Robert Heinlein - Between Planets

What did that leave? Earth? No! He had no relatives on Earth, none close enough to turn to. With Dr. Jefferson dead or missing be had no older friends. Perhaps he could crawl back to the ranch, tail between his legs.

No! He had outgrown that skin and shed it. The ranch school was no longer for him.

Down inside was another and stronger reason: the security police in New Chicago had made of him an alien; he would not go back because Earth was no longer his.

Hobson's choice, he told himself; it's got to be Venus. I can find people there whom I used to know-or know Dad and Mother. I'll scrounge around and find some way to get from there to Mars; that's best. His mind made up, he was almost content.

The office phone called out: "Sergeant McMasters!" The sergeant laid down his hand and went to it, pulling the privacy shield into place. Presently he switched off and turned to Don. "Well, kid, the Old Man has settled your status; you're a `displaced person."'

"Hub?"

"The bottom fell out for you when Venus became an independent republic. You have no citizenship anywhere. So the Old Man says to ship you back where you come from... back to Earth."

Don stood up and squared his shoulders. "I won't go."

"You won't, eh?" McMasters said mildly. "Well, just sit hack down and be comfortable. When the time comes, we'll drag you." He started to deal the cards again.

Don did not sit down. "See here, I've changed my mind. If I can't get to Mars right away, then I'll go to Venus."

McMasters stopped and turned around. "When Commodore Higgins settles a point, it's settled. Mike, take this prima donna across and shove him in with the other groundhogs."

"But..."

Mike stood up. "Come on, you."

Don found himself shoved into a room packed with injured feelings. The Earthlings had no guards and no colonials in with them; they were giving vent freely to their opinions about events. "Outrage! We should blast every one of their settlements, level them to the ground!" "-I think we should send a committee to this commanding officer of theirs and say to him firmly-" "I told you we shouldn't have come!" "Negotiate? That's a sign of weakness." "Don't you realize that the war is already over? Man, this place isn't just a traffic depot; it's the main guided-missile control station. They can bomb every last city on Earth from here, like ducks on a pond!"

Don noticed the last remark, played it over in his mind, let it sink in. He was not used to thinking in terms of military tactics; up to this moment the significance of a raid on Circum-Terra had been lost on him. He had thought of it in purely personal terms, his own convenience.

Would they actually go that far? Bomb the Federation cities right off the map? Sure, the colonials had plenty to be sore about, but- of course, it had happened like that, once in the past, but that was history; people were more civilized now. Weren't they?

'Harvey! Donald Harvey!"

Everyone turned at the call. A Venus Guardsman was standing in the compartment door, shouting his name. Don answered, "Here."

"Come along."

Don picked up his bags and followed him out into the passageway, waited while the soldier re-locked the door. "Where are you taking me?"

"The C. O. wants to see you." He glanced at Don's baggage. "No need to drag that stuff."

"Uh, I guess I'd better keep it with me."

"Suit yourself. But don't take it into the C. O.'s office." He took Don down two decks where the "gravity" was appreciably greater and stopped at a door guarded by a sentry. "Here's the guy the Old Man sent for-Harvey."

"Go right on in."

Don did so. The room was large and ornate; it had been the office of the hotel manager. Now it was occupied by a man in uniform, a man still young though his hair was shot with grey. He looked up as Don came in; Don thought he looked alert but tired. "Donald Harvey?"

"Yes, sir." Don got out his papers.

The commanding officer brushed them aside. "I've seen them. Harvey, you are a headache to me. I disposed of your case once."

Don did not answer; the other went on, "Now it appears that I must reopen it. Do you know a Venerian named-" He whistled it.

"Slightly," Don answered. "We shared a compartment in the Glory Road."

"Hmm... . I wonder if you planned it that way?"

"What? How could I?"

"It could have been arranged and it would not be the first time that a young person has been used as a spy."

Don turned red. "You think I am a spy, sir?"

"No, it is just one of the possibilities I must consider. No military commander enjoys political pressure being used on him, Harvey, but they all have to yield to it. I've yielded. You aren't going back to Earth; you are going to Venus." He stood up. "But let me warn you; if you are a ringer who has been planted on me, all the dragons on Venus won't save your skin." He turned to a ship's phone, punched its keys, and waited; presently he said, "Tell him his friend is here and that I've taken care of the matter." He turned back to Don. "Take it."

Shortly Don heard a warm Cockney voice, "Don, my dear boy, are you there?"

"Yes, Sir Isaac."

The dragon shrilled relief. "When I inquired about you, I found some preposterous intention of shipping you back to that dreadful place we just quitted. I told them that a mistake had been made. I'm afraid I had to be quite firm about it. Shucks!"

"It's all fixed up now, Sir Isaac. Thanks."

"Not at all; I am still in your debt. Come to visit me when it is possible. You will, won't you?"

"Oh, sure!"

"Thank you and cheerio! Shucks."

Don turned away from the phone to find the task force commander studying him quizzically. "Do you know who your friend is?"

"Who he is?" Don whistled the Venerian name, then added, "He calls himself `Sir Isaac Newton."'

"That's all you know?"

"I guess so."

"Mmm-" He paused, then went on, "You might as well know what influenced me. `Sir Isaac,' as you call him, traces his ancestry directly back to the Original Egg, placed in the mud of Venus on the day of Creation. So that's why I'm stuck with yon. Orderly!"

Don let himself be led away without saying a word. Few if any Earthlings have been converted to the dominant religion of Venus; it is not a proselytizing faith. But none laugh at it; all take it seriously. A terrestrial on Venus may not believe in the Divine Egg and all that that implies; he finds it more profitable-and much safer-to speak of it with respect.

Sir Isaac a Child of the Egg! Don felt the sheepish awe that is likely to strike even the most hard-boiled democrat when he first comes in contact with established royalty. Why, he had been talking to him, just as if he were any old dragon-say one that sold vegetables in the city market.

Shortly he began to think of it in more practical ways. If anyone could wangle a way for him to get to Mars, Sir Isaac was probably just the bird who could do it. He turned it over in his mind-he'd get home yet!

But Don did not get to see his Venerian friend at once. He was herded into the Nautilus along with Venus-bound passengers from the Glory Road and a handful of technicians from Circum-Terra whose loyalties lay with Venus rather than with Earth. By the time he discovered that Sir Isaac had been transshipped to the Valkyrie it was too late to do anything about it.

The flag of the task force commander, High Commodore Higgins, was shifted from Circum-Terra back to the Nautilus, and Higgins moved at once to carry out the rest of the coup. The storming of Circum-Terra had been managed almost without bloodshed; it had depended on timing and surprise. Now the rest of the operation must be completed before any dislocation in ship schedules would be noticed on Earth.

The Nautilus and the Valkyrie had already been prepared for their long jumps; the Spring Tide's crew was removed to be sent to Earth and a crew supplied from the task force; she herself was fueled and provisioned for deep space. Although designed for the short jump to Lima, she was quite capable of making the trip to Venus. Space travel is not a matter of distance but of gravity potential levels; the jump from Circum-Terra to Venus required less expenditure of energy than did the terrible business of fighting up though Earth's field from New Chicago to Circum-Terra.