Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast

"You will always be my Princess!"

"I hope so, my Chieftain. But to merit that, I must learn to be a pioneer mother-wring the neck of a rooster, butcher a hog, load while my husband shoots, take his place and his rifle when he is wounded. I'll learn-I'm stubborn, I am. Grab a hunk of pie and go see Hilda. I know just what to do with the extra hundred kilos: books, photographs, Pop's microfilm files and portable viewer, Pop's rifle and a case of ammo that the weight schedule didn't allow for-"

"Didn't know he had it-what calibre?"

"Seven point six two millimeters, long cartridge."

"Glory be! Pop and I use the same ammo!"

"Didn't know you carried a rifle, Zebadiah."

"I don't advertise it, it's unlicensed. I must show all of you how to get at it."

"Got any use for a lady's purse gun? A needle gun, Skoda fléchettes. Not much range but either they poison or they break up and expand... and it fires ninety times on one magazine."

"What are you, Deety? Honorable Hatchet Man?"

"No, sir. Pop got it for me-black market-when I started working nights. He said he would rather hire shysters to get me acquitted-or maybe probation-than to have to go down to the morgue to identify my body. Haven't had to use it; in Logan I hardly need it. Zebadiah, Pop has gone to a great deal of trouble to get me the best possible training in self-defense. He's just as highly trained-that's why I keep him out of fist fights. Because it would be a massacre. He and Mama decided this when I was a baby. Pop says cops and courts no longer protect citizens, so citizens must protect themselves."

"I'm afraid he's right."

"My husband, I can't evaluate my opinions of right and wrong because I learned them from my parents and haven't lived long enough to have formed opinions in disagreement with theirs."

"Deety, your parents did okay."

"I think so... but that's subjective. As may be, I was kept out of blackboard jungles-public schools-until we moved to Utah. And I was trained to fight- armed or unarmed. Pop and I noticed how you handled a sword. Your moulinets are like clockwork. And when you drop into point guard, your forearm is perfectly covered."

"Jake is no slouch. He drew so fast I never saw it, and cut precisely above the collar."

"Pop says you are better at it."

"Mmm- Longer reach. He's probably faster. Deety, the best swordmaster I ever had was your height and reach. I couldn't even cross blades with him unless he allowed me to."

"You never did say where you had taken up swordsmanship."

I grinned down at her. "Y.M.C.A. in downtown Manhattan. I had foil in high school. I fiddled with saber and épée in college. But I never encountered swordsmen until I moved to Manhattan. Took it up because I was getting soft. Then during that so-called 'research trip' in Europe I met swordsmen with family tradition-sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of maItres d'armes. Learned that it was a way of life-and I had started too late. Deety, I fibbed to Hilda; I've never fought a student duel. But I did train in saber in Heidelberg under the Säbelmeister reputed to coach one underground Korps. He was the little guy I couldn't cross steel with. Fast! Up to then I had thought I was fast. But I got faster under his tutelage. The day I was leaving he told me that he wished he had had me twenty years sooner; he might have made a swordsman of me."

"You were fast enough this afternoon!"

"No, Deety. You had his eye, I attacked from the flank. You won that fight- not me, not Pop. Although what Pop did was far more dangerous than what I did."

"My Captain, I will not let you disparage yourself! I cannot hear you!"

Women, bless their warm hearts and strange minds-Deety had appointed me her hero; that settled it. I would have to try to measure up. I cut a piece of apple pie, ate it quickly while I walked slowly through the passage into the garage-didn't want to reach the "morgue" still eating.

The "ranger" was on its back with clothes cut away, open from chin to crotch, and spread. Nameless chunks of gizzard were here and there around the cadaver. It gave off a fetid odor.

Hilda was still carving, ice tongs in left hand, knife in her right, greenish goo up over her wrists. As I approached she put down the knife, picked up a razor blade-did not look up until I spoke. "Learning things, Sharpie?"

She put down her tools, wiped her hands on a towel, pushed back her hair with her forearm. "Zebbie, you wouldn't believe it."

"Try me."

"Well... look at this." She touched the corpse's right leg, and spoke to the corpse itself. "What's a nice joint like this doing in a girl like you?"

I saw what she meant: a long, gaunt leg with an extra knee lower than the

human knee; it bent backwards. Looking higher, I saw that its arms had similar extra articulation. "Did you say 'girl'?"

"I said 'girl.' Zebbie, this monster is either female or hermaphroditic. A fully developed uterus, two-horned like a cat, one ovary above each horn. But there appear to be testes lower down and a dingus that may ~e a retractable phallus. Female-but probably male as well. Bisexual but does not impregnate itself; the plumbing wouldn't hook up. I think these critters can both pitch and catch."

"Taking turns? Or simultaneously?"

"Wouldn't that be sump'n? No, for mechanical reasons I think they take turns. Whether ten minutes apart or ten years, deponent sayeth not. But I'd give a pretty to see two of 'em going to it!"

"Sharpie, you've got a one-track mind."

"It's the main track. Reproduction is the main track; the methods and mores of sexual copulation are the central feature of all higher developments of life."

"You're ignoring money and television."

"Piffle! All human activities including scientific research are either mating dances and care of the young, or the dismal sublimations of born losers in the only game in town. Don't try to kid Sharpie. Took me forty-two years to grab a real man and get myself knocked up-but I made it! Everything I've done up to the last two weeks has been 'vamp till ready.' How about you, you shameless stud? Am I not right? Careful how you answer; I'll tell Deety."

"I'll take the Fifth."

"Make mine a quart. Zebbie, I hate these monsters; they interfere with my plans-a rose-covered cottage, a baby in the crib, a pot roast in the oven, me in a gingham dress, and my man coming down the lane after a hard day flunking freshmen-me with his slippers and his pipe and a dry martini waiting for him. Heaven! All else is vanity and vexation. Four fully developed mammary glands but lacking the redundant fat characteristic of the human female-'cept me, damn it. A double stomach, a single intestine. A two-compartment heart that seems to pump by peristalsis rather than by beating. Cordate. I haven't examined the brain; I don't have a proper saw-but it must be as well developed as ours. Definitely humanoid, outrageously nonhuman. Don't knock over those bottles; they are specimens of body fluids."

"What are these things?"

"Splints to conceal the unhuman articulation. Plastic surgery on the face, too, I'm pretty sure, and cheaters to reshape the skull. The hair is fake; these Boojums don't have hair. Somethinglike tattooing-or maybe masking I haven't been able to peel off-to make the face and other exposed skin look human instead of blue-green. Zeb, seven-to-two a large number of missing persons have been used as guinea pigs before they worked out methods for this masquerade. Swoop! A flying saucer dips down and two more guinea pigs wind up in their laboratories."

"There hasn't been a flying saucer scare in years."

"Poetic license, dear. If they have space-time twisters, they can pop up

anywhere, steal what they want-or replace a real human with a convincing fake-and be gone like switching off a light."