The Star Beast

by Robert A. Heinlein

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Sensible Thing To Do

  JOHN THOMAS stayed with Lummox a short time only, as he could not bear to tell him the truth and there was nothing else to talk about. Lummox sensed his distress and asked questions; at last John Thomas pulled himself together and said, “There’s nothing wrong I tell you! Shut up and go to sleep. And be darn sure you stay in the yard, or I’ll beat you bow-legged.”

  “Yes, Johnnie. I don’t like it outside anyway. People did funny things.”

  “Just remember that and don’t do it again.”

  “I won’t Johnnie. Cross my heart.”

  John Thomas went in and up to bed. But he did not go to sleep. After a while he got up, dressed in part, and went up to the attic. The house was very old and had a real garret, reached by a ladder and scuttle hole in an upper hallway closet. Once there had been a proper staircase but it had been squeezed out when the landing flat was built on the roof, as the space had been needed for the lazy lift.

  But the attic was still there and it was John Thomas’s only private place. His room his mother “tidied” sometimes, even though it was his duty (and wish) to do it himself. Anything might happen when Mum tidied. Papers might be lost, destroyed, or even read, for Mum believed that there should be no secrets between parents and children.

  So anything he wanted to keep to himself he kept in the attic; Mum never went there—ladders made her dizzy. He had a small, almost airless and very dirty room there which he was supposed to use only for “storage.” Its actual uses were varied: he had raised snakes there some years before; there he kept the small collection of books which every boy comes by but does not discuss with parents; he even had a telephone there, an audio extension run from the usual sound & sight instrument in his bedroom. This last was a practical result of his high-school course in physics and it had been real work to wire it, as it not only had to be rigged when Mum was out of the house and in such a way that she would not notice it but also it had to be done so as not to advertise its presence to the phone company’s technicians.

  But it worked, jury-rigged though it was, and he had added a “servant” circuit which flashed a warning light if anyone was listening from any other instrument in the house.

  Tonight he had no wish to call anyone and it was past the hour when direct messages were permitted at the dormitory where Betty lived. He simply wanted to be alone…and to look over some papers he had not looked at in a long time. He fumbled under his work table, flipped a toggle; a panel opened in what appeared to be blank wall. In the cupboard thus exposed were books and papers. He took them out.

  One item was a thin-paper notebook, his great grandfather’s diary of the Trail Blazer’s second voyage of exploration. It was more than a hundred years old and showed the wear of many hands. John Thomas had read it a dozen times; he supposed that his father and his grandfather had done the same. All the pages were fragile, many had been repaired.

  He thumbed through it, turned the pages carefully, but browsing rather than reading. His eye lit on one remembered item:

  “…some of the lads are panicky, especially the married men. But they should of thought of it before they signed up. Everybody knows the score now; we burst through and came out somewhere not close to home. Who cares? We meant to travel, didn’t we?”

  John Thomas turned a few more pages. He had always known the story of the Trail Blazer; it produced in him neither awe nor wonder. One of the first interstellar ships, her crew had plied the profession of discovery with the same acceptance of the unknown that bad marked the golden days of the fifteenth century, when men had braved uncharted seas in wooden vessels. The Trail Blazer and her sisters had gone out the same way, burst through. the Einstein barrier, taken their chances on getting back. John Thomas Stuart VIII had been aboard her that second voyage, had come home in one piece, married, begat a male child, and settled down…it was he who had built the landing flat on the roof.

  Then one night he had heard the call of the wild goose, signed up again. He had not come back.

  John Thomas located the first mention of Lummox:

  “This planet is a fair imitation of good old Terra, which is a relief after the last three, since we can hit dirt without suiting up. But evolution must have been playing double-or-nothing here, instead of the four-limbed arrangement considered stylish at home practically everything here has at least eight legs…‘mice’ that look like centipedes, rabbitlike creatures with six short legs and one pair of tremendous jumping legs, all sorts up to things as big as giraffes. I caught one little fellow (if you can call it that…fact is, he came up and crawled into my lap) and I was so taken with him that I am going to try to keep him as a mascot. He puts me in mind of a dachshund puppy, only better engineered. Cristy had the airlock watch, so I was able to get him aboard without turning him over to Biology.”

