This is the full text of a very long full length novel by Robert Heinlein. It is about a “mad scientist” that builds a machine that can enter and leave different world-lines at will. The scientist meets up with a girl and they both go out exploring all the very many different world lines at their leasure. As they fiddle with the controls they start to enter some very strange world-lines. Some of which resemble other science fiction novels, and some that resemble childhood stories…

This novel was one of the last Heinlein stores. It tends to be confusing if you have never read Heinlein before. As he refers to other stories that he wrote and the events that transpire tends to be confusing if you are not paying attention to it. Further, this (as one of his last major works) is jam packed with “farwells” to his friends, family and associates, as well as chock full of literiary “Easter Eggs”. He also includes answers to some “Hanging” mysteries and unanswered situations in some of his other works.

I enjoyed it, and perhaps you will as well.

CONTENTS

PART 1 – The Vale
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

PART 2 – The Apostate
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

PART 3 – The Time Of Woe
39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

PART ONE – The Mandarin’s Butterfly

Chapter I

” – it is better to marry than to burn.” – Saul of Tarsus

Zeb:
“He’s a Mad Scientist and I’m his Beautiful Daughter.”
That’s what she said: the oldest cliché in pulp fiction. She wasn’t old enough to remember the pulps.
The thing to do with a silly remark is to fail to hear it. I went on waltzing while taking another look down her evening formal. Nice view. Not foam rubber.
She waltzed well. Today most girls who even attempt ballroom dancing drape themselves around your neck and expect you to shove them around the floor. She kept her weight on her own feet, danced close without snuggling, and knew what I was going to do a split second before I led it. A perfect partner as long as she didn’t talk.
“Well?” she persisted.
My paternal grandfather – an unsavory old reactionary; the FemLibbers would have lynched him – used to say, “Zebadiah, the mistake we made was not in putting shoes on them or in teaching them to read – we should never have taught them to talk!”
I signaled a twirl by pressure; she floated into it and back into my arms right on the beat. I inspected her hands and the outer corners of her eyes. Yes, she really was young – minimum eighteen (Hilda Corners never permitted legal “infants” at her parties), maximum twenty-five, first approximation twenty-two. Yet she danced like her grandmother’s generation.
“Well?” she repeated more firmly.
This time I openly stared. “Is that cantilevering natural? Or is there an invisible bra, you being in fact the sole support of two dependents?”
She glanced down, looked up and grinned. “They do stick out, don’t they? Your comment is rude, crude, unrefined, and designed to change the subject.”
“What subject? I made a polite inquiry; you parried it with amphigory.”
“‘Amphigory’ my tired feet! I answered precisely.”
“‘Amphigory,'” I repeated. “The operative symbols were ‘mad,’ ‘scientist,’ ‘beautiful,’ and ‘daughter.’ The first has several meanings – the others denote opinions. Semantic content: zero.”
She looked thoughtful rather than angry. “Pop isn’t rabid… although I did use ‘mad’ in ambivalent mode. ‘Scientist’ and ‘beautiful’ each contain descriptive opinions, I stipulate. But are you in doubt as to my sex? If so, are you qualified to check my twenty-third chromosome pair? With transsexual surgery so common I assume that anything less would not satisfy you.”
“I prefer a field test.”
“On the dance floor?”
“No, the bushes back of the pool. Yes, I’m qualified – laboratory or field. But it was not your sex that lay in the area of opinion; that is a fact that can be established… although the gross evidence is convincing. I -“
“Ninety-five centimeters isn’t gross! Not for my height. One hundred seventy bare-footed, one eighty in these heels. It’s just that I’m wasp-waisted for my mass – forty-eight centimeters versus fifty-nine kilos.”
“And your teeth are your own and you don’t have dandruff. Take it easy, Deedee; I didn’t mean to shake your aplomb” – or those twin glands that are not gross but delicious. I have an infantile bias and have known it since I was six – six months, that is. “But the symbol ‘daughter’ encompasses two statements, one factual – sex – and the other a matter of opinion even when stated by a forensic genetohematologist.”
“Gosh, what big words you know, Mister. I mean ‘Doctor’.”
“‘Mister’ is correct. On this campus it is swank to assume that everyone holds a doctorate. Even I have one, Ph.D. Do you know what that stands for?”
“Doesn’t everybody? I have a Ph.D., too. ‘Piled Higher and Deeper.'”
I raised that maximum to twenty-six and assigned it as second approximation. “Phys. ed.?”
“Mister Doctor, you are trying to get my goat. Won’t work. I had an undergraduate double major, one being phys. ed. with teacher’s credentials in case I needed a job. But my real major was math – which I continued in graduate school.”
“And here I had been assuming that ‘Deedee’ meant ‘Doctor of Divinity.'”
“Go wash out your mouth with soap. My nickname is my initials – Dee Tee. Or Deety. Doctor D. T. Burroughs if being formal, as I can’t be ‘Mister’ and refuse to be ‘Miz’ or ‘Miss.’ See here, Mister; I’m supposed to be luring you with my radiant beauty, then hooking you with my feminine charm… and not getting anywhere. Let’s try another tack. Tell me what you piled higher and deeper.”
“Let me think. Flycasting? Or was it basketweaving? It was one of those transdisciplinary things in which the committee simply weighs the dissertation. Tell you what. I’ve got a copy around my digs. I’ll find it and see what title the researcher who wrote it put on it.”
“Don’t bother. The title is ‘Some Implications of a Six-Dimensional Non-Newtonian Continuum.’ Pop wants to discuss it.”
I stopped waltzing. “Huh? He’d better discuss that paper with the bloke who wrote it.”
“Nonsense; I saw you blink – I’ve hooked you. Pop wants to discuss it, then offer you a job.”
“‘Job’! I just slipped off the hook.”
“Oh, dear! Pop will be really mad. Please? Please, sir!”
“You said that you had used ‘mad’ in ambivalent mode. How?”
“Oh. Mad-angry because his colleagues won’t listen to him. Mad-psychotic in the opinions of some colleagues. They say his papers don’t make sense.”
“Do they make sense?”
“I’m not that good a mathematician, sir. My work is usually simplifying software. Child’s play compared with n-dimensional spaces.”
I wasn’t required to express an opinion; the trio started Blue Tango, Deety melted into my arms. You don’t talk if you know tango.
Deety knew. After an eternity of sensual bliss, I swung her out into position precisely on coda; she answered my bow and scrape with a deep curtsy. “Thank you, sir.”
“Whew! After a tango like that the couple ought to get married.”
“All right. I’ll find our hostess and tell Pop. Five minutes? Front door, or side?”
She looked serenely happy. I said, “Deety, do you mean what you appear to mean? That you intend to marry me? A total stranger?”
Her face remained calm but the light went out – and her nipples went down. She answered steadily. “After that tango we are no longer strangers. I construed your statement as a proposal – no, a willingness – to marry me. Was I mistaken?”
My mind went into emergency, reviewing the past years the way a drowning man’s life is supposed to flash before his eyes (how could anyone know that?): a rainy afternoon when my chum’s older sister had initiated me into the mysteries; the curious effect caused by the first time strangers had shot back at me; a twelve-month cohabitation contract that had started with a bang and had ended without a whimper; countless events which had left me determined never to marry.
I answered instantly, “I meant what I implied – marriage, in its older meaning. I’m willing. But why are you willing? I’m no prize.”
She took a deep breath, straining the fabric, and – thank Allah! – her nipples came up. “Sir, you are the prize I was sent to fetch, and, when you said that we really ought to get married – hyperbole and I knew it – I suddenly realized, with a deep burst of happiness, that this was the means of fetching you that I wanted above all!”
She went on, “But I will not trap you through misconstruing a gallantry. If you wish, you may take me into those bushes back of the pool… and not marry me.” She went on firmly, “But for that… whoring… my fee is for you to talk with my father and to let him show you something.”
“Deety, you’re an idiot! You would ruin that pretty gown.”
“Mussing a dress is irrelevant but I can take it off. I will. There’s nothing under it.”
“There’s a great deal under it!”
That fetched a grin, instantly wiped away. “Thank you. Shall we head for the bushes?”
“Wait a half! I’m about to be noble and regret it the rest of my life. You’ve made a mistake. Your father doesn’t want to talk to me; I don’t know anything about n-dimensional geometry.” (Why do I get these attacks of honesty? I’ve never done anything to deserve them.)
“Pop thinks you do; that is sufficient. Shall we go? I want to get Pop out of here before he busts somebody in the mouth.”
“Don’t rush me; I didn’t ask you to rassle on the grass; I said I wanted to marry you – but wanted to know why you were willing to marry me. Your answer concerned what your father wants. I’m not trying to marry your father; he’s not my type. Speak for yourself, Deety. Or drop it.” (Am I a masochist? There’s a sunbathing couch back of those bushes.)
Solemnly she looked me over, from my formal tights to my crooked bow tie and on up to my thinning brush cut – a hundred and ninety-four centimeters of big ugly galoot. “I like your firm lead in dancing. I like the way you look. I like the way your voice rumbles. I like your hair-splitting games with words – you sound like Whorf debating Korzybski with Shannon as referee.” She took another deep breath, finished almost sadly: “Most of all, I like the way you smell.”
It would have taken a sharp nose to whiff me. I had been squeaky clean ninety minutes earlier, and it takes more than one waltz and a tango to make me sweat. But her remark had that skid in it that Deety put into almost anything. Most girls, when they want to ruin a man’s judgment, squeeze his biceps and say, “Goodness, you’re strong!”
I grinned down at her. “You smell good too. Your perfume could rouse a corpse.”
“I’m not wearing perfume.”
“Oh. Correction: your natural pheromone. Enchanting. Get your wrap, Side door. Five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell your father we’re getting married. He gets that talk, free. I decided that before you started to argue. It won’t take him long to decide that I’m not Lobachevski.”
“That’s Pop’s problem,” she answered, moving. “Will you let him show you this thing he’s built in our basement?”
“Sure, why not? What is it?”

