The Rolling Stones

by Robert A. Heinlein

  Dr. Stone, Meade, and Buster were riding out the lift in the bunkroom, for company; he stuck his head in. “Everybody okay?”

  His wife looked up from her couch. “Certainly, dear. Lowell has had his injection.” Buster was stretched out on his back, strapped down and sleeping. He alone had never experienced acceleration thrust and free falling; his mother had decided to drug him lest he be frightened.

  Roger Stone looked at his least son. “I envy him.”

  Meade sat up. “Head pretty bad, Daddy?”

  “I’ll live. But today I regard farewell parties as much overrated affairs, especially for the guest of honor.”

  The horn over his head said in Castor’s voice, “Want me to boost her, Dad? I feel fine.”

  “Mind your own business, co-pilot. She still tracking?”

  “Tracking, sir. Eleven minutes.”

  Hazel’s voice came out of the horn. “‘The wages of sin are death.’”

  “Look who’s talking! No more unauthorized chatter over the intercom. That’s an order.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  He started to leave; his wife stopped him. “I want you to take this, dear.” She held out a capsule.

  “I don’t need it.”

  “Take it.”

  “Yes, Doctor darling.” He swallowed it, made a face, and went up to the control room. As he climbed into his couch he said, “Call tower for clearance.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Rolling Stone, Luna City registry, to Tower—request clearance to lift according to approved plan.”

  “Tower to Rolling Stone—you are cleared to lift.”

  “Rolling Stone to Tower—roger!” Castor answered.

  Captain Stone looked over his board. All green, except one red light from power room which would not wink green until he told his mother to unlock the safety on the cadmium damper plates. He adjusted the microvernier on his tracking indicator, satisfied himself that the auto-pilot was tracking to perfection as Castor had reported. “All stations, report in succession—power room!”

  “She’s sizzling, Skipper!” came back Hazel’s reply.

  “Passengers!”

  “We’re ready, Roger.”

  “Co-pilot!”

  “Clear and green, sir! Check off completed. Five minutes.”

  “Strap down and report!”

  “Power gang strapped.”—“We’re strapped, dear.”—“Strapped, sir—all stations.”

  “Power room, unlock for lift.”

  The last red light on his board winked green as Hazel reported, “Power board unlocked, Skipper. Ready to blast.”

  Another voice followed hers, more softly: “Now I lay me down to sleep—”

  “Shut up, Meade!” Roger Stone snapped. “Co-pilot, commence the count!”

  Castor started singsonging: “Minus two minutes ten…minus two minutes…minus one minute fifty…minus one minute forty—”

  Roger Stone felt his blood begin to pound and wished heartily that he had had the sense to come home early, even if the party had been in his honor.

  “Minus one minute!…minus fifty-five…minus fifty—”

  He braced his right hand with his forefinger over the manual firing key, ready to blast if the auto-pilot should fail—then quickly took it away. This was no military vessel! If it failed to fire, the thing to do was to cancel—not risk his wife and kids with imperfect machinery. After all, he held only a private license—

  “Minus thirty-five…half minute!”

  His head felt worse. Why leave a warm apartment to bounce around in a tin covered-wagon?

  “Twenty-eight, twenty-sev’n, twenty-six—”

  Well, if anything went wrong, at least there wouldn’t be any little orphans left around. The whole Stone family was here, root and branch. The rolling Stones—

  “Nineteen…eighteen…seventeen—”

  He didn’t fancy going back and meeting all those people who had just come out to say good-by—telling them, “It’s like this: we swung and we missed—”

  “Twelve! Eleven! and ten! and nine!”

  He again placed his forefinger over the manual button, ready to stab.

  “And five!

  “And four!

  “And three!

  “And two!

  “And—” Castor’s chant was blanked out by the blazing “white noise” of the jet; the Rolling Stone cast herself into the void.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BALLISTICS AND BUSTER

  BLASTING OFF FROM LUNA

  is not the terrifying and oppressive experience that a lift from Earth is. The Moon’s field is so weak, her gravity well so shallow, that a boost of one-g would suffice—just enough to produce Earth-normal weight.

