The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes

by Robert A. Heinlein

  Hilda spotted it and tossed in a diversion. She was across from Haynes in the circle and not in my line of sight, as I was closer to the admiral—only Captain Smith between us—and I had turned my chair to face him. She said, “Admiral, you two are discussing us via your Lenses! Do you consider that polite treatment of guests?” She used her best top-sergeant voice.

  I turned to look at her. She had laid back her academic gown—the room was rather warm, at least for four people who had gone naked or nearly so most of eight or nine subjective weeks. She was sitting on her feet with her spine straight. She looked very female, and extremely haughty. “Well? Answer me! Is that the way the Patrol’s Port Admiral treats guests?”

  “Madam, your exact status is still to be determined.”

  “Please address me correctly!”

  “Dr. Hilda Burroughs, your party was apprehended in our space ….”

  “Your space? What arrogance! Show me your deed to it! Did Klono sign it? I’m sure Mentor did not. Admiral Haynes, to speak of empty space a billion kilometers from nowhere as ‘yours’ is nonsense. We ….”

  “Space we patrol, Doctor. Correction accepted.”

  “Hold your tongue, sir; I am not through. We were not apprehended. To ‘apprehend’ is to arrest. Captain Smith, did you tell Port Admiral Haynes that you had arrested us?”

  “No, Dr. Hilda, I did not.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Port Admiral, we came freely, as invited guests. You received us as honored guests. Now you say that our ‘status is still to be determined’—what do you mean by that, sir?”

  Haynes looked embarrassed, but dogged. “Doctor, I meant just what I said. Captain Smith reported what he saw … or thought he saw. But I have been unable to confirm it by examining your minds ….”

  Sharpie gave a gasp of outrage. “Oh! So those prods were not just clumsy accidents? I had excused them as I would forgive a dog for trying to lick my face. What sort of a little boy were you, Admiral? A peeping Tom? A keyhole snooper? Shame on you, you dirty little boy!”

  I was alert but did not interrupt. Sharpie has her own weapons and knows how to use them … and I didn’t have any delusions about the usefulness of one sword and one saber against a heavily fortified military base. We had been hornswoggled; perhaps Sharpie could get us out of it.

  The admiral’s face became as impassive as Deety’s. “Doctor, whether you like it or I like it—and I often do not—it is my duty to protect this galaxy as best I can. Some entities are enormously skilled at creating hallucinations. According to Sir Austin Cardynge, Captain Smith’s report is most readily explained as a skillfully contrived mass hallucination. On this point I thought I could test you four … but I have been unable to reach first check-station. So I must wait for help. I am sorry that you do not like my methods.”

  “I don’t!”

  “In the meantime you are guests. Within limits.”

  I said quickly, “Hilda, I’ll answer that!”—and stood up. “Port Admiral Haynes, we will not be having lunch with you.”

  “Eh? Sit down, Captain.”

  “No, Admiral. You met us with ambassadorial honors. I see now that those honors are phony. We do not accept phony hospitality, even that of a comfortable chair.” Deety stood up at once, so did Jake and Hilda—Jake helped her back into her academic gown. “I ask for escort back to our ship—armed, of course, and thought-screened against ‘hallucinations.’ We have no further business here.” I looked at Captain Smith. “Sorry, Ted—I thought we could give it to the Patrol. Not your fault.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Zeb.” He took a deep breath and stood up. “Port Admiral, I don’t like your methods, either.”

  “Smith, sit down!”

  “No, sir. I made a complete report to you, including the promises I made to them—Lensman’s Word. On behalf of the Galactic Patrol and by authority vested in me as a Patrol ship’s master in space, I invited them into the Nighthawk as guests. They were not ‘apprehended’; Dr. Hilda is correct. All the power at my command was not enough to arrest them; they came voluntarily by my invitation. I guaranteed that they and their ship could leave at any time … and that no Patrol action would be taken against them and their ship until it was at least as far away as it was at that time—that is to say, slightly over a billion miles from the nearest Patrol ship. I made these guarantees without mental reservations—and also promised to stay out of their minds with my Lens.

  “You know all this, Port Admiral, and so do they. By accepting my report and telling me to bring them to Prime Base, you implicitly confirmed my promises to them—including, in my opinion, a promise not to Lens them other than by direct invitation.

