Podkayne of Mars

by Robert A. Heinlein

  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 listen 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’veresumed 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.

  FIVE

  Clark kept his stateroom door locked all the time the first three days we were in the Tricorn—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 no-exercise 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, 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 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, not
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!—dandruff! 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 latest thing in super-weapons. 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 Tricorn this trip the young and handsome passengers like those in the pictures can be counted on the thumbs 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 Tricorn a super-deluxe old fo
lks’ 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 treats me warmly woman-to-woman, 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.)