Podkayne of Mars

by Robert A. Heinlein

  Girdie showed up just then. “Can I help?”

  “You certainly can. Here . . . hold this one.”

  In a few minutes I rounded up three girls about my age and I ran across Clark prowling around the catwalks instead of staying quietly in his assigned billet so I drafted him, too. He wasn’t exactly eager to volunteer, but doing anything was slightly better than doing nothing; he came along.

  I couldn’t use any more help as standing room was almost nonexistent. We worked it only by having two baby-cuddlers sort of back into each of the infirmaries with the mistress of ceremonies (me) standing in the little space at the bottom of the ladder, ready to scrunch in any direction to let people get in and out of the washrooms and up and down the ladder—and with Girdie, because she was tallest, standing back of the two at the changing shelf and dealing out babies, the loudest back to me for further assignment and the wet ones down for service—and vice versa: dry ones back to their baskets unless they started to yell; ones that had fallen asleep from being held and cuddled.

  At least seven babies could receive personal attention at once, and sometimes as high as ten or eleven, because at one-tenth gee your feet never get tired and a baby doesn’t weigh anything at all worth mentioning; it was possible to hold one in each arm and sometimes we did.

  In ten minutes we had that racket quieted down to an occasional whimper, quickly soothed. I didn’t think Clark would stick it out, but he did—probably because Girdie was part of the team. With a look of grim nobility on his face, the like of which I have never before seen there, he cuddled babies and presently was saying “Kitchy-koo kitchy-koo!” and “There, there, honey bun,” as if he had been doing it all his life. Furthermore, the babies seemed to like him; he could soothe one down and put it to sleep quickest of any of us. Hypnotism, maybe?

  This went on for several hours, with volunteers moving in and tired ones moving out and positions rotating. I was relieved once and had another snatched meal and then stretched out on my shelf for about an hour before going back on duty.

  I was back at the changing shelf when the Captain called us all by speaker: “Attention, please. In five minutes power will be cut and the ship will be in free fall while a repair is made outside the ship. All passengers strap down. All crew members observe precautions for free fall.”

  I went right on changing the baby under my hands; you can’t walk off on a baby. In the meantime, babies that had been being cuddled were handed back and stowed, and the cuddling team was chased back to their shelves to strap down—and spin was being taken off the ship. One rotation every twelve seconds you simply don’t notice at the center of the ship, but you do notice when the unspinning starts. The stewardess with me on the changing bench said, “Poddy, go up and strap down. Hurry.”

  I said, “Don’t be silly, Bergitta, there’s work to be done,” and popped the baby I had just dried into its basket and fastened the zipper.

  “You’re a passenger. That’s an order—please!”

  “Who’s going to check all these babies? You? And how about those four in on the floor of the women’s sick bay?”

  Bergitta looked startled and hurried to fetch them. All the other stewardesses were busy checking on strap-down; she didn’t bother me any more with That’s-an-order; she was too busy hooking up the changing shelf and fastening baby baskets to the space. I was checking all the others and almost all of them had been left unzipped—logical enough while we were working with them, but zipping the cover on a baby basket is the same as strapping down for a grown-up. It holds them firmly but comfortably with just their heads free.

  I still hadn’t finished when the siren sounded and the Captain cut the power.

  Oh, brother! Pandemonium. The siren woke the babies who were asleep and scared any who were awake, and every single one of those squirmy little worms started to cry at the top of its lungs—and one I hadn’t zipped yet popped right out of its basket and floated out into the middle of the space and I snagged it by one leg and was loose myself, and the baby and I bumped gently against the baskets on one wall—only it wasn’t a wall any longer, it was just an obstacle to further progress. Free fall can be very confusing when you are not used to it, which I admit I am not. Or wasn’t.

  The stewardess grabbed us both and shoved the elusive little darling back into her straitjacket and zipped it while I hung onto a handhold. And by then two more were loose.