  “You have stripped me of Lensman’s honor, sir.” Ted Smith slowly, solemnly removed his Lens; it turned dark. He placed it on a side table by the admiral. He unbuckled his belt, placed his DeLameters on the rug—ran a forefinger down the front of his tunic; it opened. He took it off, dropped it on the rug. Shocked as I was, I still had room for surprise to find that he wore nothing under it. He was bare to the waist—and utterly without insignia.

  Smith looked up and met the admiral’s eyes. “That completes it. I will confirm in writing at this moment.”

  “Smith, I’ll take care of you later!”

  “No, sir. To take care of me now or later, you must prefer charges before the Galactic Council. Charges would lack merit as I have obeyed your orders and Patrol regulations both in letter and in spirit up to the moment you forced me to resign. I am now a civilian. I intend to show my friends to their ship, then leave Prime Base.”

  “Young man, don’t you realize that these entities may be enemies of civilization?”

  For the first time, the surgeon-marshal joined in. “Take it easy, Haynes!”

  XL

  Deety

  When Dr. Lacy spoke up, I was feeling sick. Poor Captain Ted! Aunt Hilda had done what she had to do—and beautifully; I wasn’t criticizing her. Zebadiah had said what had to be said—and Captain Ted did what he felt honor-bound to do. But when his Lens turned dark, my heart sank—I wanted to tell Mama Jane about it.

  Admiral Haynes had seemed such a nice person … but I knew Captain Ted was—and now he had thrown away his career for us. I wished that I could turn back time twenty hours—we’d been nothing but bad luck for him.

  Admiral Haynes said. “Eh? Lacy, what do you mean?”

  “You’ve been clacking your tongue without hooking it into your brain—expressing opinions before collecting data. Now you’ve forced a Lensman into an intolerable position.” Dr. Lacy turned to Captain Ted. “Son, put that Lens back on, please.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Um. If you find yourself before the Galactic Council, I’ll be witness for you. I’m proud of you.”

  “Lacy, this isn’t your jurisdiction,” Haynes interjected.

  “Isn’t it? If you don’t want my opinions, why did you invite me to the party? Never mind; you’re going to get ’em anyhow. First place, don’t call them ‘entities.’ They’re human to the last decimal place—more human than you are, you regenerated old retread.”

  “How do you know? You’re guessing.”

  “Hrrmph! Did you notice what I called you? Who operated on you? While you’ve been guessing, I’ve been finding out. From Phillips. I’ve been close-linked with our Posenian friend and learning things while you’ve been exercising your lingual muscles. Phillips has examined each of them in detail, every organ. Human. He took me along; it’s my professional report, too. Dr. Hilda, the examination did not penetrate your minds; both Phillips and I found you four to have amazingly strong mind blocks. But we wouldn’t have tried to touch your minds, had we known of Ted Smith’s promise. Let me add that Phillips is not human; he’s a Posenian Lensman with a sense of perception in place of sight and hearing—greatest neural surgeon in this galaxy. If he says a mind is blocked, it’s blocked.”

  Aunt Hilda answered, “I know who Dr. Phillips is. He regenerated Admiral Haynes and
Commandant von Hohendorff—and then the Gray Lensman, Kimball Kinnison. Doctor, I don’t mind examinations by medical men; it was the uninvited attempt by him”—Aunt Hilda pointed and managed to suggest that Admiral Haynes was something nasty in the soup—“to invade our privacy that I resented.”

  Admiral Haynes looked startled when Aunt Hilda mentioned his regeneration operation—then shut down his face. We had the advantage that we knew quite a bit about them but they didn’t know anything about us … and for a moment I wondered whether or not we could be storybook characters to some other universe the way Aunt Hilda’s theory suggested, and then decided that we couldn’t be because we were just people sort of people, not romantic ones like the Gray Lensman.

  “Doctor Hilda, I’m pleased to hear that,” Dr. Lacy answered. “I doubt that even Worsel could penetrate your block—but that old snake wouldn’t try unless you asked him to. By the way, Phillips says, and I agree, that all of you are in excellent health. But I would have that appendix out, if I were you, before your second trimester. It’s healthy but could cause trouble later. Have it out here at Base Hospital if you like. With Phillips as co-operator you’ll be back on your feet and feeling fine in forty-eight hours. It’s amazing what a sense of perception can do for diagnosis and surgery.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Lacy—but our captain has decided that we leave at once.”

