The Number of the Beast

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “Of course. But while we’re all here—You don’t need two ’freshers in a ship that small. Gay needs the space for a Turing mod I’ll help with. So if the fetishists will clear their gear out of Buster Brown and—” Dora broke off suddenly: “The Captain will be pleased to receive the Captain and ship’s company of Gay Deceiver in the lounge at her convenience. That means ‘Right now.’ Follow me—little blue light.”

  I had been trying on a green laplap. They didn’t weigh anything. Like wrapping fog around your hips. I snatched it off and wrapped it around Zebadiah: “That’s the nearest to nothing you’ll ever wear, Zebadiah, but it does the trick.” (I don’t blame men for being shy. Our plumbing is out of sight, mostly, but theirs is airconditioned and ofttimes embarrassingly semaphoric. Embarrasses them, I mean; women find it interesting, often amusing. My nipples show my emotions, too—but in the culture in which I grew up nipples don’t count that much.)

  The little blue light led us around, then inboard. This “yacht” was large enough to get lost in. “Dora, can you see and hear in every part of the ship?”

  “Of course,” the blue light answered. “But in the Commodore’s suite, I can scan only by invitation. R.H.I.P. Lounge straight ahead. Call me if you want me. Midnight snacks a house specialty. I’m the best.” The little light flicked out.

  The lounge was circular and large; four people were gathered in one corner. (How does a circle have a corner? By arranging contours and cushions and nibble foods and a bar to turn it into a chummy space.) Two were the twins; they had peeled off the stickums which left no way to tell them apart.

  The others were a young woman and a man who looked fortyish. He wasn’t the one wearing a sheet; the young woman was. He was wearing much the same as our men but more like a kilt and in a plaid design.

  One twin took charge: “Commodore Sheffield, this is Captain Hilda, First Officer Carter, Chief Pilot Burroughs, Copilot Deety Carter. You’ve all met my sister but not our cousin, Elizabeth Long.”

  “Now introduce us over again,” ordered “Commodore Sheffield.” (“Commodore Sheffield” indeed! Whom did he think he was fooling?)

  “Yes, sir. Doctor Jacob Burroughs and his wife Hilda, Doctor Zebadiah Carter and his wife Doctor Deety Burroughs Carter. Doctor Elizabeth Long, Doctor Aaron Sheffield.”

  “Wait a half,” my husband interrupted. “If you’re going to do that, I must add that Captain Hilda has more doctorates than all the three of us, together.”

  Captain Long looked at her sister: “Lor, I feel naked.”

  “Laz, you are naked.”

  “Not where it matters. Commodore, do you still own that diploma mill in New Rome? What are you charging for doctor’s degrees? Nothing fancy, say a Ph.D. in theory of solid state. One for each of us.”

  “How about a family discount, Ol’ Buddy Boy?”

  The “Commodore” glanced at the overhead. “Dora, keep out of this.”

  “Why? I want a doctor’s degree, too. I taught them solid state.”

  He looked at the young woman in (half out of) the sheet. “Does Dora have a point?”

  “She does.”

  “Dora, you get the same treatment as your sisters. Now shut up. All three are declared special doctoral candidates, B.I.T., required residence and courses completed—but writtens and orals as tough as you think you are smart. That diploma mill—Certainly I own it. It’s for suckers. You three must produce. Two regents being present, it’s official. Dora, tell Teena.”

  “You betcha, Buddy Boy! ‘Doctor Dora’—won’t that be neat?”

  “Pipe down. Friends, these twin sisters could have several doctorates by flow, had they chosen to bury themselves on a campus. They are geniuses—”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “—and the Long family is proud of them. But erratic, insecure, unpredictable, and you turn your backs at your own risk. Nevertheless they are my favorite sisters and I love them very much.”

  They looked at each other. “He acknowledged us.”

  “It took him much too long.”

  “Let’s be big about it.”

  “Both sides?”

  “Now!”—they bowled him off his feet. He was standing—they hit with the same vector, with a quick assist from their “sister” Dora (she cut the gravity field for two tenths of a second), and sent him in a complete back flip. He bounced on his arse.

  He seemed undisturbed. “Beautifully timed, girls. Pax?”