  I did better this time—snagged one without letting go and just kept it captive while Bergitta took care of the other one. Bergitta really knew how to handle herself in zero gravity, with unabrupt graceful movements like a dancer in a slow-motion solly. I made a mental note that this was a skill I must acquire.

  I thought the emergency was over; I was wrong. Babies don’t like free fall; it frightens them. It also makes their sphincters most erratic. Most of the latter we could ignore—but Disposies don’t catch everything; regrettably some six or seven of them had been fed in the last hour.

  I know now why stewardesses are all graduate nurses; we kept five babies from choking to death in the next few minutes. That is, Bergitta cleared the throat of the first one that upchucked its milk and, seeing what she had done, I worked on the second one in trouble while she grabbed the third. And so on.

  Then we were very busy trying to clear the air with clean Disposies because—Listen, dear, if you think you’ve had it tough because your baby brother threw up all over your new party dress, then you should try somewhat-used baby formula in free fall, where it doesn’t settle anywhere in particular but just floats around like smoke until you either get it or it gets you.

  From Six babies. In a small compartment.

  By the time we had that mess cleaned up, or 95 percent so anyway, we were both mostly sour milk from hair part to ankle and the Captain was warning us to stand by for acceleration, which came almost at once to my great relief. The Chief stewardess showed up and was horrified that I had not strapped down, and I told her in a ladylike way to go to hell, using a more polite idiom suitable to my age and sex—and asked her what Captain Darling would think about a baby passenger choking to death simply because I had strapped down all regulation-like and according to orders? And Bergitta backed me up and told her that I had cleared choke from at least two and maybe more—she had been too busy to count.

  Mrs. Peal, the C.S., changed her tune in a hurry and was sorry and thanked me, and sighed and wiped her forehead and trembled and you could see that she was dead for her feet. But nevertheless, she checked all the babies herself and hurried out. Pretty quickly we were relieved and Bergitta and I crowded into the women’s washroom and tried to clean up some. Not much good, as we didn’t have any clean clothes to change into.

  The “All Clear” felt like a reprieve from purgatory, and a hot bath was heaven itself with the Angels singing. “A” deck had already been checked for radiation level and pronounced safe while the repair outside the ship was being made. The repair itself, I learned, was routine. Some of the antennas and receptors and things outside the ship can’t take a flare storm; they burn out—so immediately after a storm, men go outside in armored space suits and replace them. This is normal and unavoidable, like replacing lighting tubes at home. But the men who do it get the same radiation bonus that the passenger chasers get, because old Sol could burn them down with one tiny little afterthought.

  I soaked in warm, clean water and thought how miserable an eighteen hours it had been. Then I decided that it hadn’t been so bad after all.

  It’s lots better to be miserable than to be bored.

  NINE

  I am now twenty-seven years old.

  Venus years, of course, but it sounds so much better. All is relative.

  Not that I woud stay here on Venus even if guaranteed the Perfect Age for a thousand years. Venusberg is sort of an organized nervous breakdown and the country outside the city is even worse. What little I’ve seen of it. And I don’t want to see much of it. Why they ever named this dreary, smog-ridden
place for the Goddess of Love and Beauty I’ll never know. This planet appears to have been put together from the scrap left over after the rest of the Solar System was finished.

  I don’t think I would go outside Venusberg at all except that I’ve just got to see fairies in flight. The only one I’ve seen so far is in the lobby of the hilton we are staying in and is stuffed.

  Actually I’m just marking time until we shape for Earth, because Venus is a Grave Disappointment—and now I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Earth will not be a G.D., too. But I don’t see how it can be; there is something deliciously primitive about the very thought of a planet where one can go outdoors without any special preparations. Why, Uncle Tom tells me that there are places along the Mediterranean (that’s an ocean in La Belle France) where the natives bathe in the ocean itself without any clothing of any sort, much less insulasuits or masks.

  I wouldn’t like that. Not that I’m body proud; I enjoy a good sauna sweat-out as well as the next Marsman. But it would scare me cross-eyed to bathe in an ocean; I don’t ever intend to get wet all over in anything larger than a bathtub. I saw a man fished out of the Grand Canal once, in early spring. They had to thaw him before they could cremate him.

