Podkayne of Mars

by Robert A. Heinlein

  But he did not show me how to disarm it. I ran into his blankest, most stubborn wall. He expects to escape, yes—and he expects to come back here with plenty of help and in plenty of time and disarm the thing. But he is utterly convinced that Mrs. Grew intends to kill us, and if anything goes wrong and we don’t break out of here, or die trying, or anything . . . well, he intends to take her with us.

  I told him it was wrong, I said that he mustn’t take the law in his own hands. “What law?” he said. “There isn’t any law here. And you aren’t being logical, Pod. Anything that is right for a group to do is right for one person to do.”

  That one was too slippery for me to answer so I tried simply pleading with him and he got sore. “Maybe you would rather be in the cage with Jojo?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  “Then shut up about it. Look, Pod, I planned all this out when she had me in that tank, trying to beat my ears in, make me deaf. I kept my sanity by ignoring what was being done to me and concentrating on when and how I would blow her to bits.”

  I wondered if he had indeed kept his sanity but I kept my doubts to myself and shut up. Besides I’m not sure that he’s wrong; it may be that I’m just squeamish about bloodshed. “Anything that is moral for a group to do is moral for one person to do.” There must be a flaw in that, since I’ve always been taught that it is wrong to take the law in your own hands. But I can’t find the flaw and it sounds axiomatic, self-evident. Switch it around. If something is wrong for one person to do, can it possibly be made right by having a lot of people (a government) agree to do it together? Even unanimously?

  If a thing is wrong, it is wrong—and vox populi can’t change it.

  Just the same, I’m not sure I can nap with an atom bomb under my bed.

  POSTLUDE

  I guess I had better finish this.

  My sister got right to sleep after I rehearsed her in what we were going to do. I stretched out on the floor but didn’t go right to sleep. I’m a worrier, she isn’t. I reviewed my plans, trying to make them tighter. Then I slept.

  I’ve got one of those built-in alarm clocks and I woke just when I planned to, an hour before dawn. Any later and there would be too much chance that Jojo might be loose, any earlier and there would be too much time in the dark. The Venus bush is chancy even when you see well; I didn’t want Poddy to step into something sticky, or step on something that would turn and bite her leg off. Nor me, either.

  But we had to risk the bush, or stay and let old Gruesome kill us at her convenience. The first was a sporting chance; the latter was a dead certainty, even though I had a terrible time convincing Poddy that Mrs. Grew would kill us. Poddy’s greatest weakness—the really soft place in her head, she’s not too stupid otherwise—is her almost total inability to grasp that some people are as bad as they are. Evil. Poddy never has understood evil. Naughtiness is about as far as her imagination reaches.

  But I understand evil, I can get right inside the skull of a person like Mrs. Grew and understand how she thinks.

  Perhaps you infer from this that I am evil, or partly so. All right, want to make something of it? Whatever I am, I knew Mrs. Grew was evil before we ever left the Tricorn . . . when Poddy (and even Girdie!) thought the slob was just too darling for words.

  I don’t trust a person who laughs when there is nothing to laugh about. Or is good-natured no matter what happens. If it’s that perfect, it’s an act, a phony. So I watched her . . . and cheating at solitaire wasn’t the only giveaway.

  So between the bush and Mrs. Grew, I chose the bush, both for me and my sister.

  Unless the air car was there and we could swipe it. This would be a mixed blessing, as it would mean two of them to cope with, them armed and us not. (I don’t count a bomb as an arm, you can’t point it at a person’s head.)

  Before I woke Poddy I took care of that alate pseudo-simian, that “fairy.” Vicious little beast. I didn’t have a gun. But I didn’t really want one at that point; they understand about guns and are hard to hit, they’ll dive on you at once.

  Instead I had shoe trees in my spare shoes, elastic bands around my spare clothes, and more elastic bands in my pockets, and several two-centimeter steel ball bearings.

  Shift two wing nuts, and the long parts of the shoe trees become a steel fork. Add elastic bands and you have a slingshot. And don’t laugh at a slingshot; many a sand rat has kept himself fed with only a slingshot. They are silent and you usually get your ammo back.

  I aimed almost three times as high as I would at home, to allow for the local gravity, and got it right on the sternum, knocked it off its perch—crushed the skull with my heel and gave it an extra twist for the nasty bite on Poddy’s arm. The young one started to whine, so I pushed the carcass over in the corner, somewhat out of sight, and put the cub on it. It shut up. I took care of all this before I woke Poddy because I knew she had sentimental fancies about these “fairies” and I didn’t want her jittering and maybe grabbing my elbow. As it was—clean and fast.