“A time machine.”

Chapter II

“This Universe never did make sense – “

Zeb:
Tomorrow I will seven eagles see, a great comet will appear, and voices will speak from whirlwinds foretelling monstrous and fearful things – This Universe never did make sense; I suspect that it was built on government contract.
“Big basement?”
“Medium. Nine by twelve. But cluttered. Work benches and power tools.”
A hundred and eight square meters – Ceiling height probably two and a half – Had Pop made the mistake of the man who built a boat in his basement?
My musing was interrupted by a male voice in a high scream: “You overeducated, obstipated, pedantic ignoramus! Your mathematical intuition froze solid the day you matriculated!”
I didn’t recognize the screamer but did know the stuffed shirt he addressed: Professor Neil O’Heret Brain, head of the department of mathematics – and God help the student who addressed a note to “Professor N.O. Brain” or even “N. O’H. Brain.” “Brainy” had spent his life in search of The Truth – intending to place it under house arrest.
He was puffed up like a pouter pigeon with is professional pontifical pomposity reeling. His expression suggested that he was giving birth to a porcupine.
Deety gasped, “It’s started,” and dashed toward the row. Me, I stay out of rows; I’m a coward by trade and wear fake zero-prescription glasses as a buffer – when some oaf snarls, “Take off your glasses!” that gives me time to retreat.
I headed straight for the row.
Deety had placed herself between the two, facing the screamer, and was saying in a low but forceful voice, “Pop, don’t you dare! – I won’t bail you out!” She was reaching for his glasses with evident intent to put them back on his face. It was clear that he had taken them off for combat; he was holding them out of her reach.
I reached over their heads, plucked them out of his hand, gave them to Deety. She flashed me a smile and put them back on her father. He gave up and let her. She then took his arm firmly. “Aunt Hilda!”
Our hostess converged on the row. “Yes, Deety? Why did you stop them, darling? You didn’t give us time to get bets down.” Fights were no novelty at “Sharp” Corners’ parties. Her food and liquor were lavish, the music always live; her guests were often eccentric but never dull – I had been surprised at the presence of N. O. Brain.
I now felt that I understood it: a planned hypergolic mixture.
Deety ignored her questions. “Will you excuse Pop and me and Mr. Carter? Something urgent has come up.”
“You and Jake may leave if you must. But you can’t drag Zebbie away. Deety, that’s cheating.”
Deety looked at me. “May I tell?”
“Eh? Certainly!”
That bliffy “Brainy” picked this moment to interrupt. “Mrs. Corners, Doctor Burroughs can’t leave until he apologizes! I insist. My privilege!”
Our hostess looked at him with scorn. “Merde, Professor. I’m not one of your teaching fellows. Shout right back at Jake Burroughs if you like. If your command of invective equals his, we’ll enjoy hearing it. But just one more wordthat sounds like an order to me or to one of my guests – and out you go! Then you had best go straight home; the Chancellor will be trying to reach you.” She turned her back on him. “Deety, you started to add something?”
“Sharp” Corners can intimidate Internal Revenue agents. She hadn’t cut loose on “Brainy” – just a warning shot across his bow. But from his face one would have thought she had hulled him. However, her remark to Deety left me no time to see whether he would have a stroke.
“Not Deety, Hilda. Me. Zeb.”
“Quiet, Zebbie. Whatever it is, the answer is No. Deety? Go ahead, dear.”
Hilda Corners is related to that famous mule. I did not use a baseball bat because she comes only up to my armpits and grosses forty-odd kilos. I picked her up by her elbows and turned her around, facing me. “Hilda, we’re going to get married.”
“Zebbie darling! I thought you would never ask.”
“Not you, you old harridan. Deety. I proposed, she accepted; I’m going to nail it down before the anesthetic wears off.”
Hilda looked thoughtfully interested. “That’s reasonable.” She craned her neck to look at Deety. “Did he mention his wife in Boston, Deety? Or the twins?”
I set her back on her feet. “Pipe down, Sharpie; this is serious. Doctor Burroughs, I am unmarried, in good health, solvent, and able to support a family. I hope this meets with your approval.”
“Pop says Yes,” Deety answered. “I hold his power of attorney.”
“You pipe down, too. My name is Carter, sir – Zeb Carter. I’m on campus; you can check my record. But I intend to marry Deety at once, if she will have me.”
“I know your name and record, sir. It doesn’t require my approval; Deety is of age. But you have it anyhow.” He looked thoughtful. “If you two are getting married at once, you’ll be too busy for shop talk. Or would you be?”
“Pop – let it be; it’s all set.”
“So? Thank you, Hilda, for a pleasant evening. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You’ll do no such thing; you’ll come straight back and give me a full report. Jake, you are not going on their honeymoon – I heard you.”
“Aunt Hilda – please! I’ll manage everything.”
We were out the side door close on schedule. At the parking lot there was a bobble: which heap, mine or theirs. Mine is intended for two but can take four. The rear seats are okay for two for short trips. Theirs was a four-passenger family saloon, not fast but roomy – and their luggage was in it. “How much luggage?” I asked Deety, while I visualized two overnight bags strapped into one back seat with my prospective father-in-law stashed in the other.
“I don’t have much, but Pop has two big bags and a fat briefcase. I had better show you.”
(Damn.) “Perhaps you had better.” I like my own rig, I don’t like to drive other people’s cars, and, while Deety probably handled controls as smoothly as she danced, I did not know that she did – and I’m chicken. I didn’t figure her father into the equation; trusting my skin to his temper did not appeal. Maybe Deety would settle for letting him trail us – but my bride-to-be was going to ride with me! “Where?”
“Over in the far corner. I’ll unlock it and turn on the lights.” She reached into her father’s inside jacket pocket, took out a Magic Wand.
“Wait for baby!”
The shout was from our hostess. Hilda was running down the path from her house, purse clutched in one hand and about eight thousand newdollars of sunset mink flying like a flag from the other.
So the discussion started over. Seems Sharpie had decided to come along to make certain that Jake behaved himself and had taken just long enough to tell Max (her bouncer-butler-driver) when to throw the drunks out or cover them with blankets, as needed.
She listened to Deety’s summary, then nodded. “Got it. I can handle yours, Deety; Jake and I will go in it. You ride with Zebbie, dear.” She turned to me. “Hold down the speed, Zebbie, so that I can follow. No tricks, Buster. Don’t try to lose us or you’ll have cops busting out of your ears.”
I turned my sweet innocent eyes toward her. “Why, Sharpie darling, you know I wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“You’d steal city hall if you could figure a way to carry it. Who dumped that load of lime Jello into my swimming pool?”
“I was in Africa at that time, as you know.”
“So you say. Deety darling, keep him on a short leash and don’t feed him meat. But marry him; he’s loaded. Now where’s that radio link? And your car.”
“Here,” said Deety, pointed the Magic Wand and pressed the switch.
I gathered all three into my arms and dived. We hit the ground as the blast hit everything else. But not us. The blast shadow of other cars protected us.

