Robert A. Heinlein by Space Cadet

Author:Space Cadet
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-07-08T18:16:58+00:00

He had been sent on temporary duty to the P.R.S Nobel, as assistant to the astrogator during a routine patrol of cir-cum-Terra bomb-rockets. Matt had joined his ship at Moon Base and, at the conclusion of the patrol when the Nobel had grounded at Terra Base for overhaul, was detached with permission to take leave before reporting back to the Randolph. He had gone straight home.

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The entire family met him at the station and copied him home. His mother had cried a little and his father had shaken hands very vigorously. It seemed to Matt that his kid brother had grown almost incredibly. It was good to see them, good to be back in the old family bus. Matt would have piloted the copter himself had not Billie, his brother, gone straight to the controls.

The house had been redecorated throughout. His mother obviously expected favorable comment and Matt had given it-but he hadn’t really liked the change. It had not been what he had pictured. Besides that, the rooms seemed smaller. He decided that it must be the effect of redecorating; the house couldn’t have shrunk!

His own room was filled with Bill’s things, although Bill had been temporarily evicted to his old room, now turned into a hobby room for his toother. The new arrangements were sensible, reasonable-and annoying.

In thinking it over Matt knew that the changes at home had had nothing to do with his decision. Certainly not! Nor his father’s remarks about posture, even though they had stuck in his craw-He and his father had been alone in the living room, just before dinner, and Matt had been pacing up and down, giving an animated and, he believed, interesting account of the first time he had soloed. His father had taken advantage of a pause to say, “Stand up, son.”

Matt stopped. “Sir?”

“You are all crouched over and seem to be limping. Does your leg still bother you?”

“No, my leg is fine.”

“Then straighten up and “square your shoulders. Look proud. Don’t they pay any attention to your posture at school?”

“What’s wrong with the way I was walking?”

Bill had appeared in the door just as the subject had come up. “I’ll show you, Mattie,” he had interrupted, and proceeded to slouch across the room in a grotesque exaggeration of a spaceman’s relaxed and boneless glide. The boy made it look like the amble of a chimpanzee. “You walk like that.”

“The devil I do!”

“The devil you don’t.”

“Bill!” said his father. “Go wash up and get ready for dinner. And don’t talk that way. Go on, now!” When the younger son had left his father turned again to Matt and said, “I thought I was speaking privately, Matt. Honestly, it’s not as bad as Bill makes out; it’s only about half that bad.”

“But- Look, Dad, I walk just like everybody else-among spacemen, I mean. It comes of getting used to free-fall. You carry yourself sort of pulled in, for days on end, ready to bounce a foot off a bulkhead, or grab with your hands.

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