Robert Heinlein - The Cat Who Walked Through Walls

"You had a fez on hand?"

"Not exactly. It does have a former owner. When he wakes up, he may miss it... but I do not think he will wake up soon. Uh, my friend Mickey Finn is taking care of him. But you might avoid any Shriners from Temple Al Mizar. Their accents may help; they are from Alabama."

"Doctor, I'll avoid all Shriners as much as I can; I think I should board at the last minute. But what about Gwen?"

The Reverend Doctor produced another fez. 'Try it, dear lady."

Gwen tried it on. It tended to fit down over her like a candle snuffer. She lifted it off. "I don't think it does a thing for me; it's not right for my complexion. What do you think?"

"I'm afraid you're right."

I said, "Doctor, Shriners are twice as big as Gwen in all directions and they bulge in different places. It will have to be something else. Grease paint?"

Schultz shook his head. "Grease paint always looks like grease paint."

"That's a very bad likeness of her on the terminal. Nobody could recognize her from that."

"Thank you, my love. Unfortunately there are a good many people in Golden Rule who do know what I look like... and just one of them at the boarding lock tonight could lower my life expectancy drastically. Hmm. With just a little effort and no grease paint I could look my right age. Papa Schultz?"

"What is your right age, dear lady?"

She glanced at me, then stood on tiptoes and whispered in Dr. Schultz's ear. He looked surprised. "I don't believe it. And, no, it won't work. We need something better."

Mrs. Kondo spoke quickly to her husband; he looked suddenly alert; they exchanged some fast chatter in what had to be Japanese. He shifted to English. "May I, please? My wife has pointed out that Mistress Gwen is the same size, very nearly, as our daughter Naomi-and, in any case, kimonos are quite flexible."

Gwen stopped smiling. "It's an idea-and I thank you both. But I don't look Nipponese. My nose. My eyes. My skin."

There was some more batting around of that fast but long-winded language, three-comered this time. Then Gwen said, "This could extend my life. So please excuse me." She left with Mama-San.

Kondo went back into his main room-there had been lights asking for service for several minutes; he had ignored them. I said to the good Doctor, "You have already extended our lives, simply by enabling us to take refuge with Tiger Kondo. But do you think we can carry this off long enough to board the shuttle?"

"I hope so. What more can I say?"

"Nothing, I guess."

Papa Schultz dug into a pocket. "I found opportunity to get you a tourist card from the gentleman who lent you that fez ... and I have removed his name. What name should go on it? It can't be 'Ames' of course-but what?"

"Oh. Gwen reserved space for us. Bought tickets."

"By your right names?"

"I'm not certain."

"I do hope not. If she used Ames' and 'Novak' the best you can hope for is to try to be first in line for no-shows. But I had better hurry to the ticket counter and get reservations for you as 'Johnson' and-"

"Doc."

"Please? On the next shuttle if this one is booked solid."

"You can't. You make reservations for us and-phtt! You're spaced. It may take them till tomorrow to figure it out. But they will."

"But-"

"Let's wait and see just what Gwen did. If they aren't back in five minutes, I'll ask Mr. Kondo to dig them out."

A few minutes later a lady came in. Father Schultz bowed and said, "You're Naomi. Or are you Yumiko? Good to see you again, anyhow."

The little thing giggled and sucked air and bowed from the waist. She looked like a doll-fancy kimono, little silk slippers, flat white makeup, an incredible Japanese hairdo. She answered, "Ichiban geisha girr is awr. My Ingris are serdom."

"Gwen!" I said.

"Prease?"

"Gwen, it's wonderful! But tell us, fast, the names you used in making our reservations."

"Ames and Novak. To match our passports."

"That tears it. What'll we do. Doc?"

Gwen looked back and forth between us. "Pray tell me the difficulty?"

I explained. "So we go to the gate, each of us well disguised-and show reservations for Ames and Novak. Curtain. No flowers."

"Richard, I didn't quite tell you everything."

"Gwendolyn, you never do quite tell everything. More Lim-burger?"

"No, dear. I saw that it might turn out this way. Well, I suppose you could say that I wasted quite a lot of money. But I- Uh, after I bought our tickets-tickets we can't use now and arc wasted-I went to Rental Row and put a deposit on a U-Pushit. A Volvo Flyabout."

Schultz said, "Under what name?"

I said, "How much?"

"I used my right name-"

Schultz said, "God help us!"

"Just a moment, sir. My right name is Sadie Lipschitz... and only Richard knows it. And now you. Please keep it to yourself, as I don't like it. As Sadie Lipschitz I reserved the Volvo for my employer. Senator Richard Johnson, and placed a deposit. Six thousand crowns."

I whistled. "For a Volvo? Sounds like you bought it."

"I did buy it, dear; I had to. Both rental and deposit had to be cash because I didn't have a credit card. Oh, I do have; I have enough cards to play solitaire. But Sadie Lipschitz has no credit. So I had to pay six thousand down simply to reserve it-to rent it but on a purchase contract. I tried to get him down a bit but with all the Shriners in town he was sure he could move it."

"Probably right."

"I think so. If we take it, we still have to complete payment on the full list price, another nineteen thousand crowns-"

"My God!"

"-plus insurance and squeeze. But we get the unused balance back if we turn it in here, or Luna City, or Hong Kong Luna, in thirty days. Mr. Dockweiler explained the reason for the purchase contract. Asteroid miners, or boomers rather, had been hiring cars without putting up the full price, taking them to some hideout on Luna, and refitting them for mining."

"A Volvo? The only way you could get a Volvo to the asteroids would be by shipping it in the hold of a Hanshaw. But nineteen-no, twenty-five thousand crowns. Plus insurance and graft. Bald, stark robbery."

Schultz said to me rather sharply, "Friend Ames, I suggest that you stop behaving like the fabled Scotsman faced by a coin-operated refresher. Do you accept what Mrs. Ames could arrange? Or do you prefer die Manager's fresh-air route? Fresh- but thin."

I took a deep breath. "Sorry. You're right, I can't breathe money. I just hate to get clipped. Gwen, I apologize. All right where is Hertz from here? I'm disoriented."

"Not Hertz, dear. Budget Jets. Hertz did not have a unit ten."

"Murphy was an optimist." (O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law, as cited by A. Bloch)

To reach the office of Budget Jets we had to go around the end of the spaceport waiting room and into it at the axis, then directly to Budget's door. The waiting room was crowded- the usual lot, plus Shriners and their wives, most of them belted to wall rests, some floating free. And proctors-too many of them.

Perhaps I should explain that the waiting room-and the booking office and the lock to the passenger tunnel and the offices and facilities of Rental Row-are all in free fall, weightless; they do not take part in the stately spin that gives the habitat its pseudo-gravity. The waiting room and related activities are in a cylinder inside a much larger cylinder, the habitat itself. The two cylinders share a common axis. The big one spins; the smaller one does not-like a wheel turning on an axle.

This requires a vacuum seal at the outer skin of the habitat where the two cylinders touch-a mercury type, I believe, but I've never seen it. The point is that, even though the surrounding habitat spins, the habitat's spaceport must not spin, because a shuttle (or a liner, or a freighter, or even a Volvo) requires a steady place in free fall to dock. The docking nests for Rental Row are a rosette around the main docking facility.