The Past Through Tomorrow

by Robert A. Heinlein

  I folded my wings and went into the lock. While it was cycling I opened my left wing and thumbed the alula control—I had noticed a tendency to sideslip the last time I was airborne. But the alula opened properly and I decided I must have been overcontrolling, easy to do with Storer-Gulls; they’re extremely maneuverable. Then the door showed green and I folded the wing and hurried out, while glancing at the barometer. Seventeen pounds—two more than Earth sea-level and nearly twice what we use in the city; even an ostrich could fly in that. I perked up and felt sorry for all groundhogs, tied down by six times proper weight, who never, never, never could fly.

  Not even I could, on Earth. My wing loading is less than a pound per square foot, as wings and all I weigh less than twenty pounds. Earthside that would be over a hundred pounds and I could flap forever and never get off the ground.

  I felt so good that I forgot about Jeff and his weakness. I spread my wings, ran a few steps, warped for lift and grabbed air—lifted my feet and was airborne.

  I sculled gently and let myself glide toward the air intake at the middle of the floor—the Baby’s Ladder, we call it, because you can ride the updraft clear to the roof, half a mile above, and never move a wing. When I felt it I leaned right, spoiling with right primaries, corrected, and settled in a counterclockwise soaring glide and let it carry me toward the roof.

  A couple of hundred feet up, I looked around. The cave was almost empty, not more than two hundred in the air and half that number perched or on the ground—room enough for didoes. So as soon as I was up five hundred feet I leaned out of the updraft and began to beat. Gliding is no effort but flying is as hard work as you care to make it. In gliding I support a mere ten pounds on each arm—shucks, on Earth you work harder than that lying in bed. The lift that keeps you in the air doesn’t take any work; you get it free from the shape of your wings just as long as there is air pouring past them.

  Even without an updraft all a level glide takes is gentle sculling with your finger tips to maintain air speed; a feeble old lady could do it. The lift comes from differential air pressures but you don’t have to understand it; you just scull a little and the air supports you, as if you were lying in an utterly perfect bed. Sculling keeps you moving forward just like sculling a rowboat… or so I’m told; I’ve never been in a rowboat. I had a chance to in Nebraska but I’m not that foolhardy.

  But when you’re really flying, you scull with forearms as well as hands and add power with your shoulder muscles. Instead of only the outer quills of your primaries changing pitch (as in gliding), now your primaries and secondaries clear back to the joint warp sharply on each downbeat and recovery; they no longer lift, they force you forward—while your weight is carried by your scapulars, up under your armpits.

  So you fly faster, or climb, or both, through controlling the angle of attack with your feet—with the tail surfaces you wear on your feet, I mean.

  Oh dear, this sounds complicated and isn’t—you just do it. You fly exactly as a bird flies. Baby birds can learn it and they aren’t very bright. Anyhow, it’s easy as breathing after you learn… and more fun than you can imagine!

  I climbed to the roof with powerful beats, increasing my angle of attack and slotting my alulae for lift without burble—climbing at an angle that would stall most fliers. I’m little but it’s all muscle and I’ve been flying since I was six. Once up there I glided and looked around. Down at the floor near the south wall tourists were trying glide wings—if you call those things “wings.” Along the west wall the visitors’ gallery was loaded with goggling tourists. I wondered if Jeff and his Circe character were there and decided to go down and find out.

  So I went into a steep dive and swooped toward the gallery, leveled off and flew very fast along it. I didn’t spot Jeff and his groundhoggess but I wasn’t watching where I was going and overtook another flier, almost collided. I glimpsed him just in time to stall and drop under, and fell fifty feet before I got control. Neither of us was in danger as the gallery is two hundred feet up, but I looked silly and it was my own fault; I had violated a safety rule.

  There aren’t many rules but they are necessary; the first is that orange wings always have the right of way—they’re beginners. This flier did not have orange wings but I was overtaking. The flier underneath—or being overtaken —or nearer the wall—or turning counterclockwise, in that order, has the right of way.

  I felt foolish and wondered who had seen me, so I went all the way back up, made sure I had clear air, then stooped like a hawk toward the gallery, spilling wings, lifting tail, and letting myself fall like a rock.

