Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast

"Remember why Jake was certain that the Finnish mathematician was not a disguised vermin? Sauna. Disguise has limits."

"Oh." Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. "I could get used to it. But I must get out of this tension. So drop me on the minus-J world. A mail drop, yes; I don't ever want to lose you and Deety."

"We find that safe place, we pick you up. Sharpie, we'll be back someday anyhow. If the boogiemen don't get us."

"Hold it, Zeb. If you're dropping Hilda, you're dropping me."

"That's up to Captain Hilda."

"Hilda, I will not permit-"

"Jake, quit acting the fool," growled my husband. "She's boss. With me to back her up."

"And me!" I echoed.

"You seem to forget that the continua device is mine!"

"Gay Deceiver!"

"Yes, Boss? Who's your fat friend?"

"Number of the Beast.' Execute."

"Done."

"Try your verniers, Jake."

Pop did something-I couldn't see his hands. Then he said, "Why, you- So you think you've stopped me? Gay Deceiver!"

"Howdy, Jake."

Zebadiah cut in: "Gay Deceiver override! Emergency Thirty-one execute. Gay can no longer hear you, Jake. Try it."

"If you can do one, you can do the other. Zeb, I never thought you would be that sneaky."

"Jake, if you had behaved yourself, you never would have known. Extreme individualists (all of us) don't take kindly to discipline because they rarely understand its nature and function. But-even before that fake ranger showed up-we all had agreed to 'lifeboat' rules. We discussed them and you all claimed to understand them... and I was elected skipper. I nominated you-eldest, senior, inventor of the space-time twister-but you said it had to be me. A lifeboat officer must always be able to enforce his orders... in situations of great peril complicated by hysterical civilians. Or bullheaded ones who must otherwise be wheedled."

It was time for a diversion; Pop doesn't like to look foolish and I was still hoping to salvage this shambles. "Zebadiah, is my number fifty-nine?"

"Of course, but it takes my voice. Can you figure the cancel-and-reset?"

"For mnemonic reasons it should be one of three. Probably ninety-five."

"On the button!"

"Although I would prefer eighty-nine."

"Why?"

"Work on it. Zebadiah, why did you call this meeting?"

"With Sharpie leaving us the matter is academic. We won't be coming back to Mars."

"Oh, dear!"

"What's the trouble, Sharpie? Captain."

"I promised Squeaky a ride. Zebbie, could you keep my promise for me? Please? For old times' sake?"

"Captain, once we lift to drop you on Minus-J, we won't return. But the Captain still is captain and can give Squeaky that ride in the next thirty minutes if it suits her."

"May I offer something in my own defense?" Pop put in.

"Of course, Jake. Sorry, Captain; you're in charge. May the Copilot have the floor?"

"Jacob, even though I find it necessary to leave you'... I love and respect you... and will always listen to you."

"Thanks, darling. Thank you, Captain. I was in that huddle because Brigadier Hird-Jones always remembers. That huddle was the top physical scientists on Mars. A scruffy lot but they get the technical journals and read them, a few months late. I was talking with the top chemist-"

"Well, Jake? Make it march."

"Zeb, not one knew an isotope from an antelope. You can't buy juice here."

"For that you disobeyed a direct order of the Captain? Sharpie, you should have him flogged around the Fleet before you surrender office-"

"Don't loke, Zebbie."

"Captain, I am not joking. Jake, that's no news; I spotted it this afternoon. Sharpie? Deety? In England."

"I missed it," Aunt Hilda said. "I don't know England well."

"Deety?"

"Well... maybe," I admitted.

"How?" demanded Pop.

"Little things. No roadables, just horse-drawn vehicles. No air traffic other than a few ornithopters. Coal-fired steam-powered trains of cars. Traffic on the Thames, what little there was, 'minded me of pictures of Victorian England."

"Daughter, why didn't you mention this?"

"You saw it, Pop."