  “‘Pax,’” they answered, bounded to their feet, pulled him to his. “We’re proud of you, Buddy Boy; you’re shaping up.”

  I decided to kick it over, learn why we had been kidnapped. Yes, “kidnapped.” I got to my feet before he could sit down. “And I am proud,” I said, dropping a deep court curtsy, “to have the honor of meeting the Senior…of the Howard Families.”

  Thunderous silence—

  The woman in-and-out of the sheet said, “Lazarus, there was never a chance of getting away with it. These are sophisticated people. They have what you must have. Drop your deviousness and throw yourself on their mercy. I’ll start it by telling my own experience. But first—”

  She got to her feet, letting the sheet drop. “Dora! May I have a long mirror? An inverter if possible—otherwise a three-way.”

  Dora answered, “Teena can afford such stunts as inverters—I can’t; I have a ship to run. Here’s your three-way.” A partition vanished, replaced by a three-way mirror, lavish in size, taller than I.

  She held out her hands to me. “Doctor D.T., will you join me?”

  I let her pull me to my feet, stood with her at the mirror. We glanced at ourselves; she turned us around. “Do you all see it? Doctor Hilda, Doctor Carter, Doctor Burroughs? Lazarus, do you see it?”

  The two she did not address answered. Laz (perhaps Lor) said, “They look as much alike as we do.” The other answered, “More.” “Except for—” “Shush! It’s not polite.”

  Lazarus said, “I always have to step in it to find it. But I never claimed to be bright.”

  She didn’t answer; we were looking at ourselves in the mirror. The resemblance was so great as to suggest identical twins as with Lapis Lazuli and Lorelei Lee—Yes, I had known at once who they were. Captain Auntie did, too; I’m not sure about our husbands.

  Those are nice teats—I can admit it when I see them on someone else. It’s no virtue to have this or that physical asset; it’s ancestry combined with self-obligation to take care of one’s body. But a body feature can be pleasing to the owner as well as to others.

  Same broad shoulders, same wasp waist, same well-packed, somewhat exaggerated buttocks.

  “We’re alike another way, too,” she said. “What’s the fourth root of thirty-seven?”

  “Two point four-six-six-three-two-five-seven-one-five. Why?”

  “Just testing. Try me.”

  “What’s the Number of the Beast?”

  “Uh—Oh! Six sixty-six.”

  “Try it this way: Six to the sixth power, and that number in turn raised to its sixth power.”

  “The first part is forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six and—Oh, that’s a brute! It would be one and a fraction—one-point-oh-three-plus times ten to the twenty-eighth. Do you know the exact number?”

  “Yes but I had a computer crunch it. It’s—I’ll write it.” I glanced around—at once a little waldo handed me a pad and stylus. “Thanks, Dora.” I wrote:

  10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056.

  “Oh, how beautiful!”

  “But not elegant,” I answered. “It applies to a six-dee geometry and should be expressed in base six—but we lack nomenclature for base six and our computers don’t use it. However—” I wrote:

  Base six: (1010)10 = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

  She looked delighted and clapped. “The same number,” I went on, “in its elegant form. But no words that I know by which to read it. That awkward base-ten expression at least can be put into words.”

>   “Mmm, yes—but not easily. ‘Ten thousand three hundred and fourteen quadrillion, four hundred twenty-four thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight trillion, four hundred and ninety thousand five hundred and thirty-five billion, five hundred and forty-six milliard, one hundred and seventy-one million, nine hundred and forty-nine thousand, and fifty-six. But I would never say it other than as a stunt.”

  I blinked at her. “I recognize that nomenclature—just barely. Here is the way I would read it: ‘Ten octillion, three hundred fourteen septillion, four hundred twenty-four sextillion, seven hundred ninety-eight quintillion, four hundred ninety quadrillion, five hundred thirty-five trillion, five hundred forty-six billion, one hundred seventy-one million, nine hundred forty-nine thousand, and fifty six.’”

  “I was able to follow you by reading your figures at the same time. But base-six is best. Is the number interesting or useful as well as beautiful?”

  “Both. It’s the number of universes potentially accessible through my father’s device.”

  “I must talk with him. Lazarus, shall I tell my story now? It’s the proper foundation.”

  “If you are willing. Not shy about it.”

