Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

I should have known it. "We understand each other." I added, "I am pleased. But may I make a suggestion? Our Senior is independent by temperament and highly individualistic. He wants a minimum of personal service-only that which he must have."

"Have we been annoying him, sir? Too solicitous? I can watch and listen from outside the door and still be here instantly if he wants something."

"Possibly too solicitous. But stay in sight. He does want human companionship."

"What's all this yack-yack?" demanded Lazarus.

"I had to ask questions, Grandfather, as I don't know the organization of the Clinic. Ishtar is not a servant; she is a rejuvenator and a highly skilled one-and so is her assistant. But they are happy to supply any service you want."

"I don't need flunkies; I'm feeling pretty good today. If I want anything, I'll shout; they don't need to hang over me, hand and foot." Then he grinned. "But she's a cute little trick, in the large, economy size; it's a pleasure to have her around. Moves like a cat-no bones, just flows. She does indeed remind me of Ariel-did I tell you why Ariel tried to kill me?"

"No. I would like to hear if you want to tell me."

"Mmm- Ask me when Ishtar isn't around-I think she knows more English than she lets on. But I did promise to talk if you showed up to listen. What would you like to hear?"

"Anything, Lazarus. Scheherazade picked her own subjects."

"So she did. But I don't have one on tap."

"Well...you said as I came in that 'early rising is a vice.' Did you mean that seriously?"

"Maybe. Gramp Johnson claimed it was. He used to tell a story about a man who was condemned to be shot at sunrise- but overslept and missed it. His sentence was commuted that day, and he lived another forty, fifty years. Said it proved his point."

"Do you think that's a true story?"

"As true as any of Scheherazade's. I took it to mean 'Sleep whenever you can; you may have to stay awake a long time.' Early rising may not be a vice, Ira, but it is certainly no virtue. The old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed. I can't stand people who are smug about how early they get up."

"I didn't mean to sound smug, Grandfather. I get up early from long habit-the habit of work. But I don't say it's a virtue."

"Which? Work? Or early rising? Neither is a virtue. But getting up early does not get more work done...any more than you can make a piece of string longer by cutting off one end and tying it onto the other. You get less work done if you persist in getting up yawning and still tired. You aren't sharp and make mistakes and have to do it over. That sort of busy-busy is wasteful. As well as unpleasant. And annoying to those who would sleep late if their neighbors weren't so noisily active at some ungodly cow-milking hour. Ira, progress doesn't come from early risers-progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things."

"You make me feel that I've wasted four centuries."

"Perhaps you have, Son, if you've spent it getting up early and working hard. But it's not too late to change your ways. Don't fret about it; I've wasted most of my long life-though perhaps more pleasantly. Would you like to hear a story about a man who made 'laziness a fine art? His life exemplified the Principle of Least Effort. A true story."

"Certainly. But I don't insist on its being true."

"Oh, I won't let truth hamper me, Ira; I'm a solipsist at heart. Hear then, O Mighty King,

The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail

He was a schoolmate of mine in a school for training naval officers. Not space navy; this was before the human race had even reached Earth's one satellite. This was wet navy, ships that floated in water and attempted to sink each other, often with regrettable success. I got mixed up in this through being too young to realize emotionally that, if my ship sank, I probably would sink, too-but this is not my story, but David Lamb's.* (* There is no record that the Senior ever attended a school for militaro-naval officers, or any military school. On the other hand, there is no proof that he did not. This story may be autobiographical to whatever extent it is true; "David Lamb" may be one more of the many names used by Wood-row Wilson Smith.

The details are consistent with Old Home's history so far as we know it. The Senior's first century coincides with that century of continuous war which preceded the Great Collapse- a century of much scientific progress paralleled by retrogression in social matters. Waterborne and airborne ships were used for fighting throughout this century. See appendix for idioms and technicalities. J.F. 45th)

To explain David I must go back to his childhood. He was a hillbilly, which means he came from an area uncivilized even by the loose standards of those days-and Dave came from so far back in the hills that the hoot owls trod the chickens.

His education was in a one-room country school and ended at thirteen. He enjoyed it, for every hour in school was a hour sitting down doing nothing harder than reading. Before and after school he had to do chores on his family's farm, which he hated, as they were what was known as "honest work"-meaning hard, dirty, inefficient, and ill-paid-and also involved getting up early, which he hated even worse.

Graduation was a grim day for him; it meant that he now did "honest work" all day long instead of spending a restful six or seven hours in school. One hot day he spent fifteen hours plowing behind a mule...and the longer he stared at the south end of that mule, breathing dust it kicked up and wiping the sweat of honest toil out of his eyes, the more he hated it.

That night he left home informally, walked fifteen miles to town, slept across the door of the post office until the postmistress opened up next morning, and enlisted in the Navy. He aged two years during the night, from fifteen to seventeen, which made him old enough to enlist.

A boy often ages rapidly when he leaves home. The fact was not noticeable; birth registrations were unheard of at that time and place, and David was six feet tall, broad-shouldered, well-muscled, handsome, and mature in appearance, save for a wild look around the eyes.

The Navy suited David. They gave him shoes and new clothes, and let him ride around on the water, seeing strange and interesting places-untroubled by mules and the dust of cornfields. They did expect him to work, though not as much, or as hard, as working a hill farm-and once he figured out the political setup aboard ship he became adept at not doing much work while still being satisfactory to the local gods, namely, chief petty officers.

But it was not totally satisfactory as he still had to get up early and often had to stand night watches and sometimes scrub decks and perform other tasks unsuited to his sensitive temperament.

Then he heard about this school for officer candidates- "midshipmen" as they were known. Not that David cared what they were called; the point was that the Navy would pay him to sit down and read books-his notion of heaven-untroubled by decks to scrub and by petty officers. 0 King, am I boring you? No?

Very well- David was ill prepared for this school, never having had four to five years' additional schooling considered necessary to enter it-mathematics, what passed for science, history, languages, literature, and so forth.

Pretending to four years or so of schooling he did not have was more difficult than tacking two years on the age of an overgrown boy. But the Navy wished to encourage enlisted men to become officers, so it had established a tutoring school to aid candidates slightly deficient in academic preparation.

David construed "slightly deficient" to mean his own state; he told his chief petty officer that he had "just missed" graduating from high school-which was true in a way; he had "just missed" by half a county, that being the distance from his home to the nearest high school.