  She was still snoring, so I slipped off my shoes and made a fast reconnoiter.

  Not so good—Our local witch was already up and reaching for her broom; in a few minutes she would be unlocking Jojo if she hadn’t already. I didn’t have a chance to see if the sky car was outside; I did well not to get caught. I hurried back and woke Poddy.

  “Pod!” I whispered. “You awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wide awake? You’ve got to do your act, right now. Make it loud and make it good.”

  “Check.”

  “Help me up on the perch. Can your sore arm take it?” She nodded, slid quickly off the bed and took position at the door, hands ready. I grabbed her hands, bounced to her shoulders, steadied, and she grabbed my calves as I let go her hands—and then I was up on the perch, over the door. I waved her on.

  Poddy went running out the door, screaming, “Mrs. Grew! Mrs. Grew! Help, help! My brother!” She did make it good.

  And came running back in almost at once with Mrs. Grew puffing after her.

  I landed on Gruesome’s shoulders, knocking her to the floor and knocking her gun out of her hand. I twisted and snapped her neck before she could catch her breath.

  Pod was right on the ball, I have to give her credit. She had that gun before it stopped sliding. Then she held it, looking dazed.

  I took it carefully from her. “Grab your purse. We go right now! Stick close behind me.”

  Jojo was loose, I had cut it too fine. He was in the living room, looking, I guess, to see what the noise was about. I shot him.

  Then I looked for the air car while keeping the gun ready for the driver. No sign of either one—and I didn’t know whether to groan or cheer. I was all keyed up to shoot him but maybe he would have shot me first. But a car would have been mighty welcome compared with heading into the bush.

  I almost changed my plan at that point and maybe I should have. Kept together, I mean, and headed straight north for the ring road.

  It was the gun that decided me. Poddy could protect herself with it—and I would just be darn careful what I stepped on or in. I handed it to her and told her to move slowly and carefully until there was more light—but get going!

  She was wobbling the gun around. “But, Brother, I’ve never shot anybody!”

  “Well, you can if you have to.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Nothing to it. Just point it at ’em and press the button. Better use both hands. And don’t shoot unless you really need to.”

  “All right.”

  I smacked her behind. “Now get going. See you later.”

  And I got going. I looked behind once, but she was already vanished in the smog. I put a little distance between me and the house, just in case, then concentrated on approximating course west.

  And I got lost. That’s all. I needed that tracker but I had figured I could get along without it and Pod had to have it. I got hopelessly lost. There wasn’t breeze enough for me to tell anythi
ng by wetting my finger and that polarized light trick for finding the Sun is harder than you would think. Hours after I should have reached the ring road I was still skirting boggy places and open water and trying to keep from being somebody’s lunch.

  And suddenly there was the most dazzling light possible and I went down flat and stayed there with my eyes buried in my arm and started to count.

  I wasn’t hurt at all. The blast wave covered me with mud and the noise was pretty rough, but I was well outside the real trouble. Maybe half an hour later I was picked up by a cop car.

  Certainly, I should have disarmed that bomb. I had intended to, if everything went well; it was just meant to be a “Samson in the Temple” stunt if things turned out dry. A last resort.

  Maybe I should have stopped to disarm it as soon as I broke old Gruesome’s neck—and maybe Jojo would have caught both of us if I had and him still with a happy-dust hangover. Anyhow I didn’t and then I was very busy deciding what to do and telling Poddy how to use that gun and getting her started. I didn’t think about the bomb until I was several hundred meters from the house—and I certainly didn’t want to go back then, even if I could have found it again in the smog, which is doubtful.

  But apparently Poddy did just that. Went back to the house, I mean. She was found later that day, about a kilometer from the house, outside the circle of total destruction—but caught by the blast.

  With a live baby fairy in her arms—her body had protected it; it doesn’t appear to have been hurt at all.

  That’s why I think she went back to the house. I don’t know that this baby fairy is the one she called “Ariel.” It could have been one that she picked up in the bush. But that doesn’t seem at all likely; a wild one would have clawed her and its parents would have torn her to pieces.

  I think she intended to save that baby fairy all along and decided not to mention it to me. It is just the kind of sentimental stunt that Poddy would pull. She knew I was going to have to kill the adult—and she never said a word against that; Pod could always be sensible when absolutely necessary.

  Then in the excitement of breaking out she forgot to grab it, just as I forgot to disarm the bomb after we no longer needed it. So she went back for it.