  But it is alleged that, along the Mediterranean shore, the air in the summertime is often blood temperature and the water not much cooler. As may be. Podkayne is not going to take any silly chances.

  Nevertheless I am terribly eager to see Earth, in all its fantastic unlikeliness. It occurs to me that my most vivid conceptions of Earth come from the Oz stories—and when you come right down to it, I suppose that isn’t too reliable a source. I mean, Dorothy’s conversations with the Wizard are instructive—but about what? When I was a child I believed every word of my Oz tapes; but now I am no longer a child and I do not truly suppose that a whirlwind is a reliable means of transportation, nor that one is likely to encounter a Tin Woodman on a road of yellow brick.

  Tik-Tok, yes—because we have Tik-Toks in Marsopolis for the simpler and more tedious work. Not precisely like Tik-Tok of Oz, of course, and not called “Tik-Toks” by anyone but children, but near enough, near enough, quite sufficient to show that the Oz stories are founded on fact if not precisely historical.

  And I believe in the Hungry Tiger, too, in the most practical way possible, because there was one in the municipal zoo when I was a child, a gift from the Calcutta Kiwanis Klub to Marsopolis Kiwanians. It always looked at me as if it were sizing me up as an appetizer. It died when I was about five and I didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad. It was beautiful . . . and so very Hungry.

  But Earth is still many weeks away and, in the meantime, Venus does have some points of interest for the newcomer, such as I.

  In traveling I strongly recommend traveling with my Uncle Tom. On arriving here, there were no silly waits in “Hospitality” (!) rooms; we were given the “courtesy of the port” at once—to the extreme chagrin of Mrs. Royer. “Courtesy of the port” means that your baggage isn’t examined and that nobody bothers to look at that bulky mass of documents—passport and health record and security clearance and solvency proof and birth certificate and I.D.s, and nineteen other silly forms. Instead we were whisked from satellite station to spaceport in the private yacht of the Chairman of the Board and were met there by the Chairman himself!—and popped into his Rolls and wafted royally to Hilton Tannhäuser.

  We were invited to stay at his official residence (his “cottage,” that being the Venus word for a palace) but I don’t think he really expected us to accept, because Uncle Tom just cocked his left or satirical eyebrow and said, “Mr. Chairman, I don’t think you would want me to appear to be bribed even if you manage it.”

  And the Chairman didn’t seem offended at all; he just chuckled till his belly shook like Saint Nicholas’ (whom he strongly resembles even to the beard and the red cheeks, although his eyes are cold even when he laughs, which is frequently).

  “Senator,” he said, “you know me better than that. My attempt to bribe you will be much more subtle. Perhaps through this young lady. Miss Podkayne, are you fond of jewelry?”

  I told him honestly that I wasn’t, very, because I always lose it. So he blinked and said to Clark, “How about you, son?”

  Clark said, “I prefer cash.”

  The Chairman blinked again and said nothing.

  Nor had he said anything to his driver when Uncle Tom declined the offer of his roof; nevertheless we flew straight to our hilton—which is why I don’t think he ever expected us to stay with him.

  But I am beginning to realize that this is not entirely a pleasure trip for Uncle Tom . . . and to grasp emotionally a fact known only intellectually in the past, i.e., Uncle Tom is not merely the best pinochle player in Marsopolis, he sometimes plays other games for higher stakes. I must confess that the what or why lies outside my admittedly youthful horizon—save that everyone knows that the Three-Planets conference is coming up.

  Query: Could U.T. conceivably be involved in this? As a consultant or something? I hope not, as it might keep him tied up for weeks on Luna and I have no wish to waste time on a dreary ball of slag while the Wonders of Terra await me—and Uncle Tom just might be difficult about letting me go down to Earth without him.

  But I wish still more strongly that Clark had not answered the Chairman truthfully.