Chapter III

” – Professor Moriarty isn’t fooled – “

Zeb:
Don’t ask me how. Ask a trapeze artist how he does a triple ‘sault. Ask a crapshooter how he knows when he’s “hot.” But don’t ask me how I know it’s going to happen just before it hits the fan.
It doesn’t tell me anything I don’t need to know. I don’t know what’s in a letter until I open it (except the time it was a letter bomb). I have no precognition for harmless events. But this split-second knowledge when I need it has kept me alive and relatively unscarred in an era when homicide kills more people than does cancer and the favorite form of suicide is to take a rifle up some tower and keep shooting until the riot squad settles it.
I don’t see the car around the curve on the wrong side; I automatically hit the ditch. When the San Andreas Fault cut loose, I jumped out a window and was in the open when the shock arrived – and didn’t know why I had jumped.
Aside from this, my E.S.P. is erratic; I bought it cheap from a war-surplus outlet.
I sprawled with three under me. I got up fast, trying to avoid crushing them. I gave a hand to each woman, then dragged Pop to his feet. No one seemed damaged. Deety stared at the fire blazing where their car had been, face impassive. Her father was looking at the ground, searching. Deety stopped him. “Here, Pop.” She put his glasses back on him.
“Thank you, my dear.” He started toward the fire.
I grabbed his shoulder. “No! Into my car – fast!”
“Eh? My briefcase – could have blown clear.”
“Shut up and move! All of you!”
“Do it, Pop!” Deety grabbed Hilda’s arm. We stuffed the older ones into the after space; I shoved Deety into the front passenger seat and snapped: “Seat belts!” as I slammed the door – then was around to the left so fast that I should have caused a sonic boom. “Seat belts fastened?” I demanded as I fastened my own and locked the door.
“Jake’s is fastened and so is mine, Zebbie dear,” Hilda said cheerfully.
“Belt tight, door locked,” Deety reported.
The heap was hot; I had left it on trickle – what use is a fast car that won’t go scat? I switched from trickle to full, did not turn on lights, glanced at the board and released the brake.
It says here that duos must stay grounded inside city limits – so I was lifting her nose before she had rolled a meter and she was pointed straight up as we were clearing the parking lot.
Half a klick straight up while the gee meter climbed – two, three, four – I let it reach five and held it, not being sure what Pop’s heart would take. When the altimeter read four klicks, I cut everything – power, transponder, the works – while hitting a button that dropped chaff, and let her go ballistic. I didn’t know that anyone was tracking us – I didn’t want to find out.
When the altimeter showed that we had topped out, I let the wings open a trifle. When I felt them bite air, I snap-rolled onto her belly, let wings crawl out to subsonic aspect and let her glide. “Everybody okay?”
Hilda giggled. “Whoops, dear! Do that again! This time, somebody kiss me.”
“Pipe down, you shameless old strumpet. Pop?”
“I’m okay, son.”
“Deety?”
“Okay here.”
“Did that fall in the parking lot hurt you?”
“No, sir. I twisted in the air and took it on one buttock while getting Pop’s glasses. But next time put a bed under me, please. Or a wrestling mat.”
“I’ll remember.” I switched on radio but not transponder, tried all police frequencies. If anyone had noticed our didoes, they weren’t discussing it on the air. We were down to two klicks; I made an abrupt wingover to the right, then switched on power. “Deety, where do you and your Pop live?”
“Logan, Utah.”
“How long does it take to get married there?”
“Zebbie,” Hilda cut in, “Utah has no waiting time -“
“So we go to Logan.”
” – but does require blood test. Deety, do you know Zebbie’s nickname around campus? The Wasp. For ‘Wassermann Positive.’ Zebbie, everybody knows that Nevada is the only state that offers twenty-four-hour service, no waiting time, no blood test. So point this bomb at Reno and sign off.”
“Sharpie darling,” I said gently, “would you like to walk home from two thousand meters?”
“I don’t know; I’ve never tried it.”
“That’s an ejection seat… but no parachutes.”
“Oh, how romantic! Jake darling, we’ll sing the Liebestod on the way down – you sing tenor, I’ll force a soprano and we’ll die in each other’s arms. Zebbie, could we have more altitude? For the timing.”
“Doctor Burroughs, gag that hitchhiker. Sharpie, Liebestod is a solo.”
“Picky, picky! Isn’t dead-on-arrival enough? Jealous because you can’t carry a tune? I told Dicky Boy that should be a duet and Cosima agreed with me -“
“Sharpie, button your frimpin’ lip while I explain. One: Everybody at your party knows why we left and will assume that we headed for Reno. You probably called out something to that effect as you left -“
“I believe I did. Yes, I did.”
“Shut up. Somebody made a professional effort to kill Doctor Burroughs. Not just kill but overkill; that combo of high explosive and Thermit was intended to leave nothing to analyze. But it is possible that no one saw us lift. We were into this go-wagon and I was goosing it less than thirty seconds after that booby trap exploded. Innocent bystanders would look at the fire, not at us. Guilty bystanders – There wouldn’t be any. A professional who booby-traps a car either holes up or crosses a state line and gets lost. The party or parties who paid for the contract may be nearby, but if they are, Hilda, they’re in your house.”
“One of my guests?”
“Oh, shut it, Sharpie; you are never interested in the morals of your guests. If they can be depended on to throw custard pies or do impromptu strips or some other prank that will keep your party from growing dull, that qualifies them. However, I am not assuming that the boss villain was at your party; I am saying that he would not be lurking where the Man might put the arm on him. Your house would be the best place to hide and watch the plot develop.
“But, guest or not, he was someone who knew that Doctor Burroughs would be at your party. Hilda, who knew that key fact?”
She answered with uncustomary seriousness. “I don’t know, Zebbie. I would have to think.”
“Think hard.”
“Mmm, not many. Several were invited because Jake was coming – you, for example -“
“I became aware of that.”
” – but you weren’t told that Jake would be present. Some were told – ‘No Brain,’ for example – but I can’t imagine that old fool booby-trapping a car.”
“I can’t either, but killers don’t look like killers; they look like people. How long before the party did you tell ‘Brainy’ that Pop would be present?”
“I told him when I invited him. Mmm, eight days ago.”
I sighed. “The possibles include not only the campus but the entire globe. So we must try to figure probables. Doctor Burroughs, can you think of anyone who would like to see you dead?”
“Several!”
“Let me rephrase it. Who hates your guts so bitterly that he would not hesitate to kill your daughter as long as he got you? And also bystanders such as Hilda and me. Not that we figure, save to show that he didn’t give a hoot who caught it. A deficient personality. Amoral. Who is he?”
Pop Burroughs hesitated. “Doctor Carter, disagreement between mathematicians can be extremely heated… and I am not without fault.” (You’re telling me, Pop!) “But these quarrels rarely result in violence. Even the death of Archimedes was only indirectly related to his – our – profession. To encompass my daughter as well – no, even Doctor Brain, much as I despise him, does not fit the picture.”
