Robert Heinlein - Tunnel In The Sky

"Gee, Sis, I shouldn't. I've had it too long now."

"Please. I'd like to know that Lady Macbeth is watching over you, wherever you are. And I don't need a knife much now."

"Huh? Why not?"

"Because I married her," Matson answered.

Rod was caught speechless. His sister looked at him and said, "What's the matter, Buddy? Don't you approve?"

"Huh? Oh, sure! It's..." He dug into his memory, fell back on quoted ritual: "'May the Principle make you one. May your union be fruitful.'"

"Then come here and kiss me."

Rod did so, remembered to shake hands with the Deacon. It was all right, he guessed, but- well, how old were they? Sis must be thirtyish and the Deacon... why the Deacon was old- probably past forty. It did not seem quite decent.

But he did his best to make them feel that he approved. After he thought it over he decided that if two people, with their lives behind them, wanted company in their old age, why, it was probably a good thing.

"So you see," Matson went on, "I had a double reason to look you up. In the first place, though I am no longer teaching, it is vexing to mislay an entire class. In the second place, when one of them is your brother-in-law it is downright embarrassing."

"You've quit teaching?"

"Yes. The Board and I don't see eye to eye on policy. Secondly, I'm leading a party out... and this time your sister and I are going to settle down and prove a farm." Matson looked at him. "Wouldn't be interested, would you? I need a salted lieutenant."

"Huh? Thanks, but as I told you, this is my place. Uh, where are you going?"

"Territa, out toward the Hyades. Nice place- they are charging a stiff premium."

Rod shrugged. "Then I couldn't afford it."

"As my lieutenant, you'd be exempt. But I wasn't twisting your arm; I just thought you ought to have a chance to turn it down. I have to get along with your sister, you know."

Rod glanced at Helen. "Sorry, Sis."

"It's all right, Buddy. We're not trying to live your life."

"Mmm... no. Matson puffed hard; then went on. "However, as your putative brother and former teacher I feel obligated to mention a couple of things. I'm not trying to sell you anything, but I'll appreciate it if you'll listen. Okay?"

"Well... go ahead."

"This is a good spot. but you might go back to school, you know. Acquire recognized professional status. If you refuse recall, here you stay... forever. You won't see the rest of the Outlands. They won't give you free passage back later. But a professional gets around, he sees the world. Your sister and I have been on some fifty planets. School does not look attractive now- you're a man and it will be hard to wear boy's shoes. But-" Matson swept an arm, encompassed all of Cowpertown, "-this counts. You can skip courses, get field credit. I have some drag with the Chancellor of Central Tech. Hmmm?"

Rod sat with stony face, then shook his head. "Okay," said Matson briskly. "No harm done."

"Wait. Let me tell you." Rod tried to think how to explain how he felt... "Nothing, I guess," he said gruffly.

Matson smoked in silence. "You were leader here," he said at last.

"Mayor," Rod corrected. "Mayor of Cowpertown. I was the Mayor, I mean."

"You are the Mayor. Population one, but you are still boss. And even those bureaucrats in the control service wouldn't dispute that you've proved the land. Technically you are an autonomous colony- I hear you told Sansom that." Matson grinned. "You're alone, however. You can't live alone, Rod... not and stay human."

"Well, yes- but aren't they going to settle this planet?"

"Sure. Probably fifty thousand this year, four times that many in two years. But, Rod, you would be part of the mob. Theyll bring their own leaders."

"I don't have to be boss! I just- well, I don't want to give up Cowpertown."

"Rod, Cowpertown is safe in history, along with Plymouth Rock, Botany Bay, and Dakin's Colony. The citizens of Tangaroa will undoubtedly preserve it as a historical shrine. Whether you stay is another matter. Nor am I trying to persuade you. I was simply pointing out alternatives." He stood up. "About time we started, Helen."

"Yes, dear." She accepted his hand and stood up.

"Wait a minute!" insisted Rod. "Deacon... Sis! I know I sound like a fool. I know this is gone... the town, and the kids, and everything. But I can't go back." He added, "It's not that I don't want to."

Matson nodded. "I understand you."

"I don't see how. I don't."

"Maybe I've been there. Rod, everyone of us is beset by two things: a need to go home, and the impossibility of doing it. You are at the age when these hurt worst. You've been thrown into a situation that makes the crisis doubly acute. You- don't interrupt me- you've been a man here, the old man of the tribe, the bull of the herd. That is why the others could go back but you can't. Wait, please! I suggested that you might find it well to go back and be an adolescent for a while... and it seems unbearable. I'm not surprised. It would be easier to be a small child. Children are another race and adults deal with them as such. But adolescents are neither adult nor child. They have the impossible, unsolvable, tragic problems of all fringe cultures. They don't belong, they are second-class citizens, economically and socially insecure. It is a difficult period and I don't blame you for not wanting to return to it. I simply think it might pay. But you have been king of a whole world; I imagine that term papers and being told to wipe your feet and such are out of the question. So good luck. Coming, dear?"

"Deacon," his wife said, "Aren't you going to tell him?"

"It has no bearing. It would be an unfair way to influence his judgment."

"You men! I'm glad I'm not male!"

"So am I," Matson agreed pleasantly.

"I didn't mean that. Men behave as if logic were stepping on crack in a sidewalk. I'm going to tell him."

"On your head be it."

"Tell me what?" demanded Rod.

"She means," said Matson, "that your parents are back."

"What?"

"Yes, Buddy. They left stasis a week ago and Daddy came out of the hospital today. He's well. But we haven't told him all about you- we haven't known what to say."

The facts were simple, although Rod found them hard to soak up. Medical techniques had developed in two years, not a pessimistic twenty; it had been possible to relax the stasis, operate, and restore Mr. Walker to the world. Helen had known for months that such outcome was likely, but their father's physician had not approved until he was sure. It had been mere coincidence that Tangaroa had been located at almost the same time. To Rod one event was as startling as the other; his parents had been dead to him for a long time.

"My dear," Matson said sternly, "now that you have thrown him into a whingding, shall we go?"

"Yes. But I had to tell him." Helen kissed Rod quickly, turned to her husband. They started to walk away.

Rod watched them, his face contorted in an agony of indecision.

Suddenly he called out, "Wait! I'm coming with you."

"All right," Matson answered. He turned his good eye toward his wife and drooped the lid in a look of satisfaction that was not quite a wink. "If you are sure that is what you want to do, I'll help you get your gear together."

"Oh, I haven't any baggage. Let's go."

Rod stopped only long enough to free the penned animals.

Matson chaperoned him through Emigrants' Gap, saved from possible injury a functionary who wanted to give Rod psychological tests, and saw to it that he signed no waivers. He had him bathed, shaved, and barbered, then fetched him clothes, before he let him be exposed to the Terran world. Matson accompanied them only to Kaibab Gate. "I'm supposed to have a lodge dinner, or something, so that you four can be alone as a family. About nine, dear. See you, Rod." He kissed his wife and left.