Robert Heinlein - Podkayne of Mars

The following morning I was using the viewer in the lounge to scan one of Mr. Clancy's study tapes, one on radar approach and contact. The viewer is off in a corner, behind a screen of fake potted palms, and perhaps they didn't notice me. Or perhaps they didn't care.

I stopped the scan to give my eyes and ears a rest, and heard Mrs. Garcia talking to Mrs. Royer.

"... that I simply can't stand about Mars is that it is so commercialized. Why couldn't they have left it primitive and beautiful?"

MRS. ROYER: "What can you expect? Those dreadful people!"

The ship's official language is Ortho but many passengers talk English among themselves-and often act as if no one else could possibly understand it. These two weren't keeping their voices down. I went on listening.

MRS. GARCIA: "Just what I was saying to Mrs. Rimski. After all, they're all criminals."

MRS. ROYER: "Or worse. Have you noticed that

little Martian girl? The niece_-or so they claim-of that big black savage?"

I counted ten backwards in Old Martian and reminded myself of the penalty for murder. I didn't mind being called a "Martian." They didn't know any better, and anyhow, it's no insult; the Martians were civilized before humans learned to walk. But "big black savage"!- Uncle Tom is as dark as I am blond; his Maori blood and desert tan make him the color of beautiful old leather... and I love the way he looks. As for the rest-he is learned and civilized and gentle... and highly honored wherever he goes.

MRS. GARCIA: "I've seen her. Common, I would say. Flashy but cheap. A type that attracts a certain sort of man."

MRS. ROYER: "My dear, you don't know the half of it. I've tried to help her-I really felt sorry for her, and I always believe in being gracious, especially to one's social inferiors."

MRS. GARCIA: "Of course, dear."

MRS. ROYER: "I tried to give her a few hints as to proper conduct among gentle people. Why, I was even paying her for little trifles, so that she wouldn't be uneasy among her betters. But she's an utterly ungrateful little snip-she thought she could squeeze more money out of me. She was rude about it, so rude that I feared for my safety. I had to order her out of my room, actually."

MRS. GARCIA: "You were wise to drop her. Blood will tell-bad blood or good blood-blood will always tell. And mixed blood is the Very Worst Sort. Criminals to start with ... and then that Shameless Mixing of Races. You can see it right in that family. The boy doesn't look a bit like his sister, and as for the unclehmmm- My dear, you halfway hinted at something.

Do you suppose that she is not his niece but something, shall we say, a bit closer?"

MRS. ROYER: "I wouldn't put it past one of them!" MRS. GARCIA: "Oh, come, 'fess up, Flossie. Tell me what you found out."

MRS. ROYER: "I didn't say a word. But I have eyes-and so have you."

MRS. GARCIA: "Right in front of everyone!"

MRS. ROYER: "What I can't understand is why the Line permits them to mix with us. Perhaps they have to sell them passage-treaties or some such nonsense-but we shouldn't be forced to associate with them ... and certainly not to eat with them!"

MRS. GARCIA: "I know. I'm going to write a very strong letter about it as soon as I get home. There are limits. You know, I had thought that Captain Darling was a gentleman ... but when I saw those creatures actually seated at the Captain's table... well, I didn't believe my eyes. I thought I would faint."

MRS. ROYER: "I know. But after all, the Captain does come from Venus."

MRS. GARCIA: "Yes, but Venus was never a prison colony. That boy ... he sits in the very chair I used to sit in, right across from the Captain."

(I made a mental note to ask the Chief Steward for a different chair for Clark; I didn't want him contaminated.)

After that they dropped us "Martians" and started dissecting Girdle and complaining about the food and the service, and even stuck pins in some of their shipboard coven who weren't present. But I didn't listen:

I simply kept quiet and prayed for strength to go on doing so, because if I had made my presence known I feel sure that I would have stabbed them both with their own knitting needles.

Eventually they left-to rest a while to fortiI~' themselves for lunch-and I rushed out and changed into

my gym suit and hurried to the gymnasium to work up a good sweat instead of engaging in violent crime.

It was there that I found Clark and told him just enough-or maybe too much.

Mr. Savvonavong tells me that we are likely to have a radiation storm almost any time now and that we'll have an, emergency drill today to practice for it. The solar weather station on Mercury reports that "flare" weather is shaping up and has warned all ships in space and all manned satellites to be ready for it. The flares are expected to continue for about- Wups! The emergency alarm caught me in the middle of a sentence. We've had our drill and I think the Captain has all the passengers properly scared now. Some ignored the alarm, or tried to, whereupon crewmen in heavy armor fetched them. Clark got fetched. He was the very last they tracked down, and Captain Darling gave him a public scolding that was a work of art and finished by warning Clark that if he failed to be the first passenger to reach shelter the next time the alarm sounded, Clark could expect to spend the rest of the trip in the shelter, twenty-four hours of the day, instead of having free run of passenger country.

Clark took it with his usual wooden face, but I think it hit home, especially the threat to confine him. I'm sure the speech impressed the other passengers; it was the sort that raises blisters at twenty paces. Perhaps the Captain intended it mostly for their benefit.

Then the Captain changed his tone to that of a patient teacher and explained in simple words what we could expect, why it was necessary to reach shelter at once even if one were taking a bath, why we would be perfectly safe if we did.

The solar flares trigger radiation, he told us, quite ordinary radiation, much like X-rays ("and other sorts," I mentally added), the sort of radiation which is found in space at all times. But the intensity reaches levels from a thousand to ten thousand times as high as "normal" space radiation-and, since we are already inside the orbit of Earth, this is bad medicine indeed; it would kill an unprotected man about as quickly as shooting him through the head.

Then he explained why we would not require a thousand to ten thousand times as much shielding in order to be safe. It's the cascade principle. The outer hull stops over 90 percent of any radiation; then comes the "cofferdam" (cargo holds and water tanks) which absorbs some more; then comes the inner hull which is actually the floor of the cylinder which is first-class passenger country.

This much shielding is plenty for all normal conditions; the radiation level in our staterooms is lower than it is at home, quite a lot lower than it is most places on Earth, especially in the mountains. (I'm looking forward to seeing real mountains. Scary!)

Then one day comes a really bad storm on the Sun and the radiation level jumps suddenly to 10,000 times

normal-and you could get a killing dose right in your own bed and wake up dying.

No trouble. The emergehcy shelter is at the center of the ship, four shells farther in, each of which stops more than 90 percent of what hits it. Like this:

10,000

1,000 (after the first inner shell, the ceiling of passenger country.)

100 (after the second inner shell)

10 (third)

1 (fourth-and you're inside the shelter)

But actually the shielding is better than that and it is safer to be in the ship's shelter during a bad solar storm than it is to be in Marsopolis.

The only trouble is-and no small matter-the shelter space is the geometrical core of the ship, just abaft the control room and not a whole lot bigger; passengers and crew are stacked into it about as intimately as puppies in a basket. My billet is a shelf space half a meter wide, half a meter deep, and just a trifle longer than I am-with other females brushing my elbows on each side of me. I am not a claustrophobe, but a coffin would be roomier.