  The next day’s entry did not mention Lummox, being concerned with a more serious matter:

  “We hit the jackpot this time… Civilization. The officers are, so excited they are almost off their heads. I’ve seen one of the dominant race at a distance. The same multi-legged pattern, but otherwise making you wonder what would have happened to Earth if the dinosaurs had made good.”

  Still further on…:

  “I’ve been wondering what to feed Cuddlepup. I needn’t have worried. He likes everything I’ve sneaked out of the mess for him…but he will eat anything that is not riveted down. Today he ate my Everlasting stylus and it has me worried. I don’t suppose the ink cartridge will poison him but how about the metal and plastic? He’s just like a baby; everything he can reach goes in his mouth.

  “Cuddlepuppy gets cuter every day. The little tyke seems to be trying to talk; he whines at me and I whine back at him. Then he crawls into my lap and tells me that he loves me, plain as anything. I’ll be switched if I’ll let Biology have him, even if they catch me. Those birds would likely as not cut him up just to see what makes him tick. He trusts me and I’m not going to let him down.”

  The diary skipped a couple of days; the Trail Blazer had made an emergency raise-ship and Assistant Power man J. T. Stuart had been too busy to write. John Thomas knew why…the negotiations opened so hopefully with the dominant race had failed…no one knew why.

  The captain fled to save his ship and his crew. They had blasted away and had again broken through the Einstein barrier without obtaining from the sentient race the astronomical data they had hoped to get.

  There were only a few more entries concerning Lummox-Cuddlepup; John Thomas put the diary aside, finding that reading about Lummox was more than he could stand. He started to put everything back into his hideaway; his hand fell on a small, privately-printed book titled A FEW NOTES ABOUT MY FAMILY. It had been written by his grandfather. John Thomas Stuart IX, and Johnnie’s father had brought it up to date before he had gone on his last patrol. It belonged in the family library, beside the massive official biography of John Thomas Stuart VI, but Johnnie had sneaked it upstairs and his mother had never missed it. He knew it as well as he knew the diary, but he started thumbing through it to get his mind off Lummox.

  The record started in 1880, with John Thomas Stuart. Who his people had been nobody knew, as he had come from a little Illinois town that kept no birth records in that remote day. He himself had confused the record beyond recovery by running away to sea at fourteen. He had sailed the China trade, lived through beatings and bad food, and eventually had ‘swallowed the anchor,’ a retired sea captain of the dying age of sail. He had built the old house John Thomas was in.

  John Thomas, Junior, had not gone to sea. Instead he had killed himself flying a boxkite affair termed an “aeroplane.” That had been before the first of the World Wars; for several years thereafter the house had. received “paying guests.”

  J. T. Stuart III had died to greater purpose; the submarine of which he was gunnery officer had penetrated Tsushima Straits to the Sea of Japan, but had failed to return.

  Jo
hn Thomas Stuart IV was killed on the first trip to the Moon.

  John Thomas V had emigrated to Mars; his son, the famous name in the family, Johnnie skipped over quickly; he had long since grown tired of being reminded that he bore the same name as General Stuart, first governor of the Martian Commonwealth after the revolution. Johnnie wondered what would have happened to his great great great grandfather if the revolution had failed? Would they have hanged him?…instead of putting up statues of him?

  Much of the book was devoted to an attempt by Johnnie’s grandfather to clear the name of his own grandfather—for the son of General Stuart was no public hero; instead he had sweated out his last fifteen years of life in the Triton penal colony. His wife had returned to her family on Earth and taken back her maiden name, for herself and her son.