  I completed my stoop in front of the gallery, lowering and spreading my tail so hard I could feel leg muscles knot and grabbing air with both wings, alulae slotted. I pulled level in an extremely fast glide along the gallery. I could see their eyes pop and thought smugly, “There! That’ll show ‘em!”

  When darn if somebody didn’t stoop on me! The blast from a flier braking right over me almost knocked me out of control. I grabbed air and stopped a sideslip, used some shipyard words and looked around to see who had blitzed me. I knew the black-and-gold wing pattern—Mary Muhlenburg, my best girl friend. She swung toward me, pivoting on a wing tip. “Hi, Holly! Scared you, didn’t I?”

  “You did not! You better be careful; the flightmaster’ll ground you for a month.”

  “Slim chance! He’s down for coffee.”

  I flew away, still annoyed, and started to climb. Mary called after me, but I ignored her, thinking, “Mary my girl, I’m going to get over you and fly you right out of the air.”

  This was a foolish thought as Mary flies every day and has shoulders and pectoral muscles like Mrs. Hercules. By the time she caught up with me I had cooled off and we flew side by side, still climbing. “Perch?” she called out.

  “Perch,” I agreed. Mary has lovely gossip and I could use a breather. We turned toward our usual perch, a ceiling brace for flood lamps—it isn’t supposed to be a perch but the flightmaster hardly ever comes up there.

  Mary flew in ahead of me, braked and stalled dead to a perfect landing. I skidded a little but Mary stuck out a wing and steadied me. It isn’t easy to come into a perch, especially when you have to approach level. Two years ago a boy who had just graduated from orange wings tried it… knocked off his left alula and primaries on a strut—went fluttering and spinning down two thousand feet and crashed. He could have saved himself—you can come in safely with a badly damaged wing if you spill air with the other and accept the steeper glide, then stall as you land. But this poor kid didn’t know how; he broke his neck, dead as Icarus. I haven’t used that perch since.

  We folded our wings and Mary sidled over. “Jeff is looking for you,” she said with a sly grin.

  My insides jumped but I answered coolly, “So? I didn’t know he was here.”

  “Sure. Down there,” she added, pointing with her left wing. “Spot him?”

  Jeff wears striped red and silver, but she was pointing at the tourist glide slope, a mile away. “No.”

  “He’s there all right.” She looked at me sidewise. “But I wouldn’t look him up if I were you.”

  “Why not? Or for that matter, why should I?” Mary can be exasperating.

  “Huh? You always run when he whistles. But he has that Earthside siren in tow again today; you might find it embarrassing.”

  “Mary, whatever are you talking about?”

  “Huh? Don’t kid me, Holly Jones; you know what I mean.”

  “I’m sure I don’t,” I answered with cold dignity.

  “Humph! Then you’re the only person in Luna City who doesn’t. Everybody knows you’re crazy about Jeff; everybody knows she’s cut you out… and that you are simply simmering with jealousy.”

  Mary is my dearest friend but someday I’m going to skin her for a rug. “Mary, that’s preposterously ridiculous! How can you even think such a thing?”

  “Look, darling, you don’t have to pretend. I’m for you.” She
patted my shoulders with her secondaries.

  So I pushed her over backwards. She fell a hundred feet, straightened out, circled and climbed, and came in beside me, still grinning. It gave me time to decide what to say.

  “Mary Muhlenburg, in the first place I am not crazy about anyone, least of all Jeff Hardesty. He and I are simply friends. So it’s utterly nonsensical to talk about me being ‘jealous.’ In the second place Miss Brentwood is a lady and doesn’t go around ‘cutting out’ anyone, least of all me. In the third place she is simply a tourist Jeff is guiding—business, nothing more.”

  “Sure, sure,” Mary agreed placidly. “I was wrong. Still—” She shrugged her wings and shut up.

  “Still what? Mary, don’t be mealy-mouthed.”

  “Mmm… I Was wondering how you knew I was talking about Ariel Brentwood—since there isn’t anything to it.”

  “Why, you mentioned her name.”

  “I did not.”

  I thought frantically. “Uh, maybe not. But it’s perfectly simple. Miss Brentwood is a client I turned over to Jeff myself, so I assumed that she must be the tourist you meant.”