  “‘Shy’!” She went over and kissed him—a buss en passant but one in which time stops. “Old darling, I was shy before I found out who I am. Now I’m relaxed, and as bold as need be. New friends, I was introduced as Elizabeth Long, but my first name is usually shortened to a nickname—‘Lib.’ And, yes, I’m Dr. Long. Mathematics.

  My full name is Elizabeth Andrew Jackson Libby Long.”

  I was more braced for it having swapped some casual mental calculation with her. I have this trick of letting my features go slack. I don’t have to think about it; I’ve been doing it since I was three when I found that it was sometimes best to keep thoughts to myself.

  I did this now and watched my family.

  The Hillbilly looked thoughtful, and nodded.

  Zebadiah prison-whispered to me: “Sex change.”

  Pop tackled it systematically. “I recognize the second, third, and fourth names. You were once known by them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have the nickname ‘Slipstick’?”

  “Yes, and, before that, ‘Pinky.’” She ran a hand through her curls and smiled. “Not pink but close enough.”

  “Now you are a woman. There is no point in guessing; you mentioned a story to tell.”

  “Yes. Dora, how about a round of drinks? Lazarus, how’s your supply of those narcotic sticks?”

  Pop said, “None of us smokes.”

  “These are neither tobacco nor bhang—nor addictive. They produce a mild euphoria. I am not urging you; I want one myself. Thanks, Lazarus, and pass them around. Now about me—

  “I was male nearly eight hundred years, then I was killed. I was dead fifteen hundred years, then I was revived. In renewing me it was found that my twenty-third gene pair was a triplet—XXY.”

  The Hillbilly said, “I see. With Y dominant.”

  I added: “Twin, Aunt Hilda is a biologist.”

  “Good! Aunt Hilda—May I call you that? As my twin does?—will you help me with the hard parts?” Lib smiled and it was my smile—a happy grin. “The Y was dominant but the double dose of X bothered me and I didn’t know why. I did well enough as a male—thirty years in the Space Navy of Old Home Terra as a result of an officer taking an interest in me and getting me an appointment to its Academy. But I lacked command temperament and spent most of my service as a staff technical officer—I rarely commanded and never a large ship.” She grinned again. “But today, as a self-aware female instead of a mixed-up male I do not hesitate to command.

  “To go back—I was never easy with boys or men. Shy, solitary, and regarded as queer. Not the idiom meaning homosexual… I was too shy. Although it probably would have been good for me. I was a ‘missing Howard’ in those days—after the Interregnum—and it was years after I entered the Navy that the Families found me. I married then, into the Families. Most XXY people are infertile—I was not. In the next seventy years I had twenty-one children and enjoyed living with my wives, enjoyed sex with them, loved our children.

  “Which brings us to the escape from Earth led by Lazarus. I was a bachelor, both my wives having remarried. Friends, Lazarus was the first man I ever loved.”

  “Lib, that has nothing to do with the story! I didn’t know you were in love with me.”

  “It has everything to do with my story. Off and on, for eight centuries, we were partners in exploration. Then I was killed—my own carelessness. Eventually Lazarus and his sisters cremated me by tossing me into the atmosphere of Old Home Terra in a trajectory that would cause ashes to impact near where I was born. Lazarus, they don’t seem surprised. Do they disbelieve me?”

  “Certainly we believe you!” I interrupted. “But what you’ve told us isn’t news to us. What we don’t know is how you are now alive and female. Reincarnation?”

  “Oh, no! Reincarnation is nonsense.”

  I found myself irritated. Reincarnation is something I have no opinion about, since a housecleaning I gave my mind after we lost Mama Jane. “You have data?” I demanded.

  “Deety, did I step on your toes?”

  “No, you didn’t, Lib. I asked if you had data.”

  “Well…no. But if you assume the truth of the proposition, I think I can show that it leads to a contradiction.”

  “The negative-proof method. It’s tricky, Lib. Ask Georg Cantor.”

  Lib laughed. “Okay, I will attempt to have no opinion until someone shows me verifiable data, one way or the other.”

  “I was hoping you had data, Lib, since you’ve been dead and I haven’t. Or don’t recall having been.”

