Robert Heinlein - The Cat Who Walked Through Walls

"So you do have us bugged." "I prefer to call it a 'spy ray'; it sounds better. Okay, I have you bugged."

"So I assumed. May we have privacy? I have family matters to discuss with my husband."

"Sure thing, chum. Hospital monitoring only. Otherwise three little monkeys and the old fast wipe."

"Thank you, dear."

"Usual Long Enterprises service. When you want to crawl out from under the rock, just mention my name. Kiss him once for me. So long!"

"We really do have privacy now, Richard. Teena is listening and watching you every split second but doing so as impersonally as a voltmeter and her only memory not transient is for matters such as pulse and respiration. Something like this was used to keep you from hurting while you were so ill." I made my usual brilliant comment. "Huh?"

We had come outdoors from the central building of the hospital and were facing a small park flanked by two side wings, a U-shaped building. This court was rich with flowers and greenery and the middle of it was a pool that just "happened" to be the right casual shape to fit those flower beds and paths and bushes. Hazel stopped at a bench facing the pool in the shade of a tree. We sat down, let the bench adjust itself to us, and watched people in the pool-as much fun as swimming, almost.

Hazel said, "What do you recall of your arrival here?"

"Not much. I was feeling pretty rocky-that wound, you know." ("That wound" was now a hairline scar, hard to find- I think I was disappointed.) "She-Tamara?-Tammy was looking me in the eyes and looking worried. She said something in another language-"

"Galacta. You'll leam it; it's easy-"

"So? Anyhow she spoke to me and that's the last I remember. To me, that was last night and I woke up this morning, and now I leam that it was not last night but God knows when and I've been crashed the whole time. Disturbing. Hazel, how long has it been?"

"Depends on how you count it. For you, about a month."

"They've kept me knocked out that long? That's a long time to keep a man sedated." (It worried me. I've seen 'em go in for surgery, right out of the scrum... and come out of hospital physically perfect... but hooked on painkiller. Morphine, De-merol, sans-souci, methadone, whatever.)

"Dear one, you weren't kept knocked out."

"Play back?"

"A 'Lethe' field the whole time-no drugs. Lethe lets the patient stay alert and cooperative... but pain is forgotten as soon as it happens. Or anything. You did hurt, dear, but each pain was a separate event, forgotten at once. You never had to endure that overpowering fatigue that comes from unending pain. And now you don't have a hangover and the need to wash weeks and weeks of addictive drugs out of your system." She smiled at me. "You weren't much company, dear, because a man who can't remember what happened two seconds ago does not carry on a coherent conversation. But you did seem to enjoy listening to music. And you ate all right as long as someone fed you."

"You fed me." "No. I did not interfere with the professionals." My cane had slipped to the grass; Hazel leaned down, handed it to me.

"By the way, I reloaded your cane."

'Thank you. Hey! It was loaded. Fully."

"It was loaded when they jumped us-and a good thing, too. Or I would be dead. You, too, I think. Me for certain, though."

We spent the next ten minutes confusing each other. I've already recounted how that fight outside the Raffles Hotel looked to me. I'll tell briefly how Hazel said it looked to her. There is no possible way to reconcile the two.

She says that she did not use her handbag as a weapon. ("Why, that would be silly, dear. Too slow and not lethal. You took out two of them at once and that gave me time to get at my little Miyako. After I had used my scarf, I mean.")

According to her, I shot four of them, while she worked around the edges, cooling those I missed. Until they brought me down with that slice into my thigh (knife? She tells me they picked bits of bamboo out of the wound) and they hit me with an aerosol-and that gave her the instant she needed to finish off the man who sprayed me.

("I stepped on his face and grabbed you and dragged you out of there. No, I didn't expect to see Gretchen. But I knew I could count on her.")

Her version does explain a little better how we won... except that by my recollection it is dead wrong. There is no point in picking at it; it can't be straightened out.

"How did Gretchen get there? That Xia and Choy-Mu were waiting isn't mysterious, in view of the messages we left for them. And Hendrik Schultz, too, if he grabbed a shuttle as soon as he heard from me. But Gretchen? You talked to her just before lunch. She was home, at Dry Bones."

"At Dry Bones, with the nearest tubeway being far south at Hong Kong Luna. So how did she get to L-City so fast? Not by rolligon. No prize is offered for the correct answer."

"By rocket." "Of course. A prospector's jumpbug being the type of rocket.

You remember that Jinx Henderson was planning to return that fez for you via some friend of his who was jumping his bug to L-City?"

"Yes, of course."

"Gretchen went with that friend and returned the fez herself. She dropped it at lost-and-found in Old Dome just before she came to the Raffles to find us."

"I see. But why?"

"She wants you to paddle her bottom, dear, and turn it all pink."

"Oh, nonsense! I meant, 'Why did her daddy let her hitchhike to L-City with this neighbor?' She's much too young."

"He let her do so for the usual reason. Jinx is a big, strong, macho man who can't resist the wheedling of his daughter. Forbidden to satisfy his suppressed incestuous yearnings he lets her have anything she wants if she teases him long enough."

"That's ridiculous. And inexcusable. A father's duty toward his daughter requires that-"

"Richard. How many daughters do you have?"

"Eh? None. But-"

"So shut up about something you know nothing about. No matter what Jinx should have done, the fact is that Gretchen left Dry Bones about as we were having lunch. Counting time of flight, that put her at City Lock East around the time we left the Warden's Complex... and she arrived at the Raffles just seconds before we did-and a good thing, too, or you and I would be dead. I think."

"Did she get into the fight?"

"No, but by carrying you she freed me to cover our retreat. And all because she wants you to paddle her bottom. God moves in mysterious ways, dear; for every masochist He creates a sadist; marriages are made in Heaven."

"Wash out your mouth with soap! I am not a sadist."

"Yes, dear. I may have some details wrong, but not the broad picture. Gretchen has proposed formally to me, asking your hand in marriage."

"What?"

"That's right. She's thought about it, and she has discussed it with Ingrid. She wants me to allow her to join our family, instead of starting a new line or group of her own. I found nothing surprising about it; I know how charming you are."

"My God. What did you say to her?"

"I told her that it had my approval but that you were ill. So wait. And now you can answer her yourself... for there she is, across the pool."

"Do not put off till tomorrow What can be enjoyed today."

JOSH BILLINGS 1818-1885

"I'm going straight back to my room. I feel faint." I squinted, staring across the sun-speckled water. "I don't see her." "Straight across, just to the right of the water slide. A blonde and a brunette. Gretchen is the blonde."

"I didn't expect her to be brunette." I continued to stare; the brunette waved at us. I saw that it was Xia, and waved back.

"Let's join them, Richard. Leave your cane and stuff on the bench; no one will touch it." Hazel stepped out of her sandals, laid her handbag by my cane.