Robert Heinlein - The Cat Who Walked Through Walls

You see, I can't wear a pressure suit that has not been especially made for me... while wearing my artificial foot. So I had to remove it. So I had to hop. That's okay; I'm used to hopping, and at one-sixth gee hopping is no problem. But Gwen had to mother me.

So here we go-Bill leading off with Tree-San, under instructions from Gwen to get inside fast and get some water from Mr. Henderson to spray on it, then Gwen and I followed as Siamese twins. She earned her small case with her left hand and put her right arm around my waist. I had my artificial foot slung over my shoulder, and I used my cane and hopped and steadied myself with my left arm around her shoulders. How could I tell her that I would have been steadier without her help? I kept my big mouth shut and let her help me.

Mr. Henderson let us into the cab, then gasketed it tight and opened an air bottle lavishly-he had been running in vacuum, wearing a suit. I appreciated his lavish expenditure of air mix- oxygen wrested painfully from Lunar rock, nitrogen all the way from Earth-until I saw it next day on my bill at a fat price.

Henderson stayed and helped Maggie wrestle old B. J. 17 onto her transporter, running her crane for her while she handled her tread controls, then he drove us to Dry Bones Pressure. I spent part of the time figuring out what it had cost me. I had had to sign away the skycar totally-net just under twenty-seven thousand. I had paid three thousand each to rescue us, discounted to eight thousand as a courtesy... plus five hundred each for bed and breakfast... plus (I learned later) eighteen hundred tomorrow to drive us to Lucky Dragon Pressure, the nearest place to catch a rolligon bus to Hong Kong Luna.

On Luna it's cheaper to die.

Still, I was happy to be alive at any price. I had Gwen and money is something you can always get more of.

Ingrid Henderson was a most gracious hostess-smiling and pretty and plump (clearly expecting that child). She welcomed us warmly, woke up her daughter, moved her into a shakedown with them, put us in Gretchen's room, put Bill in with Wolf-at which point I realized that Jinx's threats to Maggie were not backed up by force at hand... and realized, too, that it was none of my business.

Our hostess said goodnight to us, told us the light in the 'fresher was left on in the night, in case-and left. I looked at my watch before turning out me light.

Twenty-four hours earlier a stranger night Schultz sat down at my table.

"Dear Lord, give me chastity and self-restraint... but not yet, 0 Lord, not yet!"

SAINT AUGUSTINE A.D. 354-430

That damned fez!

That silly, fake-oriental headdress had been fifty percent of a disguise that had saved my life. But, having used it, the coldly pragmatic thing to do would have been to destroy it.

I did not. I had felt uneasy about wearing it, first because I am not any sort of a Freemason, much less a Shriner, and second because it was not mine; it was stolen.

One might steal a throne or a king's ransom or a Martian princess and feel euphoric about it. But a hat? Stealing a hat was beneath contempt. Oh, I didn't reason this out; I simply felt uneasy about Mr. Clayton Rasmussen (his name I found inside his fez) and intended to restore his fancy headgear to him. Someday- Somehow- When I could manage it- When the rain stopped-

As we were leaving Golden Rule habitat, I had tucked it under a belt and forgotten it. After touch down on Luna, as I unstrapped, it had fallen to the ceiling; I had not noticed. As we three were climbing into those breezy escape suits, Gwen had picked it up and handed it to me; I shoved it into the front of my pressure suit and zipped up.

After we reached the Henderson home in Dry Bones Pressure and were shown where we were to sleep, I peeled down with my eyes drooping, so tired I hardly knew what I was doing. I suppose the fez fell out then. I don't know. I just cuddled up to Gwen and went right to sleep-and spent my wedding night in eight hours of unbroken sleep.

I think my bride slept just as soundly. No matter-we had had a grand practice run the night before.

At the breakfast table Bill handed me that fez. "Senator, you dropped your hat on the floor of the 'fresher."

Also at the table were Gwen, the Hendersons-Ingrid, Jinx, Gretchen, Wolf-and two boarders, Eloise and Ace, and three small children. It was a good time for me to come out with a brilliant ad-lib that would account for my possession of this funny hat. What I said was, "Thank you. Bill."

Jinx and Ace exchanged glances; then Jinx offered me Masonic recognition signs.

That's what I have to assume they were. At the time I simply thought that he was scratching himself. After all, all Loonies scratch because all Loonies itch. They can't help it-not enough baths, not enough water.

Jinx got me alone after breakfast. He said, "Noble-"

I said, "Huh?" (Swift repartee!)

"I couldn't miss it that you declined to recognize me there at the table. And Ace saw it, too. Are you by any chance thinking that the deal we made last night wasn't level and on the square?"

(Jinx, you cheated me blind, six ways from zero.) "Why, nothing of the sort. No complaints." (A deal is a deal, you swiftie. I don't welch.)

"Are you sure? I've never cheated a lodge brother-or an outsider, for that matter. But I take special care of any son of a widow just the way I would one of my own blood. If you think you paid too much for being rescued, then pay what you think is right. Or you can have it free."

He added, "While I can't speak for Maggie Snodgrass, she'll make an accounting to me, and it will be honest; there is nothing small about Maggie. But don't expect that salvage to show too much net. Or maybe a loss by the time she sells it because- You know where Budget gets those crocks they rent, don't you?"

I admitted ignorance. He went on, "Every year the quality leasers, like Hertz and Interplanet, sell off their used cars. The clean jobs are bought by private parties, mostly Loonies. The stuff needing lots of work goes to boomers. Then Budget Jets buys what's left at junkyard prices, starvation cheap. They rework that junk at their yard outside Loonie City, getting maybe two cars for each three they buy, then they sell as scrap whatever is left over. That jalopy that let you down-they charged you list, twenty-six thousand... but if Budget actually had as much as five thousand cash tied up in it, I'll give you the difference and buy you a drink, and that's a fact.

"Now Maggie is going to recondition it again. But her repairs will be honest and her work guaranteed and she'll sell it for what it is-worn out, rebuilt, not standard. Maybe it will fetch ten thousand, gross. After fair charges for parts and labor, if the net she splits with me is more than three thousand, I'll be flabbergasted-and it might be a net loss. A gamble."

I told a number of sincere lies and managed (I think) to convince Jinx that we were not lodge brothers and that I was not asking for discounts on anything and that I had come by that fez by accident, at the last minute-found it in the Volvo when I hired it.

(Unspoken assumption: Mr. Rasmussen had hired that wagon in Luna City, then had left his headpiece in it when he turned in the Volvo at Golden Rule.)

I added that the owner's name was in the fez and I intended to return it to him.

Jinx asked, "Do you have his address?"

I admitted that I did not-just the name of his temple, embroidered on the fez.

Jinx stuck out his hand. "Give it to me; I can save you the trouble... and the expense of mailing a package back Earth-side."

"How?"

"Happens I know somebody who's bouncing a jumpbug to Luna City on Saturday. The Nobles' convention adjourns on Sunday, right after they dedicate their Luna City Hospital for Crippled and Birth-Damaged Children. There'll be a lost-and-found at the convention center; there always is. Since his name is in it, they'll get it to him-before Saturday evening, because that's the night of the drill team competition... and they know that a drill team member-if he is one-without his fez is as undressed as a bar hostess without her G-string."