  Captain Stone chose to use two gravities, both to save time and to save fuel by getting quickly away from Luna—“quickly” because any reactive mass spent simply to hold a spaceship up against the pull of a planet is an “overhead” cost; it does nothing toward getting one where one wants to go. Furthermore, while the Rolling Stone would operate at low thrust she could do so only by being very wasteful of reactive mass, i.e., by not letting the atomic pile heat the hydrogen hot enough to produce a really efficient jet speed.

  So he caused the Stone to boost at two gravities for slightly over two minutes. Two gravities—a mere nothing! The pressure felt by a wrestler pinned to the mat by the body of his opponent—the acceleration experienced by a child in a schoolyard swing—hardly more than the push resulting from standing up very suddenly.

  But the Stone family had been living on Luna; all the children had been born there—two gravities was twelve times what they were used to.

  Roger’s headache, which had quieted under the sedative his wife had prescribed for him, broke out again with renewed strength. His chest felt caved in; he fought for breath and he had to read and reread the accelerometer to convince himself that the ship had not run wild.

  After checking over his board and assuring himself that all was going according to plan even if it did feel like a major catastrophe he turned his head heavily. “Cas? You all right?”

  Castor gasped, “Sure, Skipper…tracking to flight plan, sir.”

  “Very well, sir.” He turned his face to his inter-com mike. “Edith—”

  There was no answer. “Edith!”

  This time a strained voice replied, “Yes, dear.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, dear. Meade and I…are all right. The baby is having a bad time.”

  He was about to call the power room when Castor reminded him of the passage of time. “Twenty seconds! Nineteen! Eighteen—”

  He turned his eyes to the brennschluss timer and poised his hand on the cut-off switch, ready to choke the jet if the auto-pilot should fail. Across from him Castor covered him should he fail; below in the power room Hazel was doing the same thing, hand trembling over the cut-off.

  As the timer flashed the last half second, as Castor shouted, “Brennschluss!” three hands slammed at three switches—but the auto-pilot had beaten them to it. The jet gasped as its liquid food was suddenly cut off from it; damper plates quenched the seeking neutrons in the atomic pile—and the Stone was in free orbit, falling toward Earth in a sudden, aching silence broken only by the whispering of the air-conditioner.

  Roger Stone reswallowed his stomach. “Power room!” he rasped. “Report!”

  He could hear Hazel sighing heavily. “Okay, son,” she said feebly, “but mind that top step—it’s a dilly!”

  “Cas, call the port. Get a doppler check.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Castor called the radar & doppler station at Leyport. The Rolling Stone had all the usual radar and piloting instruments but a spaceship cannot possibly carry equipment of the size and accuracy of those mounted as pilot aids at all ports and satellite stations. “Rolling Stone to Luna Pilot—come in, Luna Pilot.” While he called he was warming up their own radar and doppler-radar, preparing to check the performance of their own instrumen
ts against the land-based standards. He did this without being told, it being a co-pilot’s routine duty.

  “Luna Pilot to Rolling Stone.”

  “Rolling Stone to Luna Pilot—request range, bearing, and separation rate, and flight plan deviations, today’s flight fourteen—plan as filed; no variations.”

  “We’re on you. Stand by to record.”

  “Standing by,” answered Castor and flipped the switch on the recorder. They were still so close to the Moon that the speed-of-light lag in transmission was unnoticeable.

  A bored voice read off the reference time to the nearest half second, gave the double co-ordinates of their bearing in terms of system standard—corrected back to where the Moon had been at their blast-off—then gave their speed and distance relative to Luna with those figures also corrected back to where the Moon had been. The corrections were comparatively small since the Moon ambles along at less than two-thirds of a mile per second, but the corrections were utterly necessary. A pilot who disregarded them would find himself fetching up thousands or even millions of miles from his destination.

  The operator added, “Deviation from flight plan negligible. A very pretty departure, Rolling Stone.”