  But her son had gone proudly into court the day he was of age and had had his name changed from “Carlton Gimmidge” to “John Thomas Stuart VIII.” It was he who had fetched Lummox back and he had used his bonus money from the second trip of the Trail Blazer to buy back the old homestead. He had apparently impressed on his own son that his son’s grandfather had gotten a dirty deal; the son had made a great point of it in this record.

  Johnnie’s grandfather could himself have used an advocate to defend his name. The record stated simply that John Thomas Stuart IX had resigned from the service and had never gone into space again, but Johnnie knew that it had been a choice of that or a court martial; his own father had told him…but he had told him also that his grandfather could have got off scot-free had he been willing to testify. His father had added, “Johnnie, I’d rather see you loyal to your friends than with your chest decked out in medals.”

  The old man had still been living at the time Johnnie’s father told him this. On a later occasion, while Johnnie’s father was out on patrol, Johnnie had tried to let him know that he knew.

  Granddad had been furious. “Poppycock!” he had shouted. “They had me dead to rights.”

  “But Dad said your skipper was actually the one who…”

  “Your Dad wasn’t there. Captain Dominic was the finest skipper that ever trod steel…may his soul rest in peace. Set up the checkers, son. I’m going to beat you.”

  Johnnie had tried to get the straight of it after his grandfather died, but his father’s answer was not direct. “Your grandfather was a romantic sentimentalist, Johnnie. It’s the flaw in our make-up. Hardly sense enough in the whole line to balance a check book.” He had puffed his pipe and added, “But we do have fun.”

  Johnnie put the books and papers away, feeling dully that it had not done him much good to read about his forebears; Lummox was still on his mind. He guessed he ought to go down and try to get some sleep.

  He was turning away as the phone flashed; he grabbed it before the light could change to sound signal; he did not want his mother to wake. “Yes?”

  “That you, Johnnie?”

  “Yeah. I can’t see you, Betty; I’m up in the attic.”

  “That isn’t the only reason you can’t. I haven’t got my face on, so I’ve got the video switched off. Besides it’s pitch dark in this hallway, since I’m not allowed to phone this time o’ night. Uh, the Duchess isn’t listening, is she?”

  Johnnie glanced at his warning signal. “No.”

  “I’ll make this brief. My spies report that Deacon Dreiser got the okay to go ahead.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Point is, what do we do about it? We can’t sit still and let him.”

  “Uh, I’ve done something.”

  “What? Nothing silly, I hope. I shouldn’t have been away today.”

  “Well, a Mr. Perkins…”

  “Perkins? The chap who went to see Judge O’Farrell tonight?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Look, don’t waste time. I always know. Tell me your end.”

  “Well…” John Thomas gave a confused report. Betty listened without comment, which made him defensive; he found himself expounding the viewpoints of his mother and of Mr. Perkins, rather than his own. “So that’s how it was,” he finished lamely.

  “So you told them to go climb a tree? Good, Now here is our next move. If the Museum. can do it, we can do it. It’s just a case of getting Grandpa O’Farrell to…”

  “Betty, you don’t understand. I sold Lummox.”

  “What? You sold Lummox?”

  “Yes. I had to. If I didn’t…”

  “You sold Lummox.”

  “Betty, I couldn’t help my…”

  But she had switched off on him.

  He tried to call back, got a recorded voice that said, “This instrument is out of direct service until tomorrow morning at eight. If you wish to record a message stand by for…” He switched off.

  He sat holding his head and wishing he were dead. The worst of it was, Betty was right. He had let himself be badgered into doing something he knew was wrong, just because it had seemed that there was nothing else he could do.

  Betty had not been fooled. Maybe what she wanted to try wasn’t any good either…but she had known a wrong answer when she heard it.

  He sat there, flailing himself but not knowing what to do. The more he thought, the angrier he got. He had let himself be talked into something that wasn’t right…just because it was reasonable…just because it was logical…just because it was common sense.

  The deuce with common sense! His ancestors hadn’t used common sense, any of ’em! Who was he to start such a practice?