  “I was hoping to entice you to stay—repair some of the damage that old martinet did. Haynes, the only possible excuse you have even to suspect that these four might be enemies of civilization—and it’s not a reason—is that your mind isn’t strong enough even with a Lens to get past their mind blocks. If you really had cause to suspect them, you should never have let them into Prime Base. But you don’t have cause.”

  “All right, all right,” growled Admiral Haynes. “I let my mouth run ahead of my brain. Getting old—senile, perhaps. Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize to all of you. To you, too, Smith.”

  Zebadiah answered for us: “Admiral, before we can accept apologies, I must know something. Will we be permitted to leave freely and at any time as was guaranteed to us yesterday?”

  “Of course, of course!”

  “Dr. Hilda, is he carrying any mental reservations? Scan his mind.” (Was my darling pulling a bluff? So far as I know, Aunt Hilda didn’t read minds. But would I know?)

  “He has one mental reservation, Captain Zebbie. If he decides later that we are enemies of civilization—all bets are off.”

  “Well, Admiral?”

  I didn’t think the expression “turned purple” was literal. Well, perhaps it isn’t; Admiral Haynes’ shade was more of a delicate mauve. “Captain, in that unlikely event, flag of truce will protect you, and your ship will be placed where it was when it was detected and any and all Patrol vessels will withdraw at least as far as Nighthawk was at that time.”

  “That isn’t necessary, Admiral. Simply assure me that we will be freely allowed to man our ship; it is much faster than any of yours. We can go to Lundmark’s nebula and back while your best speedster is getting clear of Tellus’ atmosphere.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  Pop spoke up. “You’d better believe it! We’ve offered you the greatest advantage over Boskone you could ever hope for … and you’ve treated us like dirt. I resent that, sir! And your ‘Sir Austin’ is a fool. ‘Poppycock’ indeed! Captain, let’s leave at once and find a universe that has competent mathematicians.”

  “Just a moment, Dr. Burroughs. I think the admiral is trying to make amends. Dr. Hilda, can we trust him this time? Go deep.”

  Aunt Hilda answered at once. “He means it, Cap’n. He’s very much upset … but he has placed ‘Lensman’s Word’ on this agreement.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Hilda. Very well, sir, we accept the agreement and your apology. When Dr. Hilda goes deep, it’s impossible to lie to her.”

  “Thank you, Captain; thank you, Dr. Hilda. Will you now stay for lunch?”

  “We will,” Aunt Hilda answered for us, “but Dr. Deety and I wish to go to our ship first. Get rid of these hot gowns and change into something else. Possibly a quick tub. And, Admiral … I’m sorry I called you a ‘dirty little boy.’ You are not. You are simply a man with too heavy a burden who sometimes makes mistakes.”

  The admiral sighed. “I can’t disagree with a word of that. Thank you, Dr. Hilda. Smith, will you put your Lens back on and join us?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not, sir?”

  “You’ve let me down once. I no longer wish to serve under you.”

  That was a sad note to finish on … but as Mama told me long ago, I must not try to run other people’s lives. Ted was a grown man—but it made me feel awful to see his Lens lying there, all dark and forlorn. But I couldn’t stop it. Captain Fernandez took us to our quarters and showed us that Gay Deceiver was only a short distance, less than fifty meters, away. Our quarters were lovely—not as big as ours in Helium but more than ample. But I wanted us to climb right into Gay Deceiver and rotate out of there. Poor Ted!

  Aunt Hilda reminded me that we had promised to stay for lunch. “And quit worrying about Ted, Deety; I’m not leaving this joint until I get that straightened out—you’ll see. Now let’s see what we can whip up in a hurry out of Barsoomian silk that will look good and be even more a scandal to the jaybirds than these tights. I don’t need a bath.”

  “I do. You decide and I’ll wear it.”

  Zebadiah said, “You two snap it up! It’s thirteen o’clock and lunch is half past.”