  Castor thanked him and signed off. “In the groove, Dad!”

  “Good. Did you get our own readings?”

  “Yes, sir. About seven seconds later than theirs.”

  “Okay. Run ’em back on the flight line and apply the vectors. I want a check.” He looked more closely at his son; Castor’s complexion was a delicate chartreuse. “Say, didn’t you take your pills?”

  “Uh, yes, sir. It always hits me this way at first. I’ll be all right.”

  “You look like a week-old corpse.”

  “You don’t look so hot yourself, Dad.”

  “I don’t feel so hot, just between us. Can you work that prob, or do you want to sack in for a while?”

  “Sure I can!”

  “Well…mind your decimal places.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  “I’m going aft.” He started to unstrap, saying into the inter-com as he did so, “All hands, unstrap at will. Power room, secure the pile and lock your board.”

  Hazel answered, “I heard the flight report, Skipper. Power room secured.”

  “Don’t anticipate my orders, Hazel—unless you want to walk back.”

  She answered, “I expressed myself poorly, Captain. What I mean to say is, we are now securing the power room, as per your orders, sir. There—it’s done. Power room secured!”

  “Very well, Chief.” He smiled grimly, having noted by the tell-tales on his own board that the first report was the correct one; she had secured as soon as she had known they were in the groove. Just as he had feared: playing skipper to a crew of rugged individualists was not going to be a picnic. He grasped the center stanchion, twisted around so that he faced aft and floated through the hatch into the living quarters.

  He wiggled into the bunkroom and checked himself by a handhold. His wife, daughter, and least child were all unstrapped. Dr. Stone was manipulating the child’s chest and stomach. He could not see just what she was doing but it was evident that Lowell had become violently nauseated—Meade, glassy-eyed herself, was steadying herself with one hand and trying to clean up the mess with the other. The boy was still unconscious.

  Roger Stone felt suddenly worse himself. “Good grief!”

  His wife looked over her shoulder. “Get my injection kit,” she ordered. “In the locker behind you. I’ve got to give him the antidote and get him awake. He keeps trying to swallow his tongue.”

  He gulped. “Yes, dear. Which antidote?”

  “Neocaffeine—one c.c. Move!”

  He found the case, loaded the injector, handed it to Dr. Stone. She pressed it against the child’s side. “What else can I do?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Is he in any danger?”

  “Not while I have an eye on him. Now get out and ask Hazel to come here.”

  “Yes, dear. Right away.” He swam on aft, found his mother sitting in midair, looking pleased with herself. Pollux was still loosely secured to his control couch. “Everything all right back here?” he asked.

  “Sure. Why not? Except my assistant, maybe. I believe he wants off at the next stop.”

  Pollux growled, “I’m feeling okay. Quit riding me.”

  Roger Stone said, “Edith could use your help, Mother. Buster has thrown up all over the bunkroom.”

  “Why, the little devil! He didn’t have a thing to eat today; I rode herd on him myself.”

  “You must have let him out of your sight for a few minutes, from the evidence. Better go give Edith a hand.”

  “To hear is to obey, Master.” She kicked one heel against the bulkhead behind her and zipped out the hatch. Roger turned to his son.

  “How’s it going?”

  “I’ll be all right in a couple of hours. It’s just one of those things you have to go through with, like brushing your teeth.”

  “Check. I’d like to rent a small planet myself. Have you written up the engineering log?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Do so. It will take your mind off your stomach.” Roger Stone went forward again and looked into the bunkroom. Lowell was awake and crying; Edith had him sheeted to a bunk to give him a feeling of pressure and stability.

  The child wailed, “Mama! Make it hold still!”

  “Shush, dear. You’re all right. Mother is here.”

  “I want to go home!”

  She did not answer but caressed his forehead. Roger Stone backed hastily out and pulled himself forward.