"Those were my reasons," Zebadiah agreed. "My hope of getting juiced here dropped to one-tenth of one percent. It is now zero." Zebadiah sighed. "But that isn't why I asked the Captain to call us together. Family, there are vermin here."

The world wobbled again-and so did I.

Aunt Hilda was saying, "How did you learn this, Zebbie?"

"You gals had plenty of company and Jake had the local scientists, so Squeaky gave me his attention. Captain, you told us to stick to the truth-"

"Yes," agreed Aunt Hilda, "but not to volunteer information."

"I didn't volunteer; I was debriefed. Squeaky asked me about the ride we gave his boss; I tried to be vague. Squeaky took a photo from his pocket. 'The Governor tells me this was taken this afternoon.' Deety, it was the pic you took of the Thames and the Tower.

"I shortly started giving him a full account rather than have it dragged out. The Governor had told him the works; Squeaky was comparing my version with Bertie's, looking for holes in a yarn most easily explained by hypnosis, delirium tremens, insanity, or fancy lying. Since no two witnesses exhibit any of these in the same way they can be used as truth tests. Contrariwise, two witnesses who tell exactly the same story are lying. I assume that Bertie and I differed enough to be credible."

I asked my husband, "Zebadiah, did you explain six-dimensional space to him?"

Zebadiah looked pained. "How could I, when I can't explain it to me? Anyhow, he's looking forward eagerly to the ride Captain Sharpie promised him."

"Oh, dear! Zebbie, will you take a note to him?"

"Captain, we are not coming back after we drop you. I'll be breaking a date with him, too. Either before or after whatever time suits you, he's planning to give me-and anyone else who wants to go-a ride to see the vermin. 'Black Hats.' Fake rangers."

(I do wish the world would not wobble!)

Pop said, "Zeb, spill it! Quit stalling."

"Shut up and listen. Squeaky showed me a scrapbook. Dull as a scrapbook usually is until we came across a page of 'Black Hats.' Deety, you would have

been proud of me-"

"I am proud of you," I answered.

"-because I didn't scream or faint, I showed no special interest. I just said, 'God in Heaven, Squeaky, those are the horrors that chased us off Earth! You've got 'em here?"

"'No special interest.'"

"I didn't climb the drapes. I merely said, 'Or have you managed to exterminate them?'

"The discussion became confused, as they don't kill them; they put them to work. Squeaky had to repress amusement at the notion that wogs could be dangerous. He glanced at his watch and said, 'Come, I'll show you. Ordinarily we don't allow wogs in town. But this old fellow takes care of the Governor's gardens and may not yet have been returned to the pens for the night.' He led me to a balcony. Squeaky looked down and said, 'Too late, I'm afraid. No, there it is-Hooly! Chop, chop!'-and again I didn't faint. Hooly ran toward us, with a gait I can't describe, stopped abruptly, threw an open-palm salute and held it. 'Private Hooly reports!'

"Squeaky let him stand there. 'This wog,' he told me, 'is the most intelligent of the herd. It knows almost a hundred words. Can make simple sentences. As intelligent as a dog. And it can be trusted not to eat the flowers.'

"Herbivorous?' says I, showing off my book-larnin'. 'Oh, no,' he tells me, 'omnivorous. We hunt wild ones to provide the good wogs with a change in diet and, of course, when we slaughter overage wogs, that provides more ration.'

"That's enough for one lesson, children. Pleasant dreams. Tomorrow the Brigadier will have a roadable big enough for all of us to take us out to meet the Martian natives aka wogs aka 'Black Hats' aka vermin-unless that interferes with the ride you aren't going to give him, in which case he will swap the times around with the visit to the wogs we aren't going to make. And that, Jake, is the reason I asked the Captain for a family conference. I already knew that artificial isotopes are far beyond this culture-not alone from the ride this afternoon but because I ask questions myself. Squeaky has a knowledge of chemistry about the pre-nuclear level and a detailed knowledge of explosives that one expects of a pro. But to Squeaky atoms are the smallest divisions of mass, and 'heavy water' is a meaningless phrase.