  And lost the inertial tracker, somehow. At least it wasn’t found on her or near her. Between the gun and her purse and the baby fairy and the tracker she must have dropped it in the bog. Must be, because she had plenty of time to go back and still get far away from the house. She should have been ten kilometers away by then, so she must have lost the tracker fairly soon and walked in a circle.

  I told Uncle Tom all about it and was ready to tell the Corporation people, Mr. Cunha and so forth, and take my medicine. But Uncle told me to keep my mouth shut. He agreed that I had fubbed it, mighty dry indeed—but so had he—and so had everybody. He was gentle with me. I wish he had hit me.

  I’m sorry about Poddy. She gave me some trouble from time to time, with her bossy ways and her illogical ideas—but just the same, I’m sorry.

  I wish I knew how to cry.

  Her little recorder was still in her purse and part of the tape could be read. Doesn’t mean much, though; she doesn’t tell what she did, she was babbling, sort of:

  “. . . very dark where I’m going. No man is an island complete in himself. Remember that, Clarkie. Oh, I’m sorry I fubbed it but remember that; it’s important. They all have to be cuddled sometimes. My shoulder—Saint Podkayne! Saint Podkayne, are you listening? UnkaTom, Mother, Daddy—is anybody listening? Do listen, please, because this is important. I love—”

  It cuts off there. So we don’t know whom she loved.

  Everybody, maybe.

  I’m alone here, now. Mr. Cunha made them hold the Tricorn until it was certain whether Poddy would die or get well, then Uncle Tom left and left me behind—alone, that is, except for doctors, and nurses, and Dexter Cunha hanging around all the time, and a whole platoon of guards. I can’t go anywhere without one. I can’t go to the casinos at all any more—not that I want to, much.

  I heard part of what Uncle Tom told Dad about it. Not all of it, as a phone conversation with a bounce time of over twenty minutes is episodic. I heard none of what Dad said and only one monologue of Uncle’s:

  “Nonsense, sir! I am not dodging my own load of guilt; it will be with me always. Nor can I wait here until you arrive and you know it and you know why—and both children will be safer in Mr. Cunha’s hands and not close to me . . . and you know that, too! But I have a message for you, sir, one that you should pass on to your wife. Just this: people who will not take the trouble to raise children should not have them. You with your nose always in a book, your wife gallivanting off God knows where—between you, your daughter was almost killed. No credit to either of you that she wasn’t. Just blind luck. You should tell your wife, sir, that building bridges and space stations and such gadgets is all very well . . . but that a woman has more important work to do. I tried to suggest this to you years ago . . . and was told to mind my own business. Now I am saying it. Your daughter will get well, no thanks to either of you. But I have my doubts about Clark. With him it may be too late. God may give you a second chance if you hurry. Ending transmission!”

  I faded into the woodwork then and didn’t get caught. But what did Uncle Tom mean by that—trying to scare Dad about me? I wasn’t hurt at all and he knows it. I just got a load of mud on me, not even a burn . . . whereas Poddy still looks like a corpse and they’ve got her piped and wired like a crèche.

  I don’t see what he was driving at.

  I’m taking care of that baby fairy because Poddy will want to see it when she gets well enough to notice things again; she’s always been a sentimentalist. It needs a lot of attention because it gets lonely and has to be held and cuddled, or it cries.

  So I’m up a lot in the night—I guess it thinks I’m its mother. I don’t mind, I don’t have much else to do.

  It seems to like me.

  ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

  Robert Anson Heinlein was born in Missouri in 1907, and was raised there. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929, but was forced by illness to retire from the Navy in 1934. He settled in California and over the next five years held a variety of jobs while doing postgraduate work in mathematics and physics at the University of California. In 1939 he sold his first science fiction story to Astounding magazine and soon devoted himself to the genre.

  He was a four-time winner of the Hugo Award for his novels Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), Starship Troopers (1959), Double Star (1956), and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966). His Future History series, incorporating both short stories and novels, was first mapped out in 1941. The series charts the social, political, and technological changes shaping human society from the present through several centuries into the future.

  Robert A. Heinlein’s books were among the first works of science fiction to reach bestseller status in both hardcover and paperback. He continued working into his eighties, and his work never ceased to amaze, to entertain, and to generate controversy. By the time he died, in 1988, it was evident that he was one of the formative talents of science fiction: a writer whose unique vision, unflagging energy, and persistence, over the course of five decades, made a great impact on the American mind.