Deety said, “Zeb, could it have been me they were shooting at?”
“You tell me. Whose dolly have you busted?”
“Hmm – I can’t think of anyone who dislikes me even enough to snub me. Sounds silly but it’s true.”
“It’s the truth,” put in Sharpie. “Deety is just like her mother was. When Jane – Deety’s mother, and my best friend until we lost her-when Jane and I were roommates in college, I was always getting into jams and Jane was always getting me out-and never got into one herself. A peacemaker. So is Deety.”
“Okay, Deety, you’re out of it. So is Hilda and so am I, as whoever placed that booby trap could not predict that either Hilda or I would be in blast range. So it’s Pop they’re gunning for. Who we don’t know, why we don’t know. When we figure out why, we’ll know who. Meantime we’ve got to keep Pop out of range. I’m going to marry you as fast as possible, not only because you smell good but to give me a legitimate interest in this fight.”
“So we go first to Reno.”
“Shut up, Sharpie. We’ve been on course for Reno since we leveled off.” I flipped on the transponder, but to the left, not right. It would now answer with a registered, legal signal… but not one registered to my name. This cost me some shekels I did not need but were appreciated by a tight – lipped family man in Indio. Sometimes it is convenient not to be identified by sky cops every time one crosses a state line.
“But we aren’t going to Reno. Those cowboy maneuvers were intended to deceive the eye, radar, and heat seekers. The evasion against the heat seekers – that rough turn while we were still in glide – either worked or was not needed, as we haven’t had a missile up the tail. Probably wasn’t needed; people who booby-trap cars aren’t likely to be prepared to shoot a duo out of the sky. But I couldn’t be certain, so I ducked. We may be assumed to be dead in the blast and fire, and that assumption may stand up until the mess has cooled down and there is daylight to work by. Even later it may stand up, as the cops may not tell anyone that they were unable to find organic remains. But I must assume that Professor Moriarty isn’t fooled, that he is watching by repeater scope in his secret HQ, that he knows we are headed for Reno, and that hostiles will greet us there. So we won’t go there. Now quiet, please; I must tell this baby what to do.”
The computer-pilot of my car can’t cook but what she can do, she does well. I called for display map, changed scale to include Utah, used the light pen to trace route – complex as it curved around Reno to the south, back north again, made easting over some very empty country, and passed north of Hill Air Force Range in approaching Logan. I fed in height-above-ground while giving her leeway to smooth out bumps, and added one change in speed-over-ground once we were clear of Reno radar. “Got it, girl?” I asked her.
“Got it, Zeb.”
“Ten-minute call, please.”
“Call you ten minutes before end of routing – right!”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over.”
“Roger and out, Gay.” The display faded.
Certainly I could have programmed my autopilot to accept a plan in response to a punched “Execute.” But isn’t it pleasanter to be answered by a warm contralto? But the “smart girl” aspect lay in the fact that it took my voice to make a flight plan operative. A skilled electron pusher might find a way to override my lock, then drive her manually. But the first time he attempted to use autopilot, the car would not only not accept the program but would scream for help on all police frequencies. This causes car thieves to feel maladjusted.
I looked up and saw that Deety had been following this intently. I waited for some question. Instead Deety said, “She has a very pleasant voice, Zeb.”
“Gay Deceiver is a very nice girl, Deety.”
“And talented. Zeb, I have never before been in a Ford that can do the things this car – Gay Deceiver? – can do.”
“After we’re married I’ll introduce you to her more formally. It will require reprogramming.”
“I look forward to knowing her better.”
“You will. Gay is not exactly all Ford. Her external appearance was made by Ford of Canada. Most of the rest of her once belonged to Australian Defense Forces. But I added a few doodads. The bowling alley. The powder room. The veranda. Little homey touches.”
“I’m sure she appreciates them, Zeb. I know I do. I suspect that, had she not had them, we would all be as dead as canasta.”
“You may be right. If so, it would not be the first time Gay has kept me alive. You have not seen all her talents.”
“I’m beyond being surprised. So far as I could see you didn’t tell her to land at Logan.”
“Logan seems to be the next most likely place for a reception committee. Who in Logan knows that you and your father were going to visit Hilda?”
“No one, through me.”
“Mail? Milk cartons? Newspapers?”
“No deliveries to the house, Zeb.” She turned her head, “Pop, does anyone in Logan know where we went?”
“Doctor Carter, to the best of my knowledge, no one in Logan knows that We left. Having lived many years in the buzzing gossip of Academe, I have learned to keep my life as private as possible.”
“Then I suggest that you all ease your belts and sleep. Until ten minutes before reaching Logan there is little to do.”
“Doctor Carter -“
“Better call me Zeb, Pop. Get used to it.”
“‘Zeb’ it is, son. On page eighty-seven of your monograph, after the equation numbered one-twenty-one in your discussion of the rotation of six-dimensional spaces of positive curvature, you said, ‘From this it is evident that – ‘ and immediately write your equation one-twenty-two. How did you do it? I’m not disagreeing, sir – on the contrary! But in an unpublished paper of my own I used a dozen pages to arrive at the same transformation. Did you have a direct intuition? Or did you simply omit publishing details? No criticism, I am impressed either way. Sheer curiosity.”
“Doctor, I did not write that paper. I told Deety so.”
“That is what he claimed, Pop.”
“Oh, come now! Two Doctors Zebulon E. Carter on one campus?”
“No. But that’s not my name. I’m Zebadiah J. Carter. Zebulon E.-for-Edward Carter and called ‘Ed’ is my cousin. While he is probably listed as being on campus, in fact he is doing an exchange year in Singapore. It’s not as improbable as it sounds; all male members of my family have first names starting with ‘Z.’ It has to do with money and a will and a trust fund and the fact that my grandfather and his father were somewhat eccentric.”
“Whereas you aren’t,” Hilda said sweetly.
“Quiet, dear.” I turned toward Deety. “Deety, do you want to be released from our engagement? I did try to tell you that you had trapped the wrong bird.”
“Zebadiah – “
“Yes, Deety?”
“I intend to marry you before this night is over. But you haven’t kissed me. I want to be kissed.”
I unfastened my seat belt, started to unfasten hers, found that she had done so.
Deety kisses even better than she tangos.
During a break for oxygen, I asked her in a whisper: “Deety, what do your initials stand for?”
“Well… please don’t laugh.”
“I won’t. But I have to know them for the ceremony.”
“I know. All right, Dee Tee stands for Dejah Thoris.”
Dejah Thoris – Dejah Thoris Burroughs – Dejah Thoris Carter! I cracked up.
