Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast

"Program running."

"Report."

"Klicks two-two-four-zero-nine-zero-eight-two-seven point plus-minus nineeight-zero."

"Display running report."

Gay did so. "You're a smart girl, Gay."

"I can do card tricks, too. Program continuing."

"Jake, how do we this?"

"Align 'L' axis with your gun sight. Isn't that easiest?"

"By far!" I aimed at Mars as if to shoot her out of the sky-then got cold feet. "Jake? A little Tennessee windage? I think those figures are from centerof-gravity to center-of-gravity. Half a mil would place us a safe distance away. Over a hundred thousand klicks."

"A hundred and twelve thousand," Jake agreed, watching the display.

I offset one half mil. "Copilot."

"Captain."

"Transit when ready. Execute."

Mars in half phase, big and round and ruddy and beautiful, was swimming off our starboard side.

"Quit worrying and enjoy the ride."

Deety:

Aunt Hilda said softly, "Barsoom. Dead sea bottoms. Green giants." I just gulped.

"Mars. Hilda darling." Pop gently corrected her. "Barsoom is a myth."

"Barsoom." she repeated firmly. "It's not a myth, it's there. Who says its name is Mars? A bunch of long-dead Romans. Aren't the natives entitled to name it? Barsoom."

"My dearest, there are no natives. Names are assigned by an international committee sponsored by Harvard Observatory. They confirmed the traditional name.

"Pooh! They don't have any more right to name it than I have. Deety, isn't that right?"

I think Aunt Hilda had the best argument but I don't argue with Pop unless necessary; he gets emotional. My husband saved me.

"Copilot, astrogation problem. How are we going to figure distance and vector? I would like to put this wagon into orbit. But Gay is no spaceship; I don't have instruments. Not even a sextant!"

'Mmm, suppose we try it one piece at a time, Captain. We don't seem to be f~Iling fast and-alp!"

~What's the trouble, Jake!"

Pop turned pale, sweat broke out, he clenched his jaws, swallowed and reswallowed. Then his lips barely opened. "M'sheashick."

'No, you're space sick. Deetv!"

"Yessir!"

"Emergency kit, back of my seat. Unzip it, get Bonine. One pill-don't let the others get loose."

I got at the first-aid kit, found a tube marked Bonine. A second pill did get loose but I snatched it out of the air. Free fall is funny-you don't know whether you are standing on your head or floating sideways. "Here, Captain."

Pop said, "Mall righ' now. Jus' took all over queer a moment."

"Sure, you're all right. You can take this pill-or you can have it pushed down your throat with my dirty, calloused finger. Which?"

"Uh, Captain, I'd have to have water to swallow it-and I don't think I can."

"Doesn't take water, pal. Chew it. Tastes good, raspberry flavor. Then keep gulping your saliva. Here." Zebadiah pinched Pop's nostrils. "Open up."

I became aware of a strangled sound beside me. Aunt Hilda had a hanky pressed to her mouth and her eyes were streaming tears-she was split seconds from adding potato salad and used sandwich to the cabin air.

Good thing I was still clutching that wayward pill. Aunt Hilda struggled but she's a little bitty. I treated her the way my husband had treated her husband, then clamped my hand over her mouth. I don't understand seasickness (or free-fall nausea); I can walk on bulkheads with a sandwich in one hand and a drink in the other and enjoy it.

But the victims really are sick and somewhat out of their heads. So I held her mouth closed and whispered into her ear. "Chew it, Aunty darling, and swallow it, or I'm going to spank you with a club."

Shortly I could feel her chewing. After several minutes she relaxed. I asked her, "Is it safe for me to ungag you?"

She nodded. I took my hand away. She smiled wanly and patted my hand. "Thanks, Deety." She added, "You wouldn't really beat Aunt Sharpie."

"I sure would, darling. I'd cry and cry and wallop you and wallop you. I'm glad I don't have to."

"I'm glad, too. Can we kiss and make up-or is my breath sour?"

It wasn't but I wouldn't have let that stop me. I loosened my chest strap and hers, and put both arms around her. I have two ways of kissing: one is suitable for faculty teas; the other way I mean it. I never got a chance to pick; Aunt Hilda apparently never found out about the faculty-tea sort. No, her breath wasn't sour-just a slight taste of raspberry.

Me, I'm the wholesome type; if it weren't for those advertisements on my chest, men wouldn't give me a second glance. Hilda is a miniature Messalina, pure sex in a small package. Funny how a person can grow up never really believing that the adults you grow up with have sex-just gender. Now my saintly father turns out to be an insatiable goat, and Aunt Hilda, who had babied me and changed my diapers, is sexy enough for a platoon of Marines.

I let her go while thinking pleasant thoughts about teaching my husband technique I had learned-unless Hilda had taught him in the past. No, or he would have taught me-and he hadn't shown her style of virtuosity. Zebadiah, just wait till I get you alone!

Which might not be too soon. Gay Deceiver is wonderful but no honeymoon cottage. There was space back of the bulkhead behind my head-like a big phone booth on its side-where Zebadiah kept a sleeping bag and (he says) sometimes sacked out. But it had the space-time twister in it and nineteen dozen other things. Hilda and I were going to have to repress our primary imperative until our men found us a pied-a-terre on some planet in some universe, somewhere, somewhen.

Mars-Barsoom seemed to have grown while I was curing Aunt Hilda's space sickness. Our men were talking astrogation. My husband was saying, "Sorry, but at extreme range Gay's radar can see a thousand kilos. You tell me our distance is about a hundred times that."

"About. We're falling toward Mars. Captain, we must do it by triangulation."

"Not even a protractor where I can get at it. How?"

"Hmmmm- If the Captain pleases, recall how you worked that 'Tennessee windage."

My darling looked like a school boy caught making a silly answer. "Jake, if you don't quit being polite when I'm stupid, I'm going to space you and put Deety in the copilot's seat. No, we need you to get us home. I'd better resign and you take over."

"Zeb, a captain can't resign while his ship is underway. That's universal."

"This is another universe."

"Transuniversal. As long as you are alive, you are stuck with it. Let's attempt that triangulation."

"Stand by to record." Zebadiah settled into his seat, pressed his head against its rest. "Copilot."

"Ready to record, sir."

"Damn!"

"Trouble, Captain?"

"Some. This reflectosight is scaled fifteen mils on a side, concentric circles crossed at center point horizontally and vertically. Normal to deck and parallel to deck, I mean. When I center the fifteen-mil ring on Mars, I have a border around it. I'm going to have to guesstimate. Uh, the border looks to be about eighteen mils wide. So double that and add thirty."

"Sixty-six mils."

"And a mil is one-to-one-thousand. One-to-one-thousand-and-eighteen and a whisker, actually-but one-to-a-thousand is good enough. Wait a halfi I've got two sharp high lights near the meridian-if the polar caps mark the meridian. Le'me tilt this buggy and put a line crossing them-then I'll yaw and what we can't measure in one jump, we'll catch in three."

I saw the larger "upper" polar cap (north? south? well, it felt north) roll gently about eighty degrees, while my husband fiddled with Gay's manual controls. "Twenty-nine point five, maybe... plus eighteen point seven... plus sixteen point three. Add."

My father answered, "Sixty-four and a half" while I said, six four point five in my mind and kept quiet.