Robert A. Heinlein by Starman Jones

Author:Starman Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-06-29T23:01:18+00:00

“_Shut up!_” It was a whisper but Max shut up. “Now look here,” Sam went on, “Forget it. I got my stake and that’s the important point.”

“But …”

“Do you think they can seal this ship tight enough to keep me in when I decide to leave? Now stay away from me. You’re teacher’s pet and I want to keep it that way. I don’t want you lectured about bad companions, meaning me.”

“But I want to help, Sam. I …”

“Will you kindly get up above ‘C’ deck where you belong?”

He did not see Sam again that leg; presently he stopped worrying about it. Hendrix required him to compute the planetary approach—child’s play compared with a transition—then placed Max at the conn when they grounded.

This was a titulary responsibility since it was precomputed and done on radar-automatic. Max sat with the controls under his hands, ready to override the autopilot—and Hendrix stood behind him, ready to override him—but there was no need; the _Asgard_ came down by the plotted curve as easy as descending stairs. The thrust beams bit in and Max reported, “Grounded, sir, on schedule.”

“Secure.”

Max spoke into the ship’s announcers. “Secure power room. Secure all space details. Dirtside routine, second section.”

Of the four days they were there he spent the first three nominally supervising, and actually learning from, Kovak in the routine ninety-day inspection and overhaul of control room instruments. Ellie was vexed with him, as she had had different plans. But on the last day he hit dirt with her, chaperoned by Mr. and Mrs. Mendoza.

It was a wonderful holiday. Compared with Terra, Halcyon is a bleak place and Bonaparte is not much of a city. Nevertheless Halcyon is an earth-type planet with breathable air, and the party from the _Asgard_ had not set foot outdoors since Earthport, months of time and unthinkable light-years behind. The season was postaphelion, midsummer, Nu Pegasi burned warm and bright in blue sky. Mr. Mendoza hired a carriage and they drove out into green, rolling countryside behind four snuffling little Halcyon ponies. There they visited a native pueblo, a great beehive structure of mud, conoid on conoid, and bought souvenirs—two of which turned out to have “Made in Japan”

stamped inconspicuously on them.

Their driver, Herr Eisenberg, interpreted for them. The native who sold the souvenirs kept swiveling his eyes, one after another, at Mrs. Mendoza. He twittered some remarks to the driver, who guffawed. “What does he say?” she asked.

“He was complimenting you.”

“So? But how?”

“Well … he says you are for a slow fire and no need for seasoning; you’d cook up nicely. And he’d do it, too,” the colonist added, “if you stayed here after dark.”

Mrs. Mendoza gave a little scream. “You didn’t tell us they were _cannibals_. Josie, take me back!”

Herr Eisenberg looked horrified. “Cannibals? Oh, no, lady! They don’t eat each other, they just eat us— when they can get us, that is. But there hasn’t been an incident in twenty years.”

“But that’s worse!”

“No, it isn’t, lady. Look at it from their viewpoint.

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