Robert Heinlein: The Rolling Stones

"Don't talk, Meade," Dr. Stone answered. "I'm modelling your mouth."

Grandmother Stone snorted. "You youngsters have it too easy. When I came to the Moon there was a time when we had nothing but soya beans and coffee powder for three months."

Meade answered, "Hazel, the last time you told us about that it was two months and it was tea instead of coffee."

"Young lady, who's telling this lie? You, or me?" Hazel stood up and came over to her twin grandsons. "What were you two doing on Dan Ekizian's lot?"

Castor looked at Pollux, who looked back. Castor said cautiously, "Who told you that we were there?"

"Don't try to kid your grandmother. When you have been on -"

The entire family joined her in chorus: "- on the Moon as long as I have!"

Hazel sniffed. "Sometimes I wonder why I married!"

Her son said, "Don't try to answer that question," then con­tinued to his sons, "Well, what were you doing there?"

Castor consulted Pollux by eye, then answered, "Well, Dad, it's like this -"

His father nodded. "Your best flights of imagination always start that way. Attend carefully, everybody."

"Well, you know that money you are holding for us?"

"What about it?"

"Three per cent isn't very much."

Mr. Stone shook his head vigorously. "I will not invest your royalties in some wildcat stock. Financial genius may have skipped my generation but when I turn that money over to you, it will be intact."

"That's just it. It worries you. You could turn it over to us now and quit worrying about it."

"No. You are too young."

"We weren't too young to earn it."

His mother snickered. "They got you, Roger. Come here and I'll see if I can staunch the blood."

Dr. Stone said serenely, "Don't heckle Roger when he is coping with the twins, Mother. Meade, turn a little to the left."

Mr. Stone answered, "You've got a point there, Cas. But you may still be too young to hang on to it. What is this leading up to?"

Castor signalled with his eyes; Pollux took over. "Dad, we've got a really swell chance to take that money and put it to work. Not a wildcat stock, not a stock at all. We'll have every penny right where we can see it, right where we could cash in on it at any time. And in the meantime we'll be making lots more money."

"Hmmm...how?"

"We buy a ship and put it to work."

His father opened his mouth; Castor cut in swiftly, "We can pick up a Detroiter VII cheap and overhaul it ourselves; we won't be out a cent for wages."

Pollux filled in without a break. "You've said yourself, Dad, that we are both born mechanics; we've got the hands for it."

Castor went on. "We'd treat it like a baby because it would be our own."

Pollux: "We've both got both certificates, control and power. We wouldn't need any crew."

Castor: "No overhead - that's the beauty of it."

Pollux: "So we carry trade goods out to the Asteroids and we bring back a load of high-grade. We can't lose."

Castor: "Four hundred percent, maybe five hundred."

Pollux: "More like six hundred."

Castor: "And no worries for you."

Pollux: "And we'd be out of your hair."

Castor: "Not late for dinner."

Pollux had his mouth open when his father again yelled, "QUIET!" He went on, "Edith, bring the barrel. This time we use it." Mr. Stone had a theory, often expressed, that boys should be raised in a barrel and fed through the bunghole. The barrel had no physical existence.

Dr. Stone said, "Yes, dear," and went on modelling.

Grandmother Stone said, "Don't waste your money on a Detroiter. They're unstable; the gyro system is no good. Wouldn't have one as a gift. Get a Douglas."

Mr. Stone turned to his mother. "Hazel, if you are going to encourage the boys in this nonsense -"

"Not at all! Not at all! Merely intellectual discussion. Now with a Douglas they could make some money. A Douglas has a very favorable -"

"Hazel!"

His mother broke off, then said thoughtfully, as if to herself, "I know there is free speech on the Moon: I wrote it into the charter myself."

Roger Stone turned back to his sons. "See here, boys - when the Chamber of Commerce decided to include pilot training in their Youth-Welfare program I was all for it. I even favored it when they decided to issue junior licenses to anybody who graduated high in the course. When you two got your jets I was proud as could be. It's a young man's game; they license com­mercial pilots at eighteen and -"

"And they retire them at thirty," added Castor. "We haven't any time to waste. We'll be too old for the game before you know it."

"Pipe down. I'll do the talking for a bit. If you think I'm going to draw that money out of the bank and let you two young yahoos go gallivanting around the system in a pile of sky junk that will probably blow the first time you go over two g's, you had better try another think. Besides, you're going down to Earth for school next September."

"We've been to Earth," answered Castor.

"We didn't like it," added Pollux.

"Too dirty."

"Likewise too noisy."

"Groundhogs everywhere," Castor finished.

Mr. Stone brushed it aside. "Two weeks you were there - not time enough to find out what the place is like. You'll love it, once you get used to it. Learn to ride horseback, play baseball, see the Ocean"

"A lot of impure water," Castor answered.

"Horses are to eat."

"Take baseball," Castor continued. "It's not practical. How can you figure a one-g trajectory and place your hand at the point of contact in the free-flight time between bases? We're not miracle men."

" I played it."

"But you grew up in a one-g field; you've got a distorted notion of physics. Anyhow, why would we want to learn to play baseball? When we come back, we wouldn't be able to play it here. Why, you might crack your helmet"

Mr. Stone shook his head. "Games aren't the point. Play base-ball or not, as suits you. But you should get an education."

"What does Luna City Technical lack that we need? And if so, why? After all, Dad, you were on the Board of Education."

"I was not; I was mayor."

"Which made you a member ex-officio - Hazel told us."

Mr. Stone glanced at his mother; she was looking elsewhere. He went on, "Tech is a good school, of its sort, but we don't pretend to offer everything at Tech. After all, the Moon is still an outpost, a frontier -"

"But you said," Pollux interrupted, "in your retiring speech as mayor, that Luna City was the Athens of the future and the hope of the new age."

"Poetic license. Tech is still not Harvard. Don't you boys want to see the world's great works of art? Don't you want to study the world's great literature?"

"We've read lvanhoe," said Castor.

"And we don't want to read The Mill on theFloss," added Pollux.

"We prefer your stuff."

"My stuff? My stuff isn't literature. It's more of an animated comic strip."

"We like it," Castor said firmly.

His father took a deep breath. "Thank you. Which reminds me that I still have a full episode to sweat out tonight, so I will cut this discussion short. In the first place you can't touch the money without my thumbprint - from now on I am going to wear gloves. In the second place both of you are too young for an unlimited license."

"You could get us a waiver for out-system. When we got back we'd probably be old enough for unlimited."

"You're too young!"

Castor said, "Why, Dad, not half an hour ago you accepted a gimmick from me in which you were going to have an eleven-­year-old kid driving a ship."

"I'll raise his age!"

"It'll ruin your gimmick."

"Confound it! That's just fiction - and poor fiction at that. It's hokum, dreamed up to sell merchandise." He suddenly looked suspiciously at his son. "Cas, you planted that gimmick on me. Just to give yourself an argument in favor of this hair-brained scheme - didn't you?"