Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast

"Turn around slowly. Mmm- Maureen, you do look like Tammy... or vice versa; it's probably your genes in her. Am I descended from you? Does anyone here know? Lazarus?"

"You are, Lib. But not through me. Through my sister Carol. 'Santa Carolita' believe it or not-which would surprise Carol as she was no saint. But your descent through Carol was not proved until long after you were killed, when the Families' records were being revised through computer analysis and a deeper knowledge of genes. No saints in our family, are there, Mama?"

"None that I know of, Woodrow. Not me, certainly. You were a little hellion; I should have spanked you much oftener than I did. Mmm... your father was as close to being a saint as any in our family. Brian was wise and good-and tolerant." She smiled. "Do you recall why we separated?"

"I'm not sure I ever knew. Mama, my recollections of that era are much sharper for my trip there as 'Ted Bronson'-the other is a long time back."

"In my sixties I stopped having babies. About the same time your brother Richard was killed. War. His wife, Marian Justin of the Hardy family, was with us, with their children, and Brian was back in uniform, a recalled colonel, on a desk job in San Francisco. When Richard was killed in 1945 we all took it hard but it was easier in that so many of us were together-Brian, and my youngest children, and Marian, and her children-five; she was thirty-one."

Mama Maureen, free of stockings and shoes, sat in lotus across from Hilda and accepted a plate from Dora's helpers. "Woodrow, I encouraged Brian to console Marian the only way a widow can be helped; she needed it. When that war was over, Marian needed a visible husband; her waistband and the calendar could not be reconciled. When we moved from San Francisco later that year, it was easy for Marian Justin Smith to become Maureen J. Smith while I became, with the aid of hair dye, her widowed mother-no one knew us in Amarillo and females were not yet compelled to have I.D.'s. So Marian had the baby as "Maureen," and only with the Howard Families Trustees was the correct genealogy recorded." Maureen smiled. "We Howards were easy about such things as long as it was kept inside the Families-and I am happy that we are even easfer about it now.

"On our next move I moved out and became Maureen Johnson again, fifteen years younger since I did not look late seventies, and a Meen-ah-sotah Yonson, Woodrow, rather than a southern Missouri Johnson. A grass widow with round heels." Mama Maureen chuckled. "Howards married only to have babies. My production line had shut down but the equipment was there and the urge. By the time you darlings"-Maureen's eyes swept the wardroom-"rescued me, I had trimmed thirty-five years from my age and added thirty-five men to my memories. In fact, when you picked me up, I was on my way to a motel rendezvous, a widower of sixty who was willing to believe that I was sixty when in fact I expected to reach my Century Day in a fortnight."

I said, "What a dirty shame! I wish you had been coming back from the motel when we picked you up."

"Zebadiah, that's sweet of you but it's not a shame. We were getting bored with each other. I'm sure he read my obituary with as much relief as grief. I'm just glad you got me-and I'm told that you did most of it."

"Gay Deceiver did most of it. The car you rode in both ways. But we almost didn't pick you up. Things went wrong, badly. I knew that it was going to- Deety, can you tell her?"

"Mama Maureen, Zebadiah has forerunners of dangers. They are not long range; they are always just barely in time. I don't know what happened this morning but-"

"This morning?" Maureen looked extremely puzzled.

"Oh." My wife went on, "It was 'this morning' to us. You arrived here at eighteen-forty and a few seconds, ship's time. During that instant we spent fifteen hours on another planet, we made two trips to your native planet, two more trips to your new home planet, and you spent seventeen months on Tertius and we brought you back here-and it all happened today. Not just today but at that exact instant: eighteen-forty and thirteen point three seconds. Laz and Lor didn't know that we were gone; even the ship's computer didn't know we were gone."

"I did so!" Dora objected. "Gay was di~connected for nineteen microseconds. You think I don't notice a gap like that? I asked what happened and she told me that it was a power fluctuation. She fibbed to me! I'm sore at her."

Deety looked thunderstruck. "Dorable, Dorable! It wasn't Gay's fault. I asked her to keep our secrets. I made her promise."

"Mean!"

"I didn't mean to be mean to you, Dorable-and we did let you in on it as quickly a~ we could. We couldn't have staged the tableaux if you hadn't helped. Be angry with me if you must... but don't be angry with Gay. Please kiss and make up."

I don't know how computers hesitate, but I think I caught the briefest split second. "Gay?"

"Yes, Dora?"-the Smart Girl's voice through Dora's speakers.

"I don't want to be mad. Let's forget it, huh? Let's kiss and make up. I will if you will."

"Yes, yes! Oh, Dorable, I do love you."

"You're both good girls," said Deety. "But you are both professional women, too, and work for different bosses. Dora, you are loyal to your family; Gay is loyal to her family. It has to be that way. Dora, if your sister, Captain Lor, asked you to keep a secret, you wouldn't tell Gay, would you? Because she might tell me... and I would tell Zebadiah....nd then the whole world would know."

(Would, huh? My dear wife, I had a clearance two stages above "Q"-so secret it does not have a name. Never mind, I'll take the rap.)

(Yes, I know, my husband, I once held the same level of clearance. But dealing with balky computers is my profession. Computers are supergeniuslevel children and must be dealt with on their own level. Okay, maybe, huh?-

"Gosh!"

"You see? Captain Lor, does Dora have any secrets of yours? Or of your brother's? She can tell them to Gay and Gay can tell them to me and I always tell everything to my husband and-"

Lazarus interrupted. "Dora! You tell tales out of school and I'll beat your ears off with an ax! It's all right for you two to chum together and play games. But you start swapping secrets and I'll call in Minsky's Metal Mentalities, Incorporated, to measure that space."

"Male computers. You can't scare me, 01' Buddy Boy, you wouldn't trust your dirty neck to a male computer. Stupid."

"My neck isn't dirty; that's just where the collar of my uniform rubbed it."

"Dirty neck and a dirty mind. But don't worry, 01' Buddy Boy; Dora Long doesn't tell secrets. I now see that Gay had to keep secrets, too-I just hadn't thought about it. But you were mean to my sisters."

"Me? How?"

"You knew about this caper; you didn't need to get it from Gay. You knew all about it; you were there. But you held out on your own twin sisters-"

"Most unfairly, Mama Maureen-"

"-as if we were untrustworthy, and if we're-"

"-untrustworthy, why can we be trusted with a ship and-"

"-the lives of everyone on board? We're glad you are here-"

"-for yourself, but maybe now that you are here, you will-"

"-protect us from his tyranny. Mama Ishtar doesn't, and Mama Hamadryad just laughs at us, and Mama Minerva takes his-"

"-side, everytime. But you-"

"Girls."

"Yes, Mama?"

"I made a promise to myself years ago that when my children grew up, I would not interfere in their lives. I should have punished Woodie more frequently when he was a child, but he is no longer a child-"

"Then why does he act like one?"

"Lorelei Lee! It is rude to interrupt."

"I'm sorry, Mama."

"No harm done. But from what I was told at home, you two are not only my daughters but are also Theodore's wives. Wives of Lazarus. And equally wives of his co-husbands. Is this not true?"