I got it under control after two whoops. Too many. Deety said sadly, “You said you wouldn’t laugh.”
“Deety darling, I wasn’t laughing at your name; I was laughing at mine.”
“I don’t think ‘Zebadiah’ is a funny name. I like it.”
“So do I. It keeps me from being mixed up with the endless Bobs and Eds and Toms. But I didn’t tell my middle name. What’s a funny name starting with ‘J’?”
“I won’t guess.”
“Let me lead up to it. I was born near the campus of the university Thomas Jefferson founded. The day I graduated from college I was commissioned a second looie Aerospace Reserve. I’ve been promoted twice. My middle initial stands for ‘John.'”
It took not quite a second for her to add it up. “Captain… John… Carter – of Virginia.”
“‘A clean-limbed fighting man,'” I agreed. “Kaor, Dejah Thoris. At your service, my princess. Now and forever!”
“Kaor, Captain John Carter. Helium is proud to accept.”
We fell on each other’s shoulders, howling. After a bit the howling died down and turned into another kiss.
When we came up for air, Hilda tapped me on a shoulder. “Would you let us in on the joke?”
“Do we tell her, Deety?”
“I’m not sure. Aunt Hilda talks.”
“Oh, nonsense! I know your full name and I’ve never told anyone – I held you at your christening. You were wet, too. At both ends. Now give!”
“All right. We don’t have to get married – we already are. For years. More than a century.”
Pop spoke up. “Eh? What’s this?” I explained to him. He looked thoughtful, then nodded. “Logical.” He went back to figuring he was doing in a notebook, then looked up. “Your cousin Zebulon – Is he on the telephone?”
“Probably not but he lives at the New Raffles.”
“Excellent. I’ll try both the hotel and the university. Doctor – Son – Zeb, would you be so kind as to place the call? My comcredit code is Nero Aleph eight zero one dash seven five two dash three nine three two Zed Star Zed.” (Zed Star Zed credit rating – I was not going to have to support my prospective father-in-law.)
Deety cut in. “Pop, you must not call Professor Carter – Zebulon Carter – at this hour.”
“But, my dear daughter, it is not late at night in -“
“Of course it isn’t; I can count. You want a favor from him, so don’t interrupt his after-lunch nap. ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen.'”
“It isn’t noon in Singapore; it’s -“
” – siesta time, even hotter than noon. So wait.”
“Deety is right, Pop,” I interrupted, “but for the wrong reasons. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of life and death to call him this minute. Whereas it might be a matter of life and death – ours, I mean – to make a call from this car… especially with your credit code. Until we find out who the Boys in the Black Hats are, I advise that you place calls from the ground and from public phones that you can feed with newdollars instead of your code. Say a phone in Peoria. Or Paducah. Can it wait?”
“Since you put it that way, sir – yes, it can wait. Although I have trouble believing that anyone wishes to kill me.”
“Available data indicate it.”
“Agreed. But I have not yet grasped it emotionally.”
“Takes a baseball bat,” said Hilda. “I had to sit on him while Jane proposed to him.”
“Why, Hilda my dear, that is utterly unfactual. I wrote my late beloved a polite note saying -“
I let them argue while, I tried to add to available data. “Gay Deceiver.”
“Yes, Boss?”
“News, dear.”
“Ready, Boss.”
“Retrieval parameters. Time – since twenty-one hundred. Area – California, Nevada, Utah. Persons – your kindly boss, dear. Doctor Jacob Burroughs, Doctor D. T. Burroughs, Miz Hilda Corners – ” I hesitated. “Professor Neil O’Heret Brain.” I felt silly adding “Brainy” – but there had been a row between Pop and him, and years earlier my best teacher had said, “Never neglect the so-called ‘trivial’ roots of an equation,” and had pointed out that two Nobel prizes had derived from “trivial” roots.
“Parameters complete, Boss?”
Doctor Burroughs touched my shoulder. “Can your computer check the news if any on your cousin?”
“Mmm, maybe. She stores sixty million bytes, then wipes last-in-last-out everything not placed on permanent. But her news storage is weighted sixty-forty in favor of North America. I’ll try. Smart Girl.”
“Holding, Boss.”
“Addendum. First retrieve by parameters given. Then retrieve by new program. Time – backwards from now to wipe time. Area – Singapore. Person – Zebulon Edward Carter aka Ed Carter aka Doctor Z. E. Carter aka Professor Z. E. Carter aka Professor or Doctor Carter of Raffles University.”
“Two retrieval programs in succession. Got it, Zeb.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over.”
“Roger, Gay. Execute!”
“AP San Francisco. A mysterious explosion disturbed the academic quiet of – ” A story ending with the usual claim about an arrest being expected “momentarily” settled several points: All of us were believed dead. Our village top cop claimed to have a theory but was keeping it mum – meaning that he knew even less than we did. Since we were reported as “presumed dead” and since the news said nothing about an illegal lift-off and other capers that annoy sky cops, I assumed tentatively that police radar had not been looking at us until after we had become just one more blip behaving legally. The lack of mention of the absence of Gay Deceiver did not surprise me, as I had roaded in and had been last or nearly last to park – and could have arrived by taxi, public capsule, or on foot. Doctor Brain was not mentioned, nothing about the row. Guests had been questioned and released. Five cars parked near the, explosion had been damaged.
“Nevada – null retrieval. Utah – UPI Salt Lake City. A fire near Utah State, University campus in Logan destroyed – ” “Blokes in Black Hats” again and Deety and her Pop were dead twice over, as they were presumed to have been overcome by smoke, unable to escape. No one else hurt or missing. Fire attributed to faulty wiring. “End of first retrieval, Zeb. Second retrieval starting.” Gay shut up.
I said soberly, “Pop, somebody doesn’t like you.”
He groaned, “Gone! All gone!”
“No copies of your papers elsewhere? And your… gadget?”
“Eh? No, no! – much worse! My irreplaceable collection of pulp magazines. Weird Tales, Argosy, All-Story, the early Gernsbachs, The Shadow, Black Mask – Ooooooh!”
“Pop really does feel bad,” Deety whispered, “and I could manage tears myself. I taught myself to read from that collection. War Aces, Air Wonder, the complete Clayton Astoundings – It was appraised at two hundred and thirteen thousand newdollars. Grandpop started it, Pop continued it – I grew up reading them.”
“I’m sorry, Deety.” I hugged her. “They should have been microfiched.”
“They were. But that’s not having the magazines in your hands.”
“I agree. Uh, how about the… thing in the basement?”
“What ‘Thing in the Basement’?” demanded Sharpie. “Zebbie, you sound like H. P. Lovecraft.”
“Later, Sharpie. Comfort Jake; we’re busy. Gay!”
“Here, Zeb. Where’s the riot?”
“Display map, please.” We were midway over northern Nevada. “Cancel routing and cruise random. Report nearest county seat.”
“Winnemucca and Elko are equidistant to one percent. Elko closer by ETA as I am now vectored eleven degrees north of Elko bearing.”
“Deety, would you like to be married in Elko?”
“Zebadiah, I would love to be married in Elko.”
“Elko it is, but loving may have to wait. Gay, vector for Elko and ground us, normal private cruising speed. Report ETA in elapsed minutes.”