  By supper time all hands except Lowell were over the effects of free fall—a sensation exactly like stepping off into an open elevator shaft in the dark. Nevertheless no one wanted much to eat; Dr. Stone limited the menu to a clear soup, crackers, and stewed dried apricots. Ice cream was available but there were no takers.

  Except for the baby none of them had any reason to expect more than minor and temporary discomfort from the change from planet-surface weight to the endless falling of free orbit. Their stomachs and the semicircular canals of their ears had been through the ordeal before; they were inured to it, salted.

  Lowell was not used to it; his physical being rebelled against it, nor was he old enough to meet it calmly and without fear. He cried and made himself worse, alternating that with gagging and choking. Hazel and Meade took turns trying to quiet him. Meade finished her skimpy dinner and relieved the watch; when Hazel came into the control room where they were eating Roger Stone said, “How is he now?”

  Hazel shrugged. “I tried to get him to play chess with me. He spit in my face.”

  “He must be getting better.”

  “Not so you could notice it.”

  Castor said, “Gee whiz, Mother, can’t you dope him up till he gets his balance?”

  “No,” answered Dr. Stone, “I’m giving him the highest dosage now that his body mass will tolerate.”

  “How long do you think it will take him to snap out of it?” asked her husband.

  “I can’t make a prediction. Ordinarily children adapt more readily than adults, as you know, dear—but we know also that some people never do adapt. They simply are constitutionally unable to go out into space.”

  Pollux let his jaw sag. “You mean Buster is a natural-born groundhog?” He made the word sound like both a crippling disability and a disgrace.

  “Pipe down,” his father said sharply.

  “I mean nothing of the sort,” his mother said crisply. “Lowell is having a bad time but he may adjust very soon.”

  There was glum silence for some minutes. Pollux refilled his soup bag, got himself some crackers, and eased back to his perch with one leg hooked around a stanchion. He glanced at Castor; the two engaged in a conversation that consisted entirely of facial expressions and shrugs. Their father looked at them and looked away; the twins often talked to each other that way; the code—if
it was a code—could not be read by anyone else. He turned to his wife. “Edith, do you honestly think there is a chance that Lowell may not adjust?”

  “A chance, of course.” She did not elaborate, nor did she need to. Spacesickness like seasickness does not itself kill, but starvation and exhaustion do.

  Castor whistled. “A fine time to find it out, after it’s too late. We’re already in orbit for Mars.”

  Hazel said sharply, “You know better than that, Castor.”

  “Huh?”

  “Of course, dopy,” his twin answered. “We’ll have to tack back.”

  “Oh.” Castor frowned. “I forgot for the moment that this was a two-legged jump.” He sighed. “Well, that’s that. I guess we go back.” There was one point and one only at which they could decide to return to the Moon. They were falling now toward Earth in a conventional “S-orbit,” practically a straight line. They would pass very close to Earth in an hyperboloid at better than five miles per second, Earth relative. To continue to Mars they planned to increase this speed by firing the jet at the point of closest approach, falling thereby into an ellipsoid, relative to the Sun, which would let them fall to a rendezvous with Mars.

  They could reverse this maneuver, check their plunging progress by firing the jet against their motion and thereby force the Stone into an ellipsoid relative to Earth, a curve which, if correctly calculated, would take them back to Luna, back home before their baby brother could starve or wear himself out with retching. “Yep, that’s that,” agreed Pollux. He suddenly grinned. “Anybody want to buy a load of bicycles? Cheap?”

  “Don’t be in too big a hurry to liquidate,” his father told him, “but we appreciate your attitude. Edith, what do you think?”

  “I say we mustn’t take any chances,” announced Hazel. “That baby is sick.”

  Dr. Stone hesitated. “Roger, how long is it to perigee?”

  He glanced at his control board. “About thirty-five hours.”

  “Why don’t you prepare both maneuvers? Then we will not have to decide until it’s time to turn ship.”

  “That makes sense. Hazel, you and Castor work the homing problem; Pol and I will work the Mars vector. First approximations only; we’ll correct when we’re closer. Everyone work independently, then well swap and check. Mind your decimals!”