Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast

"That's right," agreed her father. "Deety matriculated by taking College Boards. At fourteen. No problem since she stayed home and didn't have to live in a dorm. Got her B.S. in three years... and that was a happy thing, as Jane lived to see Deety move the tassel from one side of her mortar board to the other. Jane in a wheelchair and happy as a child-her doctor said it couldn't hurt her....eaning she was dying anyhow." He added, "Had her mother been granted only three more years she could have seen Deety's doctorate conferred, two years ago."

"Pop... sometimes you chatter."

"Did I say something out of line?"

"No, Jake," I assured him. "But I've just learned that I robbed the cradle. I knew I had but hadn't realized how much. Deety darling, you are twentytwo."

"Is twenty-two an unsatisfactory age?"

"No, my Princess. Just right."

"My Captain said that women have birthdays while men have ages. Is it permitted to inquire your age, sir? I didn't pay close attention to that form we had to fill out, either."

I answered solemnly. "But Dejah Thoris knows that Captain John Carter is centuries old, cannot recall his childhood, and has always looked thirty years old."

"Zebadiah, if that is your age, you've had a busy thirty years. You said you left home when you graduated from high school, worked your way through college, spent three years on active duty, then worked your way through a doctor's degree-"

"A phony one!"

"That doesn't reduce required residence. Aunt Hilda says you've been a professor four years."

"Uh... will you settle for nine years older than you are?"

"I'll settle for whatever you say."

"He's at it again," put in Sharpie. "He was run off two other campuses. Coed scandals. Then he found that in California nobody cared, so he moved west."

I tried to look hurt. "Sharpie darling, I always married them. One gal turned out already to be married and in the other case the child wasn't mine; she slipped one over on me."

"The truth isn't in him, Deety. But he's brave and he bathes every day and he's rich-and we love him anyhow."

"The truth isn't in you either, Aunt Hilda. But we love you anyhow. It says in 'Little Women' that a bride should be half her husband's age plus seven years. Zebadiah and I hit close to that."

"A rule that makes an old hag out of me. Jacob, I'm just Zebbie's age- thirty-one. But we've both been thirty-one for ages."

"I'll bet he does feel aged after carrying that thing uphill. Atlas, can you support your burden while I get the garage open, a bench dragged out and covered? Or shall I help you put it down?"

"I'd just have to pick it up again. But don't dally."

"-citizens must protect themselves."

Zeb:

I felt better after I got that "ranger's" corpse dumped and the garage door closed, everyone indoors. I had told Hilda that I felt no "immediate" danger- but my wild talent does not warn me until the Moment of Truth. The "Blokes in the Black Hats" had us located. Or possibly had never lost us; what applies to human gangsters has little to do with aliens whose powers and motives and plans we had no way to guess.

We might be as naive as a kitten who thinks he is hidden because his head is, unaware that his little rump sticks out.

They were alien, they were powerful, they were multiple (three thousand? three million?-we didn't know the Number of the Beast)-and they knew where we were. True, we had killed one-by luck, not by planning. That "ranger" would be missed; we could expect more to call in force.

Foolhardiness has never appealed to me. Given a chance to run, I run. I don't mean I'll bug out on wing mate when the unfriendlies show up, and certainly not on a wife and unborn child. But I wanted us all to run-me, my wife, my blood brother who was also my father-in-law, and his wife, my chum Sharpie who was brave, practical, smart, and unsqueamish (that she would joke in the jaws of Moloch was not a fault but a source of esprit).

I wanted us to go!-Tau axis, Teh axis, rotate, translate, whatever-anywhere not infested by gruesomes with green gore.

I checked the gauge and felt better; Gay's inner pressure had not dropped. ~'oo much to expect Gay to be a spaceship-not equipped to scavenge and

replenish air. But it was pleasant to know that she would hold pressure much longer than it would take us to scram for home if we had to-assuming that unfriendlies had not shot holes in her graceful shell.

I went by the inside passageway into the cabin, used soap and hot water, rinsed off and did it again, dried down and felt clean enough to kiss my wife, which I did. Deety held onto me and reported.

"Your kit is packed, sir. I'm finishing mine, the planned weight and space, and nothing but practical clothes-"

"Sweetheart."

"Yes, Zebadiah?"

"Take the clothes you were married in and mine too. Same for Jake and Hilda. And your father's dress uniform. Or was it burned in Logan?"

"But, Zebadiah, you emphasized rugged clothes."

"So I did. To keep your mind on the fact that we can't guess the conditions we'll encounter and don't know how long we'll be gone or if we'll be back. So I listed everything that might be useful in pioneering a virgin planet-since we might be stranded and never get home. Everything from Jake's microscope and water-testing gear to technical manuals and tools. And weapons-and flea powder. But it's possible that we will have to play the roles of ambassadors for humanity at the court of His Extreme Majesty, Overlord of Galactic Empires in thousandth-and-third continuum. We may need the gaudiest clothes we can whip up. We don't know, we can't guess."

"I'd rather pioneer."

"We may not have a choice. When you were figuring weights, do you recall spaces marked 'Assigned mass such and such-list to come'?"

"Certainly. Total exactly one hundred kilos, which seemed odd. Space slightly less than one cubic meter split into crannies."

"Those are yours, snubnose. And Pop or Hilda. Mass can be up to fifty percent over; I'll tell Gay to trim to match. Got an old doll? A security blanket? A favorite book of poems? Scrapbook? Family photographs? Bring 'em all!"

"Golly!" (I never enjoy looking at my wife quite so much as when she lights up and is suddenly a little girl.)

"Don't leave space for me. I have only what I arrived with. What about shoes for Hilda?"

"She claims she doesn't need any, Zebadiah-that her calluses are getting calluses on them. But I've worked out expedients. I got Pop some Dr. Scholl's shoe liners when we were building; I have three pairs left and can trim them. Liners and enough bobby sox make her size three-and-half feet fit my clodhoppers pretty well. And I have a sentimental keepsake; Keds Pop bought me when I first went to summer camp, at ten. They fit Aunt Hilda."

"Good girl!" I added, "You seem to have everything in hand. How about food? Not stores we are carrying, I mean now. Has anybody thought about dinner? Killing aliens makes me hungry."

"Buffet style, Zebadiah. Sandwiches and stuff on the kitchen counter, and I thawed and heated an apple pie. I fed one sandwich to Hilda, holding it for

her; she says she's going to finish working, then scrub before she eats anything more."

"Sharpie munched a sandwich while she carved that thing?"

"Aunt Hilda is rugged, Zebadiah-almost as rugged as you are."

"More rugged than I am. I could do an autopsy if I had to-but not while eating. I think I speak for Jake, too."

"I know you speak for Pop. He saw me feeding her, turned green and went elsewhere. Go look at what she's been doing, Zebadiah; Hilda has found interesting things."

"Hmmm- Are you the little girl who had a tizzy at the idea of dissecting a dead alien?"

"No, sir, I am not. I've decided to stay grown up. It's not easy. But it's more satisfying. An adult doesn't panic at a snake; she just checks to see if it's got rattles. I'll never squeal again. I'm grown up at last... a wife instead of a pampered princess."