Robert Heinlein - The Rolling Stones

Earth and Moon swam in the middle distance in slender crescent phase. The Stone was slowly dropping behind Earth in her orbit, even more slowly drifting outward away from the Sun. For many weeks yet Earth would appear as a ball, a disc, before distance cut her down to a brilliant star. Now she appeared about as large as she had from Luna but she was attended by Luna herself. Her day side was green and dun and lavished with cottony clouds; her night side showed the jewels of cities.

But the boys were paying no attention to the Earth; they were looking at the Moon. Pollux sighed. "Isn't she beautiful?"

"What's the matter, Junior? Homesick?"

"No. But she's beautiful, just the same. Look, Cas, whatever ships we ever own, let's always register them out of Luna City. Home base."

"Suits. Can you make out the burg?"

"I think so."

"Probably just a spot on your helmet. I can't. Let's get back to work."

They had used all the padeyes conveniently close to the hatch and were working aft when Pollux said, "Wups I Take it easy. Dad said not to go aft of frame 65."

"Shucks, it must be "cool" back to 90, at least. We've used the jet less than five minutes."

"Don't be too sure; neutrons are slippery customers. And you know what a stickler Dad is, anyway."

"He certainly is," said a third voice.

They did not jump out of their boots because they were zipped tight. Instead they turned around and saw their father standing, hands on hips, near the passenger airlock. Pollux gulped and said, "Howdy, Dad."

"You sure gave us a start," Castor added sheepishly.

"Sorry. But don't let me disturb you; I just came out to enjoy the view." He looked over their work. "You've certainly got my ship looking like a junkyard."

"Well, we had to have room to work. Anyhow, who's to see?"

"In this location you have the Almighty staring down the back of your neck. But I don't suppose He'll mind."

"Say, Dad, Pol and I sort of guessed that you wouldn't want us to do any welding inside the hold?"

"You sort of guessed correctly - not after what happened in the Kong Christian."

" So we figured we could jury-rig a rack for welding out here. Okay?"

"Okay. But it's too nice a day to talk business." He raised his open hands to the stars and looked out. "Swell place. Lots of elbow room. Good scenery."

"That's the truth; But come around to the Sun side if you want to see something."

"Right. Here, help me shift my lines." They walked around the hull and into the sunlight. Captain Stone, Earth born, looked first at the mother planet. "Looks like a big storm is working up around the Philippines."

Neither of the twins answered; weather was largely a mystery to them, nor did they approve of weather. Presently he turned to them and said softly, "I'm glad we came, boys. Are you?"

"Oh, you bet!"

"Sure!" They had forgotten how cold and unfriendly the black depths around them had seemed only a short time before. Now it was an enormous room, furnished in splendor, though not yet fully inhabited. It was their own room, to live in, to do with as they liked.

They stood there for quite a long time, enjoying it At last Captain Stone said, "I've had all the sun I can stand for a while. Let's work around back into the shade." He shook his head to dislodge a drop of sweat from his nose.

"We ought to get back to work anyhow."

"I'll help you; we'll get done faster."

The Rolling Stone swung on and outward toward Mars; her crew fell into routine habits. Dr. Stone was handy at weightless cooking, unusually skilful, in fact, from techniques she had picked up during a year's internship in the free-fall research clinic in Earth's station. Meade was not so skilled but very little can be done to ruin breakfast. Her father supervised her hydro­ponics duties, supplementing thereby the course she had had in Luna City High School. Dr. Stone split the care of her least child with his grandmother and used her leisure placidly collating some years of notes for a paper 'On the Cumulative Effects of Marginal Hypoxia."

The twins discovered that mathematics could be even more interesting than they had thought and much more difficult - it required even more 'savvy' than they thought they had (already a generous estimate) and they were forced to stretch their brains. Their father caught up on the back issues of The Reactomotive World and studied his ship's manual but still had plenty of time to coach them and quiz them. Pollux, he discovered, was deficient in the ability to visualise a curve on glancing at ,an equation.

"I don't understand it," he said. "You got good marks in ana­lytical geometry."

Pollux turned red. "What's biting you?" his father demanded.

"Well, Dad, you see it's this way -"

"Go on."

"Well, I didn't exactly get good marks in analyt."

Eh? What is this? You both got top marks; I remember clearly."

"Well, now, you see - Well, we were awfully busy that semester and, well, it seemed logical... " His voice trailed off.

"Out with it! Out with it!"

"Cas took both courses in analyt." Pollux blurted out, "and I took both courses in history. But I did read the book."

"Oh, my!" Roger Stone sighed. "I suppose it's covered by the statute of limitations by this time. Anyhow, you are finding out the hard way that such offences carry their own punishments. When you need it, you don't know it worth a hoot."

"Yessir."

"But an extra hour a day for you, just the same - until you can visualise instantly from the equation a four-coordinate hyper­-surface in a non-Euclidean continuum - standing on your head in a cold shower."

"Yessir."

"Cas, what course did you fudge? Did you read the book?"

"Yes, sir. It was medieval European history, sir."

"Hmm... You're equally culpable, but I'm not too much concerned with any course that does not require a slide rule and tables. You coach your brother."

"Aye aye, sir."

"If you are pinched for time, I'll give you a hand with those broken-down bicycles, though I shouldn't."

The twins pitched into it, hard. At the end of two weeks Roger Stone announced himself satisfied with Pollux's profi­ciency in analytical geometry. They moved on to more rarefied heights... the complex logics of matrix algebra, frozen in beautiful arrays... the tensor calculus that unlocks the atom... the wild and wonderful field equations that make Man king of the universe... the crashing, mind-splitting intuition of Forsyte's Solution that had opened the 21st century and sent mankind another mighty step toward the stars. By the time Mars shone larger in the sky than Earth they had gone beyond the point where their father could reach them; they ploughed on together.

They usually studied together, out of the same book, floating head to head in their bunkroom, one set of feet pointed to celestial south, the other pair to the north. The twins had early gotten into the habit of reading the same book at the same time; as a result either of them could read upside down as easily as in the conventional attitude. While so engaged Pollux said to his brother, "You know, Grandpa, some of this stuff makes me think we ought to go into research rather than business. After all, money isn't everything."

"No," agreed Castor, "there are also stocks, bonds, and patent rights, not to mention real estate and chattels."

"I'm serious.

"We'll do both. I've finished this page; flip the switch when you're ready."

The War God, riding in a slightly different orbit, had been gradually closing on them until she could be seen as a 'star' by naked eye - a variable star that winked out and flared up every sixteen seconds. Through the Stone's coelostat the cause could easily be seen; the War God was tumbling end over end, per­forming one full revolution every thirty-two seconds to provide centrifugal 'artificial gravity' to coddle the tender stomachs of her groundhog passengers. Each half revolution the Sun's rays struck her polished skin at the proper angle to flash a dazzling gleam at the Stone. Through the 'scope the reflection was bright enough to hurt the eyes.