The Rolling Stones

by Robert A. Heinlein

  Castor caught it and fastened it beside his own. “All set?” asked Pollux. “I’m going to unsnap us in here.”

  “All secure.” Castor moved closer to the hatch.

  “Here I come.”

  “So you do.” Castor gave Pollux’s line a tug; Pollux came sailing out of the hatch—and Castor let him keep on sailing. Castor checked the line gently through his fingers, soaking up the momentum, so that Pollux reached the end of the fifty-foot line and stayed there without bouncing back.

  Pollux had been quite busy on the way out but to no effect—sawing vacuum is futile. When he felt himself snubbed to a stop he quit struggling. “Pull me back!”

  “Say ‘uncle.’”

  Pollux said several other things, some of which he had picked up dockside on Luna, plus some more colorful expressions derived from his grandmother. “You had better get off this ship,” he concluded, “because I’m coming down this line and take your helmet off.” He made a swipe for the line with one hand; Castor flipped it away.

  “Say ‘even-Steven’ then.”

  Pollux had the line now, having remembered to reach for his belt where it was hooked instead of grabbing for the bight. Suddenly he grinned. “Okay—‘even-Steven’.”

  “Even-Steven it is. Hold still; I’ll bring you in.” He towed him in gently, grabbing Pol’s feet and clicking them down as he approached. “You looked mighty silly out there,” he commented when Pollux was firm to the ship’s side.

  His twin invoked their ritual. “Even-Steven!”

  “My apologies, Junior. Let’s get to work.”

  Padeyes were spaced about twenty feet apart all over the skin of the ship. They had been intended for convenience in rigging during overhauls and to facilitate outside inspections while underway; the twins now used them to park bicycles. They removed the bicycles from the hold half a dozen at a time, strung on a wire loop like a catch of fish. They fastened each clutch of bikes to a padeye; the machines floated loosely out from the side like boats tied up to an ocean ship.

  Stringing the clusters of bicycles shortly took them over the “horizon” to the day side of the ship. Pollux was in front, carrying six bicycles in his left hand. He stopped suddenly. “Hey, Grandpa! Get a load of this!”

  “Don’t look at the Sun,” Castor said sharply.

  “Don’t be silly. But come see this.”

  Earth and Moon swam in the middle distance in slender crescent phase. The Stone was slowly dropping behind Earth in her orbit, even more slowly drifting outward away from the Sun. For many weeks yet Earth would appear as a ball, a disc, before distance cut her down to a brilliant star. Now she appeared about as large as she had from Luna but she was attended by Luna herself. Her day side was green and dun and lavished with cottony clouds; her night side showed the jewels of cities.

  But the boys were paying no attention to Earth; they were looking at the Moon. Pollux sighed. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “What’s the matter, Junior? Homesick?”

  “No. But she’s beautiful, just the same. Look, Cas, whatever ships we ever own, let’s always register them out of Luna City. Home base.”

  “Suits. Can you make out the burg?”

  “I think so.”

  “Probably just a spot on your helmet. I can’t. Let’s get back to work.”

  They had used all the padeyes conveniently close to the hatch and were working aft when Pollux said, “Wups! Take it easy. Dad said not to go aft of frame 65.”

  “Shucks, it must be ‘cool’ back to 90, at least. We’ve used the jet less than five minutes.”

  “Don’t be too sure; neutrons are slippery customers. And you know what a stickler Dad is, anyway.”

  “He certainly is,” said a third voice.

  They did not jump out of their boots because they were zipped tight. Instead they turned around and saw their father standing, hands on hips, near the passenger airlock. Pollux gulped and said, “Howdy, Dad.”

  “You sure gave us a start,” Castor added sheepishly.

  “Sorry. But don’t let me disturb you; I just came out to enjoy the view.” He looked over their work. “You’ve certainly got my ship looking like a junkyard.”

  “Well, we had to have room to work. Anyhow, who’s to see?”

  “In this location you have the Almighty staring down the back of your neck. But I don’t suppose He’ll mind.”

  “Say, Dad, Pol and I sort of guessed that you wouldn’t want us to do any welding inside the hold?”

  “You sort of guessed correctly—not after what happened in the Kong Christian.”

