Robert Heinlein - Variable Star

I’ve taken self-defense courses. I know how to fall properly, and do so as a matter of reflex in normal conditions. But not in a one-gee field. I went down hard on my back, and all my air left me in a single explosive syllable, and only the extreme thickness of the carpet kept me from cracking my skull. I remember feeling quite unhappy for a moment, there. Then the eighteen-kilo mass landed on my groin, and I felt much worse.

Sometime later I forced my eyes open. Closed them quickly. Reopened them cautiously. Half a meter from my nose, a little girl—

“Why don’t you look where you’re going?” she asked.

Make a mental note, Joel: next time you tell an AI you want quiet and it keeps talking— listen . “Because I’m a dolt.”

“Oh.” She thought about that. “I’m a Conrad.”

I looked her over. She appeared to be somewhere around seven Terran years old. And adorable. “Are you all right?”

She frowned, and stuck her chin out slightly. “Yes, I am. Daddy says I don’t have bones.” She moved her gaze away. “But I think my skyboard’s broke.”

The object named lay beside us. It looked like a conventional skateboard—minus the usual wheels, motor housing, onboard computer, and data port. Like a miniature surfboard, in other words. I had no doubt that it could fly—when it wasn’t broken—because it had been at head height when I’d first encountered it. But I could not guess how.

“I’m sorry.” I’d have to replace it. There went my scholarship, probably. “Uh, what’s your name?”

“I’m Evelyn.”

“Hello, Evelyn. That was my mother’s name, too. I’m—”

“You’re Joel, of course. I’m not a baby .”

“Certainly not! Not by a good ten kilos.”

She giggled—then frowned. “Am I hurting you?”

“Only when I breathe.”

She was off me and up on her feet at once. “Jinny is my favorite cousin. I think she’s rickety all through. Don’t you?”

“Yes. I think I do, anyway.” I sat up. When that didn’t kill me, I got to my feet and examined my costume for damage.

“Are you going to marry her?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again, twice. “We’re still discussing that,” I managed finally.

“Do you love her?”

“Evelyn, I’m afraid we’ll have to finish this conversation another time. I’m late for an appointment with your—” What would the relationship be? “For a very important appointment. Please excuse me.”

She grinned. “Never mind. I saw you blush.”

I did it some more. This was Jinny’s cousin, all right. “I really mustn’t be late.”

She waved a hand majestically. “Don’t matter about it. Just tell Grandfather Rich I made you late.”

I realized my flashing-firefly guide was beginning to move off down the corridor: hinting. “It was wonderful to meet you,” I said hastily. “Sorry I broke your board. I’ll get a new one to you as soon as I can.”

She giggled. “You’re silly.”

I followed her pointing finger. A new skyboard was just arriving, gliding along the corridor at knee height. It was as featureless as the other, not so much as an antenna showing. Suddenly I saw that the firefly had nearly reached a corner. In another few seconds it would be around the bend. “Great. I’ll see you around.”

“It’s okay, Joel. Gran’ther Rich will think you’re rickety-tickety. You’ll see.”

I know a compliment when I hear one. I bowed—and did not quite sprint away. I found the firefly around the corner, waiting for me, but pulsing faster to indicate impatience. I breezed right past it at double time, made it scramble to catch up and pass me again, and felt the tiny satisfaction that comes to an idiot who has successfully insulted a piece of software. I slowed to walking pace—and it kept on going at double time. I ended up reaching my destination slightly out of breath, and not quite dripping sweat.

I planned to pause outside the door for at least two or three deep breaths. But the infernal thing opened as soon as I reached it. I allowed myself one breath, mostly because I had to, and entered.

But it was only Rennick’s office.

He did not say, “You’re late,” even by facial expression. But in the time it took me to walk three steps into the room, he had risen from his workstation, come all the way round it, and reached my side, without seeming to hurry. “Good morning, Joel,” he said pleasantly. He took my elbow, turned me, and we were back out in the corridor and walking again—not as fast as I had arrived, but not slowly either. “I trust you slept well.”

“Yes, thank you, Alex. And yourself?”

“There are things I must tell you, and we no longer have time for the standard set speech. As you know, there is only one Mr. Conrad in this house, and that is what he is called in his presence or out of it. But when one directly addresses him, he prefers, strongly, to be called simply Conrad. Thus, you might hear someone say, for instance, ‘Mr. Conrad approves of this—isn’t that so, Conrad?’ Am I clear?”

“No honorific to his face. Not even ‘sir’?”

“Not even ‘sir.’ ‘Yes, Conrad.’ ‘No, Conrad.’”

I nodded. “Got it. Thanks. Do I call Mr. Albert ‘Albert’ to his face, too?”

“Not unless he invites you to. Which is unlikely. Until then he is Mr. Albert.”

We came to a checkpoint. Five large men, four of them heavily armed and the deadliest one sitting at a workstation. Rennick didn’t even slow down, and nobody killed him, so I didn’t slow down either.

“Mr. Conrad does not shake hands. Mr. Conrad does not care for humor. Mr. Conrad is not interrupted.”

Right turn. Another checkpoint. Another five armed men, but not large this time. Gurkhas. Their knives were sheathed. Rennick came to a halt and stood still, but ignored them. I did likewise. I could almost feel myself being scanned and sniffed and candled by invisible machinery.

“When Mr. Conrad says ‘Thank you,’ he means ‘good-bye.’ The correct response is not ‘You’re welcome,’ but ‘Yes, Conrad.’ You say it on your way to the door.”

“Got it.” A Gurkha produced something I’d only seen in cop or spy stories, and gave it to Rennick: an identifier. He held it up to his eyes like binoculars for a moment, then poked his right index finger into a socket on the side, and removed it. Almost at once there was a soft chiming sound, and a blue light on top of the device flashed three times. Rennick passed the device to me.

Fighting an impulse to grin like an imbecile, I lifted it to my own eyes and looked into the lenses. Nothing but a white field. I lowered it, hesitated a second, and stuck my finger in the slot. I expected to be poked for a blood sample, but what I got was even more disconcerting, a sensation as if someone were sucking gently on that fingertip. Whether it was taking skin scrapings or sampling my fingernail I couldn’t say. In any event it decided it approved of my DNA and my retinas, and awarded me the same chime and flash Rennick had received.

The Gurkha’s forearms and hands relaxed slightly, and his cousins relaxed too, slightly. He accepted the identifier back from me, saluted to both me and Rennick, held it, and stepped smartly backward out of our way. Rennick was off again at once, with me at his heels.

I wondered if anyone else in the Inner System was as paranoid as these people. Or, now that I came to think of it, had better reason to be.

The pause had been almost enough to let me get my breath back. “Anything else?”

“Yes. A piece of personal advice. There’s only one way to say this. Don’t bullshit. If Mr. Conrad asks you a question and you don’t know the answer, there is only one acceptable response—‘I don’t know, Conrad.’ Try and bluff, and he’ll smell it.”