  None of them had ever done the sensible thing. Why, take his great great great grandfather…he’d found a situation he hadn’t liked and he had turned a whole planet upside down through seven bloody years. Sure, they called him a hero…but does starting a revolution come under the head of common sense?

  Or take… Oh, shucks, take any of ’em! There hadn’t been a “good” boy in the bunch. Would granddad have sold Lummox? Why, granddad would have torn down the courthouse with his bare hands. If granddad was here, he’d be standing guard over Lummox with a gun and daring the world to touch one spine.

  He certainly wasn’t going to take any of Perkins’ dirty money; he knew that.

  But what could he do?

  He could go to Mars. Under the Lafayette Law he was a citizen and could claim land. But how could he get there? Worse, how could he get Lummox there?

  The trouble with that, he told himself savagely, is that it almost makes sense. And sense is no use to me.

  At last he hit on a plan. It had the one virtue of having no sense to it at all; it was compounded of equal parts of folly and of risk. He felt that granddad would have liked it.

  CHAPTER IX

  Customs and an Ugly Duckling

  HE went down to the upper hallway and listened at his mother’s door. He did not expect to hear anything as her bedroom was sound-proofed; the action was instinctive. Then he returned to his own room and made rapid preparations, starting by dressing in camping clothes and mountain boots. His sleeping bag he kept in a drawer of his desk; he got it out, tucked it in a side pocket of his coat and shoved its power pack in a breast pocket. Other items of hiking and camping gear he distributed among other pockets and he was almost ready to go.

  He counted his cash and swore softly; his other assets were in a savings account and now he would have no chance to draw from it. Well, it couldn’t be helped…he started downstairs, then remembered an important matter. He went back to his desk.

  “Dear Mum,” he wrote. “Please tell Mr. Perkins that the deal is off. You can use my college money to pay back the insurance people. Lummie and I are going away and it won’t do any good to try to find us. I’m sorry but we have to.” He looked at the note, decided that there was no more to be said, added “love,” and signed it.

  He started a note to Betty, tore it up, tried again, and finally told himself that he would send her a letter when he had more to say. He went downstairs, left the note on the dining table, then went to the pantry and picked out su
pplies. A few minutes later, carrying a large sack crammed with tins and packages, he went out to Lummox’s house.

  His friend was asleep. The watchman eye accepted him; Lummox did not stir. John Thomas hauled back and kicked him as hard as possible. “Hey, Lum! Wake up.”

  The beast opened his other eyes, yawned daintily, and piped, “Hello, Johnnie.”

  “Pull yourself together. We’re going for a hike.”

  Lummox extended his legs and stood up, letting a ripple run from head to stern. “All right.”

  “Make me a seat—and leave room for this.” Johnnie held up the bag of groceries. Lummox complied without comment; John Thomas chucked the sack up on the beast, then scrambled up himself. Soon they were on the road in front of the Stuart home.

  Almost irrational as he was, John Thomas nevertheless knew that running away and hiding Lummox was a project almost impossible; Lummox anywhere would be about as conspicuous as a bass drum in a bathtub. However there was a modicum of method in his madness; concealing Lummox near Westville was not quite the impossibility it would have been some places.

  Westville lay in an open mountain valley; immediately west the backbone of the continent shoved its gaunt ridges into the sky. A few miles beyond the city commenced one of the great primitive areas, thousands of square miles of up-and-down country almost the same as it had been when the Indians greeted Columbus. During a short season each year it swarmed with red-coated sportsmen, blazing away at deer and elk and each other; most of the year it was deserted.

  If he could get Lummox there without being seen, it was barely possible that they could avoid being caught—until his food supplies ran out. When that time came—well, he might live off the country just as Lummox would…eat venison, maybe. Or maybe go back to town without Lummox and argue it out again from the strong position of being able to refuse to tell where Lummox was until they listened to reason. The possibilities were not thought out; he simply intended to get Lummox under cover and then think about it…get him somewhere where that old scoundrel Dreiser couldn’t try out ways to hurt him!