  “So? I don’t recall even saying she was a tourist. But since she is just a tourist you two are splitting, why aren’t you doing the inside guiding while Jeff sticks to outside work? I thought you guides had an agreement?”

  “Huh? If he has been guiding her inside the city, I’m not aware of it—”

  “You’re the only one who isn’t.”

  “—and I’m not interested; that’s up to the grievance committee. But Jeff wouldn’t take a fee for inside guiding in any case.”

  “Oh, sure!—not one he could bank. Well, Holly, seeing I was wrong, why don’t you give him a hand with her? She wants to learn to glide.”

  Butting in on that pair was farthest from my mind. “If Mr. Hardesty wants my help, he will ask me. In the meantime I shall mind my own business… a practice I recommend to you I”

  “Relax, shipmate,” she answered, unruffled. “I was doing you a favor.”

  “Thank you, I don’t need one.”

  “So I’ll be on my way—got to practice for the gymkhana.” She leaned forward and dropped off. But she didn’t practice aerobatics; she dived straight for the tourist slope.

  I watched her out of sight, then sneaked my left hand out the hand slit and got at my hanky—awkward when you are wearing wings but the floodlights had made my eyes water. I wiped them and blew my nose and put my hanky away and wiggled my hand back into place, then checked everything, thumbs, toes, and fingers, preparatory to dropping off.

  But I didn’t. I just sat there, wings drooping, and thought. I had to admit that Mary was partly right; Jeff’s head was turned completely… over a groundhog. So sooner or later he would go Earthside and Jones & Hardesty was finished.

  Then I reminded myself that I had been planning to be a spaceship designer like Daddy long before Jeff and I teamed up. I wasn’t dependent on anyone; I could stand alone, like Joan of Arc, or Lise Meitner.

  I felt better… a cold, stern pride, like Lucifer in Paradise Lost.

  I recognized the red and silver of Jeff’s wings while he was far off and I thought about slipping quietly away. But Jeff can overtake me if he tries, so I decided, “Holly, don’t be a fool! You’ve no reason to run… just be coolly polite.”

  He landed by me but didn’t sidle up. “Hi, Decimal Point.”

  “Hi, Zero. Uh, stolen much lately?”

  “Just the City Bank but they made me put it back.” He frowned and added, “Holly, are you mad at me?”

  “Why, Jeff, whatever gave you such a silly notion?”

  “Uh… something Mary the Mouth said.”

  “Her? Don’t pay any attention to what she says. Half of it’s always wrong and she doesn’t mean the rest.”

  “Yeah, a short circuit between her ears. Then you aren’t mad?”

  “Of course not. Why should I be?”

  “No reason I know of. I haven’t been around to work on the ship for a few days… but I’ve been awfully busy.”

  “Think nothing of it. I’ve been terribly busy myself.”

  “Uh, that’s fine. Look, Test Sample, do me a favor. Help me out with a friend—a client, that is—well, she’s a friend, too. She wants to learn to use glide wings.”

  I pretended to consider it. “Anyone I know?”

  “Oh, yes. Fact is, you introduced us. Ariel Brentwood.”

  “ ‘Brentwood?’ Jeff, there are so many tourists. Let me think. Tall girl? Blonde? Extremely pretty?”

  He grinned like a goof and I almost pushed him off. “That’s Ariel!”

  “I recall her… she expected me to carry her bags. But you don’t need help, Jeff. She seemed very clever. Good sense of balance.”

  “Oh, yes, sure, all of that. Well, the fact is, I want you two to know each other. She’s… well, she’s just wonderful, Holly. A real person all the way through. You’ll love her when you know her better. Uh… this seemed like a good chance.”

  I felt dizzy. “Why, that’s very thoughtful, Jeff, but I doubt if she wants to know me better. I’m just a servant she hired—you know groundhogs.”

  “But she’s not at all like the ordinary groundhog. And she does want to know you better—she told me so!”

  After you told her to think so! I muttered. But I had talked myself into a corner. If I had not been hampered by polite upbringing I would have said, “On your way, vacuum skull! I’m not interested in your groundhog girl friends”—but what I did say was, “OK, Jeff,” then gathered the fox to my bosom and dropped off into a glide.