  “So we figured we could jury-rig a rack for welding out here. Okay?”

  “Okay. But it’s too nice a day to talk business.” He raised his open hands to the stars and looked out. “Swell place. Lots of elbow room. Good scenery.”

  “That’s the truth! But come around to the Sun side if you want to see something.”

  “Right. Here, help me shift my lines.” They walked around the hull and into the sunlight. Captain Stone, Earth born, looked first at the mother planet. “Looks like a big storm is working up around the Philippines.”

  Neither of the twins answered; weather was largely a mystery to them, nor did they approve of weather. Presently he turned to them and said softly, “I’m glad we came, boys. Are you?”

  “Oh, you bet!” “Sure!” They had forgotten how cold and unfriendly the black depths around them had seemed only a short time before. Now it was an enormous room, furnished in splendor, though not yet fully inhabited. It was their own room, to live in, to do with as they liked.

  They stood there for quite a long time, enjoying it. At last Captain Stone said, “I’ve had all the sun I can stand for a while. Let’s work around back into the shade.” He shook his head to dislodge a drop of sweat from his nose.

  “We ought to get back to work anyhow.”

  “I’ll help you; we’ll get done faster.”

  The Rolling Stone swung on and outward toward Mars; her crew fell into routine habits. Dr. Stone was handy at weightless cooking, unusually skillful, in fact, from techniques she had picked up during a year’s internship in the free-fall research clinic in Earth’s station. Meade was not so skilled but very little can be done to ruin breakfast. Her father supervised her hydroponics duties, supplementing thereby the course she had had in Luna City High School. Dr. Stone split the care of her least child with his grandmother and used her leisure placidly collating some years of notes for a paper “On the Cumulative Effects of Marginal Hypoxia.”

  The twins discovered that mathematics could be even more interesting than they had thought and much more difficult—it required even more “savvy” than they thought they had (already a generous estimate) and they were forced to stretch their brains. Their father caught up on the back issues of The Reactomotive World and studied his ship’s manual but still had plenty of time to coach them and quiz them. Pollux, he discovered, was deficient in the ability to visualize a curve on glancing at an equation.

  “I don’t understand it,” he said. “You got good marks in analytical geometry.”

  Pollux turned red. “What’s biting you?” his father demanded.

  “Well, Dad, you see it’s this way—”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly get good marks in analyt.”

  “Eh? What is this? You both got top marks; I remember clearly.”

  “Well, now, you see—Well, we were awfully busy that semester and, well, it seemed logical.…” His voice trailed off.

  “Out with it! Out with it!”

  “Cas took both courses in analyt,” Pollux blurted out, “and I took both courses in history. But I did read the book.”

  “Oh, my!” Roger Stone sighed. “I suppose it’s covered by the statute of limitations by this time. Anyhow, you are finding out the hard way that such offenses carry their own punishments. When you need it, you don’t know it worth a hoot.”

  “Yessir.”

/>   “But an extra hour a day for you, just the same—until you can visualize instantly from the equation a four-coordinate hypersurface in a non-Euclidean continuum—standing on your head in a cold shower.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Cas, what course did you fudge? Did you read the book?”

  “Yes, sir. It was medieval European history, sir.”

  “Hmm… You’re equally culpable, but I’m not too much concerned with any course that does not require a slide rule and tables. You coach your brother.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “If you are pinched for time, I’ll give you a hand with those broken-down bicycles, though I shouldn’t.”

  The twins pitched into it, hard. At the end of two weeks Roger Stone announced himself satisfied with Pollux’s proficiency in analytical geometry. They moved on to more rarefied heights…the complex logics of matrix algebra, frozen in beautiful arrays…the tensor calculus that unlocks the atom…the wild and wonderful field equations that make Man king of the universe…the crashing, mind-splitting intuition of Forsyte’s Solution that had opened the 21st century and sent mankind another mighty step toward the stars. By the time Mars shone larger in the sky than Earth they had gone beyond the point where their father could coach them; they ploughed on together.

