dust in her compartments. Many of her auxiliary fittings had been stripped and sold, but she herself was bright and clean and spaceworthy.

  The light Hazel could see in her son’s eyes she judged to be love at first sight. She hung back and signaled the twins to keep quiet. The open airlock had let them into the living quarters; a galley-saloon, two little staterooms, and a bunkroom. The control room was separate, above them, and was a combined conn & comm. Roger Stone immediately climbed up into it.

  Below the quarters was the cargo space and below that the power room. The little ship was a passenger-carrying freighter, or conversely a passenger ship with cargo space; it was this dual nature which had landed her, an unwanted orphan, in Dealer Dan’s second-hand lot. Too slow when carrying cargo to compete with the express liners, she could carry too few passengers to make money without a load of freight. Although of sound construction she did not fit into the fiercely competitive business world.