“Roger Wilco, Elko. Nine minutes seventeen seconds.”
Hilda said soothingly, “There, there, Jake darling; Mama is here” – then added in her top sergeant voice, “Quit stalling, Zebbie! What ‘Thing’ in which basement?”
“Sharpie, you’re nosy. It belonged to Pop and now it’s destroyed and that’s all you need to know.”
“Oh, but it wasn’t,” Doctor Burroughs said. “Zeb is speaking of my continua craft, Hilda. It’s safe. Not in Logan.”
“What in the Name of the Dog is a ‘continua craft’?”
“Pop means,” Deety explained, “his time machine.”
“Then why didn’t he say so? Everybody savvies ‘Time Machine.’ George Pal’s ‘Time Machine’ – a classic goodie. I’ve caught it on the late-late-early show more than once.”
“Sharpie,” I asked, “can you read?”
“Certainly I can read! ‘Run, Spot, run See Spot run.’ Smarty.”
“Have you ever heard of H. G. Wells?”
“Heard of him? I’ve had him.”
“You are a boastful old tart, but not that old. When Mr. Wells died, you were still a virgin.”
“Slanderer! Hit him, Jake – he insulted me.”
“Zeb didn’t mean to insult you, I feel sure. Deety won’t permit me to hit people, even when they need it.”
“We’ll change that.”
“Second retrieval complete,” Gay Deceiver reported. “Holding.”
“Report second retrieval, please.”
“Reuters, Singapore. The Marston expedition in Sumatra is still unreported according to authorities at Palembang. The party is thirteen days overdue. Besides Professor Marston and native guides and assistants, the party included Doctor Z.E. Carter, Doctor Cecil Yang, and Mr. Giles Smythe-Belisha. The Minister of Tourism and Culture stated that the search will be pursued assiduously. End of retrieval.”
Poor Ed. We had never been close but he had never caused me grief. I hoped that he was shacked up with something soft and sultry – rather than losing his head to a jungle machete, which seemed more likely. “Pop, a few minutes ago I said that somebody doesn’t like you. I now suspect that somebody doesn’t like n-dimensional geometers.”
“It would seem so, Zeb. I do hope your cousin is safe – a most brilliant mind! He would be a great loss to all mankind.”
(And to himself, I added mentally. And me, since family duty required that I do something about it. When what I had in mind was a honeymoon.) “Gay.”
“Here, Zeb.”
“Addendum. Third news retrieval program. Use all parameters second program. Add Sumatra to area. Add all proper names and titles found in second retrieval. Run until canceled. Place retrievals in permanent memory. Report new items soonest. Start.”
“Running, Boss.”
“You’re a good girl, Gay.”
“Thank you, Zeb. Grounding Elko two minutes seven seconds.”
Deety squeezed my hand harder. “Pop, as soon as I’m legally Mrs. John Carter I think we should all go to Snug Harbor.”
“Eh? Obviously.”
“You, too, Aunt Hilda. It might not be safe for you to go home.”
“Change in plans, dear. It’s going to be a double wedding. Jake. Me.”
Deety looked alert but not displeased. “Pop?”
“Hilda has at last consented to marry me, dear.”
“Rats,” said Sharpie. “Jake has never asked me in the past and didn’t this time; I simply told him. Hit him with it while he was upset over losing his comic books and unable to defend himself. It’s necessary, Deety – I promised Jane I would take care of Jake and I have – through you, up to now. But from here on you’ll be taking care of Zebbie, keeping him out of trouble, wiping his nose… so I’ve got to hogtie Jake into marriage to keep my promise to Jane. Instead of sneaking into his bed from time to time as in the past.”
“Why, Hilda dear, you have never been in my bed!”
“Don’t shame me in front of the children, Jake. I gave you a test run before I let Jane marry you and you don’t dare deny it.”
Jake shrugged helplessly. “As you wish, dear Hilda.”
“Aunt Hilda… do you love Pop?”
“Would I marry him if I didn’t? I could carry out my promise to Jane more simply by having him committed to a shrink factory. Deety, I’ve loved Jake longer than you have. Much! But he loved Jane… which shows that he is basically rational despite his weird ways. I shan’t try to change him, Deety; I’m simply going to see to it that he wears his overshoes and takes his vitamins – as you’ve been doing. I’ll still be ‘Aunt Hilda,’ not ‘Mother.’ Jane was and is your mother.”
“Thank you, Aunt Hilda. I thought I was happy as a woman can be, getting Zebadiah. But you’ve made me still happier. No worries.”
(I had worries. Blokes with Black Hats and no faces. But I didn’t say so, as Deety was snuggling closer and assuring me that it was all right because Aunt Hilda wouldn’t fib about loving Pop… but I should ignore that guff about her sneaking into Pop’s bed – on which I had no opinion and less interest.) “Deety, where and what is ‘Snug Harbor’?”
“It’s… a nowhere place. A hideout. Land Pop leased from the government when he decided to build his time twister instead of just writing equations. But we may have to wait for daylight. Unless – Can Gay Deceiver home on a given latitude and longitude?”
“She certainly can! Precisely.”
“Then it’s all right. I can give it to you in degrees, minutes, and fractions of a second.”
“Grounding,” Gay warned us.
The Elko County Clerk did not object to getting out of bed and seemed pleased with the century note I slipped him. The County Judge was just as accommodating and pocketed her honorarium without glancing at it. I stammered but managed to say, “I, Zebadiah John, take thee, Dejah Thoris – ” Deety went through it as solemnly and perfectly as if she had rehearsed it… while Hilda sniffled throughout.
A good thing that Gay can home on a pin point; I was in no shape to drive even in daylight. I had her plan her route, too, a dogleg for minimum radar and no coverage at all for the last hundred-odd kilometers to this place in the Arizona Strip north of the Grand Canyon. But I had her hover before grounding – I being scared silly until I was certain there was not a third fire there.
A cabin, fireproof, with underground parking for Gay – I relaxed.
We split a bottle of chablis. Pop seemed about to head for the basement. Sharpie tromped on it and Deety ignored it.
I carried Deety over the threshold into her bedroom, put her gently down, faced her. “Dejah Thoris -“
“Yes, John Carter?”
“I did not have time to buy you a wedding present -“
“I need no present from my captain.”
“Hear me out, my princess. My Uncle Zamir did not have as fine a collection as your father had… but may I gift you with a complete set of Clayton Astoundings -“
She suddenly smiled.
” – and first editions of the first six Oz books, quite worn but with the original color plates? And a first in almost mint condition of ‘A Princess of Mars’?”
The smile became a grin and she looked nine years old. “Yes!”
“Would your father accept a complete set of Weird Tales?”
“Would he! Northwest Smithand Jirel of Joiry? I’m going to borrow them – or he can’t look at my Oz books. I’m stubborn, I am. And selfish. And mean!”
“‘Stubborn’ stipulated. The others denied.”
Deety stuck out her tongue. “You’ll find out.” Suddenly her face was solemn. “But I sorrow, my prince, that I have no present for my husband.”
“But you have!”
“I do?”
“Yes. Beautifully wrapped and making me dizzy with heavenly fragrance.”
“Oh.” She looked solemn but serenely happy. “Will my husband unwrap me? Please?”
I did.
That is all anyone is ever going to know about our wedding night.