  They usually studied together, out of the same book, floating head to head in their bunkroom, one set of feet pointed to celestial south, the other pair to the north. The twins had early gotten into the habit of reading the same book at the same time; as a result either of them could read upside down as easily as in the conventional attitude. While so engaged Pollux said to his brother, “You know, Grandpa, some of this stuff makes me think we ought to go into research rather than business. After all, money isn’t everything.”

  “No,” agreed Castor, “there are also stocks, bonds, and patent rights, not to mention real estate and chattels.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “We’ll do both. I’ve finished this page; flip the switch when you’re ready.”

  The War God, riding in a slightly different orbit, had been gradually closing on them until she could be seen as a “star” by naked eye—a variable star that winked out and flared up every sixteen seconds. Through the Stone’s coelostat the cause could easily be seen; the War God was tumbling end over end, performing one full revolution every thirty-two seconds to provide centrifugal “artificial gravity” to coddle the tender stomachs of her groundhog passengers. Each half revolution the Sun’s rays struck her polished skin at the proper angle to flash a dazzling gleam at the Stone. Through the ’scope the reflection was bright enough to hurt the eyes.

  The observation turned out to be both ways. A radio message came in; Hazel printed it and handed it with a straight face to her son: “WAR GOD TO ROLLING STONE—PVT—ROG OLD BOY, I HAVE YOU IN THE SCOPE. WHAT IN SPACE HAVE YOU GOT ON YOU? FUNGUS? OR SEA WEEDS? YOU LOOK LIKE A CHRISTMAS TREE. P. VANDENBERGH, MASTER.”

  Captain Stone glared at the message stat. “Why, that fat Dutchman! I’ll ‘fungus’ him. Here, Mother, send this: ‘Master to Master—private message: In that drunken tumbling pigeon how do you keep your eye to a scope? Do you enjoy playing nursemaid to a litter of groundhogs? No doubt the dowagers fight over a chance to eat at the captain’s table. Fun, I’ll bet. R. Stone, Master.’”

  The answer came back: “ROGER DODGER YOU OLD CODGER, I’VE LIMITED MY TABLE TO FEMALE PASSENGERS CIRCA AGE TWENTY SO I CAN KEEP AN EYE ON THEM—PREFERENCE GIVEN TO BLONDES AROUND FIFTY KILOS MASS. COME OVER FOR DINNER. VAN.”

  Pollux looked out the port, caught the glint on the War God. “Why don’t you take him up, Dad? I’ll bet I could make it across on my suit jet with one spare oxy bottle.”

  “Don’t be silly. We haven’t that much safety line, even at closest approach. Hazel, tell him: ‘Thanks a million but I’ve got the prettiest little girl in the system cooking for me right now.’”

  Meade said, “Me, Daddy? I thought you didn’t like my cooking?”

  “Don’t give yourself airs, snub nose. I mean your mother, of course.”

  Meade considered this. “But I look like her, don’t I?”

  “Some. Send it, Hazel.”

  “RIGHT YOU ARE! MY RESPECTS TO EDITH. TRUTHFULLY, WHAT IS THAT STUFF? SHALL I SEND OVER WEEDKILLER, OR BARNACLE REMOVER? OR COULD WE BEAT IT TO DEATH WITH A STICK?”

  “Why not tell him, Dad?” Castor inquired.

  “Very well, I will. Hazel, send: ‘Bicycles: want to buy one?’”

  To their surprise Captain Vandenbergh answered:

  “MAYBE. GOT A RALEIGH ‘SANDMAN’?”

  “Tell him, ‘Yes!’” Pollux put in. “A-number-one condition and brand-new tires. A bargain.”

  “Slow up there,” his father interrupted. “I’ve seen your load. If you’ve got a bike in first-class condition, Raleigh or any other make, you’ve got it well hidden.”

  “Aw, Dad, it will be—by the time we deliver.”

  “What do you suppose he wants a bicycle for, dear?” Dr. Stone asked. “Prospecting? Surely not.”

  “Probably just sightseeing. All right, Hazel, you can send it—but mind you, boys, I’ll inspect that vehicle myself; Van trusts me.”

  Hazel pushed herself away from the rig. “Let the boys tell their own whoppers. I’m getting bored with this chit-chat.”