  “But I don’t recall being dead, either. Just a whale of a blow in the back…then dreams I can’t remember…then someone asking me patiently, again and again, whether I preferred to be a man or a woman…and at last I tracked clearly enough to realize that the question was serious…and I answered, ‘Woman’—and they made me answer that question at least once a day for many days—and then I went to sleep one night and when I woke, I was a woman…which did not astonish me nearly as much as to learn that fifteen centuries had passed. Being a woman seemed completely natural. I’ve had five children now—borne five, I mean; I had sired twenty-one…and one was put into me by one of my own descendants. Lazarus, when are you going to knock me up?”

  “When the Greeks count time by the Kalends.”

  “Libby honey, when you want to swing that—if you aren’t joking—check with me.”

  “Thanks, Dora; I’ll remember. Lazarus, you will have to explain the paradox; I was just a puppet.”

  “Isn’t it bedtime? We’re keeping our guests up.”

  “Captain Hilda?” Lib inquired.

  “Deety is in charge of time.”

  “Lib, I don’t know ship’s time yet. I gave you our seconds; we have sixty seconds to a minute; sixty minutes to an hour; twenty-four hours in a day. Primitive, eh? Is your time metric?”

  “Depends on what you mean, Deety. You work to base ‘ten,’ do you not?”

  “Yes. I mean: No, I work to base ‘two’ because I’m a computer programmer. But I’m used to converting—don’t have to think about it.”

  “I knew you used ‘ten’ when I made a guess as to what you meant by ‘six to the sixth power’ and you accepted my answer. We now work to base-one-hundred-twenty for most purposes—binary one-one-one-one-zero-zero-zero.”

  “Five-factorial. Sensible. Fits almost any base.”

  “Yes. We use it for routine work. But in scientific work we use base-three, because our computers use trinary. I understand it took Gay and Dora several milliseconds to interface.”

  “We aren’t that slow!”

  “My apologies, Dora. For some work we use a time scale that fits trinary. But for daily living, our clock is just like yours—but three percent slower. Our planet’s day is longer.”

  �
�By forty-two of your minutes.”

  “You’re quick, Deety. Yes.”

  “Your computers must be three-phase A.C.”

  “You are quicker than I was two thousand years ago. And I was quicker then.”

  “No way to tell and any computer makes us look like Achilles’ tortoise. We had dinner at eighteen. Gay entered Dora about an hour and a quarter later. So for us it’s about half past twenty, and we usually go to bed between twenty-two and twenty-three if we get to bed on time which we never do. What time is it in the ship and what is ship’s routine?”

  The others had let me and my new twin chatter. Now Lazarus said, “If this madhouse has a routine, I’ve never found it.”

  “Ol’ Buddy Boy, you don’t have a routine. I run this joint on the bell. Deety, it’s just—bong!—twenty-one…and Lazarus never went to bed that early in all his evil years. Buddy Boy, what are you dodging?”

  “Manners, Dora.”

  “Yes, Pappy. Deety, he’s dodging the chicanery with which he fooled even himself…because he must admit the triple chicanery he wants to rope you in on—and it takes Gay because I’m not built for it. Until today I never heard of ‘t,’ Tau and Teh. I thought ‘t’—that you call Tau—was all there was. Aside from paratime in an encapsulation surrounded by irrelevancy such as I am taking us through.

  “But back to the corpse caper—Lib got herself killed about eight hundred Post Diaspora. Lazarus slaps her—him—into a tank of LOX, and places him-her-it in orbit, with a beacon. Comes back quick as he can—and can’t find Libby’s cadaver. Fourteen centuries later my sister Teena, then known as Minerva, sees what should have been obvious, that any irrelevant ship, such as yours truly, is a time machine as well as a starship. A great light dawns on Lazarus; the corpse pickled in LOX is missing because he picked it up earlier. So he tries again, more than a thousand years later and five years earlier—and there it is! So Lazarus and I and Laz-Lor go to 1916 Old-Style-or-Gregorian, Old Home Terra, and bury Lib from the sky into the Ozarks where she—he—was born—which was pretty silly because we chucked her into those Green Hills about a century before she was—he—he was born. A paradox.

  “But paradoxes don’t trouble us. We live in paratime, Laz-Lor are acute cases of parapsychology, we operate under paradoctrines. Why, take your family—four doctors. A double pair o’ docs.”