Chapter IV

Because two things equal to the same thing are never equal to each other.

Deety:
I woke early as I always do at Snug Harbor, wondered why I was ecstatically happy – then remembered, and turned my head. My husband – “husband!” – what a heart-filling word – my husband was sprawled face down beside me, snoring softly and drooling onto his pillow. I held still, thinking how beautiful he was, how gently strong and gallantly tender.
I was tempted to wake him but I knew that my darling needed rest. So I eased out of bed and snuck noiselessly into my bath – our bath – and quietly took care of this and that. I did not risk drawing a tub – although I needed one. I have a strong body odor that calls for at least one sudsy bath a day, two if I am going out that evening – and this morning I was certainly whiff as a polecat.
I made do with a stand-up bath by letting water run in a noiseless trickle into the basin – I would grab that proper bath after my Captain was awake; meanwhile I would stay downwind.
I pulled on briefs, started to tie on a halter – stopped and looked in the mirror. I have a face-shaped face and a muscular body that I keep in top condition. I would never reach semifinals in a beauty contest but my teats are shapely, exceptionally firm, stand out without sagging and look larger than they are because my waist is small for my height, shoulders and hips. I’ve known this since I was twelve, from mirror and from comments by others.
Now I was acutely aware of them from what Zebadiah calls his “infantile bias.” I was awfully glad I had them; my husband liked them so much and had told me so again and again, making me feel warm and tingly inside. Teats get in the way, and I once found out painfully why Amazons are alleged to have removed their starboard ones to make archery easier.
Today I was most pleased that Mama had required me to wear a bra for tennis and horseback and such – no stretch marks, no “Cooper’s droop,” no sag, and my husband called them “wedding presents”! Hooray!
Doubtless they would become baby-chewed and soft – but by then I planned to have Zebadiah steadfastly in love with me for better reasons. You hear that, Deety? Don’t be stubborn, don’t be bossy, don’t be difficult – and above all don’t sulk! Mama never sulked, although Pop wasn’t and isn’t easy to live with. For example he dislikes the word “teat” even though I spell it correctly and pronounce it correctly (as if spelled “tit”). Pop insists that teats are on cows, not women.
After I started symbolic logic and information theory I became acutely conscious of precise nomenclature, and tried to argue with Pop, pointing out that “breast” denoted the upper frontal torso of male and female alike, that “mammary gland” was medical argot, but “teat” was correct English.
He had slammed down a book. “I don’t give a damn what The Oxford English Dictionary says! As long as I am head of this house, language used in it will conform to my notions of propriety!”
I never argued such points with Pop again. Mama and I went on calling them “teats” between ourselves and did not use such words in Pop’s presence. Mama told me gently that logic had little to do with keeping a husband happy and that anyone who “won” a family argument had in fact lost it. Mama never argued and Pop always did what she wanted – if she really wanted it. When at seventeen I had to grow up and try to replace her, I tried to emulate her – not always successfully. I inherited some of Pop’s temper, some of Mama’s calm. I try to suppress the former and cultivate the latter. But I’m not Jane, I’m Deety.
Suddenly I wondered why I was putting on a halter. The day was going to be hot. While Pop is so cubical about some things that he turns up at the corners, skin is not one of them. (Possibly he had been, then Mama had gently gotten her own way.) I like to be naked and usually am at Snug Harbor, weather permitting. Pop is almost as casual. Aunt Hilda was family-by-choice; we had often used her pool and never with suits – screened for the purpose.
That left just my lovely new husband, and if there was a square centimeter of me he had not examined (and praised), I could not recall it. Zebadiah is easy to be with, in bed or out. After our hasty wedding I was slightly tense lest he ask me when and how I had mislaid my virginity… but when the subject could have come up I forgot it and he apparently never thought about it. I was the lusty wench I have always been and he seemed pleased – I know he was.
So why was I tying on this teat hammock? I was – but why?
Because two things equal to the same thing are never equal to each other. Basic mathematics if you select the proper sheaf of postulates. People are not abstract symbols. I could be naked with any one of them but not all three.
I felt a twinge that Pop and Aunt Hilda might be in the way on my honeymoon… then realized that Zebadiah and I were just as much in the way on theirs – and stopped worrying; it would work out.
Took one last look in the mirror, saw that my scrap of halter, like a good evening gown, made me nakeder than skin would. My nipples popped out; I grinned and stuck out my tongue at them. They stayed up; I was happy.
I started to cat-foot through our bedroom when I noticed Zebadiah’s clothes – and stopped. The darling would not want to wear evening dress to breakfast. Deety, you are not being wifely – figure this out. Are any of Pop’s clothes where I can get them without waking the others?
Yep! An old shirt that I had liberated as a house coat, khaki shorts I had been darning the last time we had been down – both in my wardrobe in my – our! – bathroom. I crept back, got them, laid them over my darling’s evening clothes so that he could not miss them.
I went through and closed after me two soundproof doors, then no longer had to keep quiet. Pop does not tolerate anything shoddy – if it doesn’t work properly, he fixes it. Pop’s B.S. was in mechanical engineering, his M.S. in physics, his Ph.D. in mathematics; there isn’t anything he can’t design and build. A second Leonardo da Vinci – or a Paul Dirac.
No one in the everything room. I decided not to head for the kitchen end yet; if the others slept a bit longer I could get in my morning tone-up. No violent exercise this morning, mustn’t get more whiff than I am – just controlled limbering. Stretch high, then palms to the floor without bending knees – ten is enough. Vertical splits, both legs, then the same to the floor with my forehead to my shin, first right, then left.
I was doing a back bend when I heard, “Ghastly. The battered bride. Deety, stop that.”
I continued into a backwards walkover and stood up facing Pop’s bride. “Good morning, Aunt Hillbilly.” I kissed and hugged her. “Not battered. Bartered, maybe.”
“Battered,” she repeated, yawning. “Who gave you those bruises? What’s-his-name? – your husband.”
“Not a bruise on me and you’ve known his name longer than I have. What causes those circles under the bags under the rings under your eyes?”
“Worry, Deety. Your father is very ill.”
“What? How?”
“Satyriasis. Incurable – I hope.”
I let out my breath. “Aunt Hillbilly, you’re a bitchie, bitchie tease.”
“Not a bitch this morning, dear. A nanny goat – who has been topped all night by the most amazing billy goat on the ranch. And him past fifty and me only twenty-nine. Astounding.”
“Pop’s forty-nine, you’re forty-two. You’re complaining?”
“Oh, no! Had I known twenty-four years ago what I know now, I would never have let Jane lay eyes on him.”
” – what you know now – Last night you were claiming to have sneaked into Pop’s bed, over and over again. Doesn’t jibe, Aunt Nanny Goat.”
“Those were quickies. Not a real test.” She yawned again.
“Auntie, you lie in your teeth. You were never in his bed until last night.”
“How do you know, dear? Unless you were in it yourself? Were you? Incest?”
“What have you got against incest, you bawdy old nanny goat? Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”
“Oh, so you have? How fascinating – tell Auntiet!”
“I’ll tell you the truth, Aunt Hilda. Pop has never laid a hand on me. But if he had… I would not have refused. I love him.”
Hilda stopped to kiss me more warmly than before. “So do I, dear one. I honor you for what you just told me. He could have had me, too. But never did. Until last night. Now I’m the happiest woman in America.”
“Nope. Second happiest. You’re looking at the happiest.”
“Mmm, a futile discussion. So my problem child is adequate?”
“Well… he’s not a member of the Ku Klux Klan -“
“I never thought he was! Zebbie isn’t that sort.”
” – but he’s a wizard under a sheet!”
Aunt Hilda looked startled, then guffawed. “I surrender. We’re both the happiest woman in the world.”
“And the luckiest. Aunt Nanny Goat, that robe of Pop’s is too hot. I’ll get something of mine. How about a tie-on fit-anybody bikini?”
“Thanks, dear, but you might wake Zebbie.” Aunt Hilda opened Pop’s robe and held it wide, fanning it. I looked at her with new eyes. She’s had three or four term contracts, no children. At forty-two her face looks thirty-five, but from her collarbones down she could pass for eighteen. Little bitty teats – I had more at twelve. Flat belly and lovely legs. A china doll – makes me feel like a giant.
She added, “If it weren’t for your husband, I would simply wear this old hide. It is hot.”
“If it weren’t for your husband, so would I.”
“Jacob? Deety, he’s changed your diapers. I know how Jane reared you. True modesty, no false modesty.”
“It’s not the same, Aunt Hilda. Not today.”
“No, it’s not. You always did have a wise head, Deety. Women are toughminded, men are not; we have to protect them … while pretending to be fragile ourselves, to build up their fragile egos. But I’ve never been good at it – I like to play with matches.”
“Aunt Hilda, you are very good at it, in your own way. I’m certain Mama knows what you’ve done for Pop and blesses it and is happy for Pop. For all of us – all five of us.”
“Don’t make me cry, Deety. Let’s break out the orange juice; our men will wake any time. First secret of living with a man: Feed him as soon as he wakes.”
“So I know.”
“Yes, of course you know. Ever since we lost Jane. Does Zebbie know how lucky he is?”
“He says so. I’m going to try hard not to disillusion him.”