  Still, Clark would not sell out his own uncle for mere money.

  On the other hand, Clark does not regard money as “mere.” I must think about this—

  But it is some comfort to realize that anyone who handed Clark a bribe would find that Clark had not only taken the bribe but the hand as well.

  Possibly our suite at the Tannhäuser is intended as a bribe, too. Are we paying for it? I’m almost afraid to ask Uncle Tom, but I do know this: the servants that come with it won’t accept tips. Not any. Although I very carefully studied up on the subject of tipping, both for Venus and Earth, so that I would know what to do when the time came—and it had been my understanding that anyone on Venus always accepts tips, even ushers in churches and bank tellers.

  But not the servants assigned to us. I have two tiny little amber dolls, identical twins, who shadow me and would bathe me if I let them. They speak Portuguese but not Ortho—and at present my Portuguese is limited to “gobble-gobble” (which means “Thank you”) and I have trouble explaining to them that I can dress and undress myself and I’m not too sure about their names—they both answer to “Maria.”

  Or at least I don’t think they speak Ortho. I must think about this, too.

  Venus is officially bilingual, Ortho and Portuguese, but I’ll bet I heard at least twenty other languages the first hour we were down. German sounds like a man being choked to death, French sounds like a cat fight, while Spanish sounds like molasses gurgling gently out of a jug. Cantonese—Well, think of a man trying to vocalize Bach who doesn’t like Bach very much to start with.

  Fortunately almost everybody understands Ortho as well. Except Maria and Maria. If true.

  I could live a long time without the luxury of personal maids, but I must admit that this hilton suite is quite a treat to a plain-living, wholesome Mars girl, namely me. Especially as I am in it quite a lot of the time and will be for a while yet. The ship’s Surgeon, Dr. Torland, gave me many of the special inoculations needed for Venus on the trip here—an unpleasant subject I chose not to mention—but there still remain many more before it will be safe for me to go outside the city, or even very much into the city. As soon as we reached our suite a physician appeared and played chess on my back with scratches, red to move and mate in five moves—and three hours later I had several tens of welts, with something horrid that must be done about each of them.

  Clark ducked out and didn’t get his scratch tests until the next morning and I misdoubt he will die of Purple Itch or some such, were it not that his karma is so clearly reserving him for hanging. Uncle Tom refused the tests. He was through all this routine more than twenty years ago,
and anyhow he claims that the too, too mortal flesh is merely a figment of the imagination.

  So I am more or less limited for a few days to lavish living here in the Tannhäuser. If I go out, I must wear gloves and a mask even in the city. But one whole wall of the suite’s salon becomes a stereo stage simply by voice request, either taped or piped live from any theater or club in Venusberg—and some of the “entertainment” has widened my sophistication unbelievably, especially when Uncle Tom is not around. I am beginning to realize that Mars is an essentially puritanical culture. Of course Venus doesn’t actually have laws, just company regulations, none of which seems to be concerned with personal conduct. But I had been brought up to believe that Mars Republic is a free society—and I suppose it is. However, there is “freedom” and “freedom.”

  Here the Venus Corporation owns everything worth owning and runs everything that shows a profit, all in a fashion that would make Marsmen swoon. But I guess Venusmen would swoon at how straitlaced we are. I know this Mars girl blushed for the first time in I don’t know when and switched off a show that I didn’t really believe.

  But the solly screen is far from being the only astonishing feature of this suite. It is so big that one should carry food and water when exploring it, and the salon is so huge that local storms appear distinctly possible. My private bath is a suite in itself, with so many gadgets in it that I ought to have an advanced degree in engineering before risking washing my hands. But I’ve learned how to use them all and purely love them! I had never dreamed that I had been limping along all my life without Utter Necessities.

  Up to now my top ambition along these lines has been not to have to share a washstand with Clark, because it has never been safe to reach for my own Christmas-present cologne without checking to see that it is not nitric acid or worse! Clark regards a bathroom as an auxiliary chemistry lab; he’s not much interested in staying clean.