  Castor took over at the key, started to dicker. The passenger skipper, it developed, really was willing to buy a bicycle. After a leisurely while they settled on a price well under Castor’s asking price, attractively under the usual prices on Mars, but profitably over what the boys had paid on Luna—this for delivery F.O.B. Phobos, circum Mars.

  Roger Stone exchanged affectionate insults and gossip with his friend from time to time over the next several days. During the following week the War God came within phone range, but the conversations dropped off and stopped; they had exhausted topics of conversation. The War God had made her closest approach and was pulling away again; they did not hear from her for more than three weeks.

  The call was taken by Meade. She hurried aft to the hold where her father was helping the twins spray enamel on reconditioned bicycles. “Daddy, you’re wanted on the phone! War God, master to master—official.”

  “Coming.” He hurried forward and took the call. “Rolling Stone, Captain Stone speaking.”

  “War God, commanding officer speaking. Captain, can you—”

  “Just a moment. This does not sound like Captain Vandenbergh.”

  “It isn’t. This is Rowley, Second Officer. I—”

  “I understood that your captain wanted me, officially. Let me speak with him.”

  “I’m trying to explain, Captain.” The officer sounded strained and irritable. “I am the commanding officer. Both Captain Vandenbergh and Mr. O’Flynn are on the binnacle list.”

  “Eh? Sorry. Nothing serious, I hope?”

  “I’m afraid it is, sir. Thirty-seven cases on the sick list this morning—and four deaths.”

  “Great Scott, man! What is it?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Well, what does your medical officer say it is?”

  “That’s it, sir. The Surgeon died during the midwatch.”

  “Oh—”

  “Captain, can you possibly match with us? Do you have enough maneuvering margin?”

  “What? Why?”

  “You have a medical officer aboard. Haven’t you?”

  “Huh? But she’s my wife!”

  “She’s an M.D., is she not?”

  Roger Stone remained silent for a long moment. Then he said, “I’ll call you back shortly, sir.”

  It was a top level conference, limited to Captain Stone, Dr. Stone, and Hazel. First, Dr. Stone insisted on calling the War God and getting a full report on symptoms and progress of the disease. When she switched off her husband said, “Well, Edith, what is it?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to see it.”

  “Now, see here, I’m not
going to have you risking—”

  “I’m a doctor, Roger.”

  “You’re not in practice, not now. And you are the mother of a family. It’s quite out of the ques—”

  “I am a doctor, Roger.”

  He sighed heavily. “Yes, dear.”

  “The only thing to be determined is whether or not you can match in with the War God. Have you two reached an answer?”

  “We’ll start computing.”

  “I’m going aft and check over my supplies.” She frowned. “I didn’t expect to have to cope with an epidemic.”

  When she was gone Roger turned his face, twisted with indecision, to Hazel. “What do you think, Mother?”

  “Son, you don’t stand a chance. She takes her oath seriously. You’ve known that a long time.”

  “I haven’t taken the Hippocratic oath! If I won’t move the ship, there’s nothing she can do about it.”

  “You’re not a doctor, true. But you’re a master in space. I guess the ‘succor & rescue’ rule might apply.”

  “The devil with rules! This is Edith.”

  “Well,” Hazel said slowly, “I guess I might stack the Stone family up against the welfare of the entire human race in a pinch, myself. But I can’t decide it for you.”

  “I won’t let her do it! It’s not me. There’s Buster—he’s no more than a baby still; he needs his mother.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “That settles it. I’m going aft and tell her.”

  “Wait a minute! If that’s your decision, Captain, you won’t mind me saying that’s the wrong way to do it.”

  “Eh?”

  “The only way you’ll get it past your wife is to get on that computer and come out with the answer you’re looking for…an answer that says it’s physically impossible for us to match with them and still reach Mars.”

  “Oh. You’re right. Look, will you help me fake it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Then let’s get busy.”

  “As you say, sir. You know, Roger, if the War God comes in with an unidentified and uncontrolled disease aboard, they’ll never let her make port at Mars. They’ll swing her in a parking orbit, fuel her up again, and send her back at next optimum.”

  “What of it? It’s nothing to me if fat tourists and a bunch of immigrants are disappointed.”