  “The admiral will have to wait,” Aunt Hilda said tranquilly. “He caused the delay. Unless you two dears want something, go back to our suite and wait.”

  “Uh … this dress uniform is too hot. I think I’ll cut back to summer khaki and a shirt, no blouse. Insignia but no medals. No necktie. How about you, Jake?”

  “Wearing your sword?”

  “Always. Wear your saber but wear anything else you like.”

  “Then it won’t be uniform; these blues are an oven. Mmm … slacks and a sport shirt. And saber.”

  “Grab ’em and git,” Aunt Hilda urged, “unless you want to talk secrets. A Lens can’t reach in here.”

  “Why not, Sharpie?”

  “Because this dressing room is in Oz.”

  “I thought that was what you meant. Sharpie, that was an ichiban job you did on Haynes. Congratulations.”

  “He wasn’t difficult. On the whole, he’s rather nice. I hated to spank him.”

  Aunt Hilda’s notion of what to do with scraps of silk would get us arrested some places. We could have hired out as advertisements for White Rock. Except that I’m too husky to be a water sprite. A hamadryad, maybe … or an oak tree.

  I was hoping she would say bare feet but she put us in Cinderella slippers—white thoat skin—and decreed that our hair must be up high instead of the low coiffures we had to wear for mortarboards. With jeweled pins in our hair, and a jeweled clasp to pull in the silk that went over one shoulder, and our jeweled belts and daggers—me in wavily green, Hilda in light blue—we looked dressy but not overdressed. Underdressed, maybe, in one sense, but they wouldn’t know what we wore to luncheons at home—and Hilda looked as if she might grow gauzy wings and fly away.

  We went back through the passage to our suite, only nine minutes late, and found the flag lieutenant, Captain Fernandez, waiting with our husbands. The captain—Carlos, his name was—didn’t say a word about us being late; he just clapped his hands together and told us we looked beautiful. Then we went on another of those little scooter cars to the admiral’s dining room.

  A Gray Lensman was there, talking to the admiral. His back was toward us and I was wondering if it could possibly be the Gray Lensman, when he turned around. If I had false teeth, I would have swallowed them. “Ted!”

  “Hi Deety!” He looked sheepish. “Funny, isn’t it? The admiral trumped my ace. So now I’ve got to start thinking for myself.”

  The admir
al said, “Dr. Deety, my lunch has turned into a celebration. I hadn’t intended to do this until the end of Ted’s tour as a skipper … but what can I do when a man is too valuable to lose and won’t take orders? Turn him loose and stop giving him orders, that’s all. Ted claims he isn’t ready for it … but they all say that … said it myself about thirty years ago. Or centuries, it feels like. Hrrmph!”

  “Admiral, I’m so happy! Ted, you look magnificent!” He did, too. That gray leather was so plain, and nearly skin tight, that if a man had the physique to wear it, you found out how handsome he was. Ted looked taller and his shoulders broader and waist trimmer than he had looked when gold and silver and medals and things were cluttering the view. All that set off his uniform now were his shiny DeLameters and his Lens, which seemed even brighter.

  “Deety, you are the one who looks magnificent.”

  “She certainly does. Dr. Deety, look me straight in the eye and tell me how you ladies knew that this would be an occasion to dress so prettily. Did Dr. Hilda Lens it—I mean not-Lens it; Ted tells me she doesn’t need a Lens and I know he’s right—did Dr. Hilda pick this intention out of my mind when she went deep?”

  “It’s true that Aunt Hilda doesn’t need a Lens. Could it be the other way around? That she placed the thought in there? Dr. Hilda would not read your mind other than for the specific purpose that my husband, our captain, told her to read you—with your knowing that she was about to do so. But she might have left a thought of her own for you to chew on. She didn’t like what you forced Ted to do—and neither did I and I was fretting and she told me to stop because she was fixing it.” (Almost true! Just shaded a bit.)

  “Oh, No! Ted, read me my Lens. I did intend to release you—I just hadn’t planned to do it today.”

  I said, “Perhaps that is all she dropped in, Admiral—the date. Why don’t you ask her? If you dare.”

  Port Admiral Haynes looked across the room at the Hillbilly, scratched his head, and grinned. “You’re right. I don’t dare.”