  So I taught Ariel Brentwood to “fly.” Look, those so-called wings they let tourists wear have fifty square feet of lift surface, no controls except warp in the primaries, a built-in dihedral to make them stable as a table, and a few meaningless degrees of hinging to let the wearer think that he is “flying” by waving his arms. The tail is rigid, and canted so that if you stall (almost impossible) you land on your feet. All a tourist does is run a few yards, lift up his feet (he can’t avoid it) and slide down a blanket of air. Then he can tell his grandchildren how he flew, really flew, “just like a bird.”

  An ape could learn to “fly” that much.

  I put myself to the humiliation of strapping on a set of the silly things and had Ariel watch while I swung into the Baby’s Ladder and let it carry me up a hundred feet to show her that you really and truly could “fly” with them. Then I thankfully got rid of them, strapped her into a larger set, and put on my beautiful Storer-Gulls. I had chased Jeff away (two instructors is too many), but when he saw her wing up, he swooped down and landed by us.

  I looked up. “You again.”

  “Hello, Ariel. Hi, Blip. Say, you’ve got her shoulder straps too tight.”

  “Tut, tut,” I said. “One coach at a time, remember? If you want to help, shuck those gaudy fins and put on some gliders… then I’ll use you to show how not to. Otherwise get above two hundred feet and stay there; we don’t need any dining-lounge pilots.”

  Jeff pouted like a brat but Ariel backed me up. “Do what teacher says, Jeff. That’s a good boy.”

  He wouldn’t put on gliders but he didn’t stay clear, either. He circled around us, watching, and got bawled out by the flightmaster for cluttering the tourist area.

  I admit Ariel was a good pupil. She didn’t even get sore when I suggested that she was rather mature across the hips to balance well; she just said that she had noticed that I had the slimmest behind around there and she envied me. So I quit trying to get her goat, and found myself almost liking her as long as I kept my mind firmly on teaching. She tried hard and learned fast—good reflexes and (despite my dirty crack) good balance. I remarked on it and she admitted diffidently that she had had ballet training.

  About mid-afternoon she said, “Could I possibly try real wings?”

  “Huh? Gee, Ariel, I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  There she had
me. She had already done all that could be done with those atrocious gliders. If she was to learn more, she had to have real wings. “Ariel, it’s dangerous. It’s not what you’ve been doing, believe me. You might get hurt, even killed.”

  “Would you be held responsible?”

  “No. You signed a release when you came in.”

  “Then I’d like to try it.”

  I bit my lip. If she had cracked up without my help, I wouldn’t have shed a tear—but to let her do something too dangerous while she was my pupil… well, it smacked of David and Uriah. “Ariel, I can’t stop you… but I should put my wings away and not have anything to do with it.”

  It was her turn to bite her lip. “If you feel that way, I can’t ask you to coach me. But I still want to. Perhaps Jeff will help me.”

  “He probably will,” I blurted out, “if he is as big a fool as I think he is!”

  Her company face slipped but she didn’t say anything because just then Jeff stalled in beside us. “What’s the discussion?”

  We both tried to tell him and confused him for he got the idea I had suggested it, and started bawling me out. Was I crazy? Was I trying to get Ariel hurt? Didn’t I have any sense?

  “Shut up!” I yelled, then added quietly but firmly, “Jefferson Hardesty, you wanted me to teach your girl friend, so I agreed. But don’t butt in and don’t think you can get away with talking to me like that. Now beat it! Take wing. Grab air!”

  He swelled up and said slowly, “I absolutely forbid it.”

  Silence for five long counts. Then Ariel said quietly, “Come, Holly. Let’s get me some wings.”

  “Right, Ariel.”

  But they don’t rent real wings. Fliers have their own; they have to. However, there are second-hand ones for sale because kids outgrow them, or people shift to custom-made ones, or something. I found Mr. Schultz who keeps the key, and said that Ariel was thinking of buying but I wouldn’t let her without a tryout. After picking over forty-odd pairs I found a set which Johnny Queveras had outgrown but which I knew were all right. Nevertheless I inspected them carefully. I could hardly reach the finger controls but they fitted Ariel.