Robert Heinlein - Variable Star

“I said, do you even remember what you—”

What made Tampa different from any other spaceport in this hemisphere?

“Forget it,” he said suddenly. “You’re not up to this.”

“The hell I’m not,” I said automatically. Whatever he was talking about, who the hell was he to be talking about it?

His contempt reached a crescendo. “Young man, I doubt you’d be up to it even if your bloodstream were completely clean. It’s a big decision. Too big for you. Try again another time. You probably won’t be any smarter, but you will at least be older.”

Wait a minute, now—there was one thing you could do at Tampa that you couldn’t do at any other spaceport in this hemisphere, right at this time—

“I’m old enough to make up my own mind, Dr. Rivera,” I snapped.

—wait a minute—

He blinked. “See here, son—you are indeed, as you point out, legally old enough to make up your mind as neat and tight and tidy as your bed used to be made up when you lived with your mother. But you have not done so yet . Half your blankets are on the floor, the sheets are a tangled wreck. Go sleep it off, come back in a day or two, and we’ll talk. In my professional judgment, you’re not ready to go to Immega 714.”

My jaw fell. On my first attempt, I had very nearly gotten stoned enough to fall right out of the Solar System.

When the Shock wore off, I found I was more than half tempted to go through with it. Sign onto the Sheffield , become a Gentleman Adventurer, and head for the stars. Partly just to spite that sourpuss with the sour lemon breath, for telling me I couldn’t. But mostly because it suited my mood. Star travel would certainly be a way out of the trap I’d put myself in, the trap Jinny had led me into—

—one that involved gnawing off both my own legs. No thanks. I told Lemon-Breath Rivera I would be back in a day or two, but we both knew I was fronting. I found myself on the street, blinking against the Tampa sunshine, sweating in the Tampa heat.

I considered various options for getting home again, balancing speed against expense with the miserliness of a student on a short budget. Then I thought to consult my credit balance, and my options shrank to one. If that. In choosing my route to Tampa, I had apparently assumed it was okay to burn bridges, and had chosen a semiballistic. Fast, comfortable—and very expensive, what with the price of hydrogen. I was just short of totally tapped out.

I consulted an atlas, and calculated that with a little luck, the high-speed public slidewalks ought to get me back to Vancouver in no more than seventeen hours or so. If I could just avoid getting hungry or thirsty or bored for that long, I’d end up back in my tiny basement apartment, free to gorge on whatever I had left in the pantry and all the water I wanted, while enjoying any book or film I already owned. Then I would have to start praying that my scholarship came through before the next rent payment was due. This was a bad time to go into debt; interest rates were approaching body temperature.

I made a mental note: never go on a bender without taping a fifty-credit bill to the sole of your foot.

I found slidewalk access without too much trouble, transferred my way up to the 320 kph strip in due course, found a seat without difficulty, and hunkered down for the trip. It took me all of half an hour to go from terminal nausea to ravening hunger. Did you know that you smell at least partially with your mouth? Holding my nose didn’t help nearly enough in suppressing food smells. I had to keep resisting a temptation to suck on my own hand. I was already drawing enough unwanted attention as it was: it turned out that I looked like someone on a bender. Why wouldn’t I?

After a lonely half hour I spent watching countryside whip past too fast to really see, someone sat down near me. That cheered me up until I realized the reason for his tolerance: he was well into a bender of his own, and might not have noticed if I’d been on fire. Ignoring public privacy laws, he was listening to music on speaker rather than his earbeads. I started to object—and got sucker-punched by the song that was emanating from his wrist.

Instantly, I was back in the ballroom of the Hotel Vancouver, in Jinny’s arms, dancing with her at our prom. The last happy moment I could recall. Maybe the last one I was ever going to have. I know that sounds melodramatic, but that’s because you’re not eighteen anymore. I didn’t burst into tears—quite. But it was a near thing.

Not everyone, I thought. Some of us would point to a glacier somewhere in northern British Columbia.

All at once I understood the real reason I had chosen not to hop a starship after all. I wasn’t done yet. I couldn’t even think about thinking about leaving for Immega 714 as long as my situation was still unresolved. Not until I’d done everything I could to try and fix it. I was still alive. Jinny was still alive.

Well, there was no time like the present. Automatically, I started to look round for a ’fresher, to fix my appearance—then decided it could wait. Let Jinny see the state she’d reduced me to, first. All I wanted from her right now was a phone code, anyway. Then I’d get cleaned up. She and I would have our own conversation, after this upcoming one was done. I punched her code from memory—my own, I mean, not pod storage—and then the call went through, and—

I flipped my wrist over to make the screen go away and shouted “Coventry!” loud enough to startle my zoned neighbour into muting his music.

Why was I so surprised? Ask me which way is God , I thought, and I’ll point to my phone .

I turned my wrist back over, and Conrad of Conrad frowned up at me.

I had Wanted to talk to him, planned to talk to him, with great firmness and determination. In a few minutes, once I’d gotten his code from Jinny and prepared my lines. Now I was off balance. Great start.

He began speaking nearly at once. I could see his lips move. But I was now forcibly reminded that I had thrown my earbeads into the Georgia Strait, last night. I could only point at my ears and shake my head, feeling like an idiot, even further off balance.

He glanced way offscreen at someone to his right, lifted an eyebrow, and my phone put itself on speaker. I’d have thought of it myself in a second. I could feel my cheeks burning.

“I said, I understand your problem, Joel.”

I hoped to call myself a man one day. It simply did not matter if I was unprepared, or my hair was uncombed, or my pants were on. Showtime! “I’m very glad to hear that, Conrad.” There now—I’d remembered in time not to call him “sir.”

“You have grave doubts that you’ll measure up.” I tried to respond, and he kept talking right over me until I stopped. “Any sane man in your position would. You have no life experience to reassure you yet. Or to reassure me, for that matter. Women’s intuition has historically been a chancy method of selecting winners—else Troy would still stand. But your genes and grades are excellent, for what that’s worth. And you have off-planet experience, which broadens a man. Maybe you are what we need. I think you are. In any case you are going to be given a chance. One moment, Joel.”

His gaze shifted up and to his left slightly, and he began a conversation with someone in a corner of his screen. The audio cut off, and the image of his mouth fuzzed so that his lips could not be read. Very slick.