Chapter V

” – a wedding ring is not a ring in my nose – “

Jake:
I woke in drowsy euphoria, became aware that I was in bed in our cabin that my daughter calls “Snug Harbor” – then woke completely and looked at the other pillow – the dent in it. Not a dream! Euphoric for the best of reasons!
Hilda was not in sight. I closed my eyes and simulated sleep as I had something to do. “Jane?” I said in my mind.
“I hear you, dearest one. It has my blessing. Now we are all happy together.”
“We couldn’t expect Deety to become a sour old maid, just to take care of her crotchety old father. This young man, he’s okay, to the nth power. I felt it at once, and Hilda is certain of it.”
“He is. Don’t worry, Jacob. Our Deety can never be sour and you will never be old. This is exactly as Hilda and I planned it, more than five of your years ago. Predestined. She told you so, last night.”
“Okay, darling.”
“Get up and brush your teeth and take a quick shower. Don’t dawdle, breakfast is waiting. Call me when you need me. Kiss.”
So I got up, feeling like a boy on Christmas morning. Everything was jake with Jake; Jane had put her stamp of approval on it. Let me tell you, you nonexistent reader sitting there with a tolerant sneer: Don’t be smug. Jane is more real than you are.
The spirit of a good woman cannot be coded by nucleic acids arranged in a double helix, and only an overeducated fool could think so. I could prove that mathematically save that mathematics can never prove anything. No mathematics has any content. All any mathematics can do is – sometimes – turn out to be useful in describing some aspects of our so-called “physical universe.” That is a bonus; most forms of mathematics are as meaning-free as chess.
I don’t know any final answers. I’m an all-around mechanic and a competent mathematician… and neither is of any use in unscrewing the inscrutable.
Some people go to church to talk to God, Whoever He is. When I have something on my mind, I talk to Jane. I don’t hear “voices,” but the answers that, come into my mind have as much claim to infallibility, it seems to me, as any handed down by any Pope speaking ex cathedra. If this be blasphemy, make the most of it; I won’t budge. Jane is, was, and ever shall be, worlds without end. I had the priceless privilege of living with her for eighteen years and I can never lose her.
Hilda was not in the bath but my toothbrush was damp. I smiled at this. Logical, as any germs I was harboring, Hilda now had – and Hilda, for all her playfulness, is no-nonsense practical. She faces danger without a qualm (had done so last night) but she would say “Gesundheit!” to an erupting volcano even as she fled from it. Jane is equally brave but would omit the quip. They are alike only in – no, not that way, either. Different but equal. Let it stand that I have been blessed in marriage by two superb women. (And blessed by a daughter whose Pop thinks she is perfect.)
I showered, shaved, and brushed my teeth in nine minutes and dressed in under nine seconds as I simply wrapped around my waist a terry-cloth sarong Deety had bought for me – the day promised to be a scorcher. Even that hip wrap was a concession to propriety, i.e., I did not know my new son-in-law well enough to subject him abruptly to our casual ways; it might offend Deety.
I was last up, and saw that all had made much the same decision. Deety was wearing what amounted to a bikini minimum (indecently “decent”!) and my bride was “dressed” in a tie-on job belonging to Deety. The tie-ties had unusually large bows; Hilda is tiny, my daughter is not. Zeb was the only one fully dressed: an old pair of working shorts, a worn-out denim shirt Deety had confiscated, and his evening shoes. He was dressed for the street in any western town save for one thing: I’m built like a pear, Zeb is built like the Gray Lensman.
My shorts fitted him well enough – a bit loose – but his shoulders were splitting the shirt’s seams. He looked uncomfortable.
I took care of amenities – a good-morning to all, a kiss for my bride, one for my daughter, a handshake for my son-in-law-good hands, calloused. Then I said, “Zeb, take that shirt off. It’s hot and getting hotter. Relax. This is your home.”
“Thanks, Pop.” Zeb peeled off my shirt.
Hilda stood up on her chair, making her about as tall as Zeb. “I’m a militant women’s-rights gal,” she announced, “and a wedding ring is not a ring in my nose – a ring that you have not yet given me, you old goat.”
“When have I had time? You’ll get one, dear – first chance.”
“Excuses, excuses! Don’t interrupt when I’m orating. Sauce for the gander is no excuse for goosing the goose. If you male chauvinist pigs – I mean ‘goats’ – can dress comfortably, Deety and I have the same privilege.” Whereupon my lovely little bride untied that bikini top and threw it aside like a stripper.
“‘”What’s for breakfast?” asked Pooh,'” I misquoted.
I was not answered. Deety made me proud of her for the nth time. For years she had consulted me, at least with her eyes, on “policy decisions.” Now she looked not at me but at her husband. Zeb was doing Old Stone Face, refusing assent or dissent. Deety stared at him, gave a tiny shrug, reached behind her and untied or unsnapped something and discarded her own top.
“I said, ‘What’s for breakfast?'” I repeated.
“Greedy gut,” my daughter answered. “You men have had baths, while Aunt Hilda and I haven’t had a chance to get clean for fear of waking you slugabeds.”
“Is that what it is? I thought a skunk had wandered past. ‘What’s for breakfast?'”
“Aunt Hilda, in only hours Pop has lost all the training I’ve given him for five years. Pop, it’s laid out and ready to go. How about cooking while Hilda and I grab a tub?”
Zeb stood up. “I’ll cook, Deety; I’ve been getting my own breakfast for years.”
“Hold it, Buster!” my bride interrupted. “Sit down, Zebbie. Deety, never encourage a man to cook breakfast; it causes him to wonder if women are necessary. If you always get his breakfast and don’t raise controversial issues until after his second cup of coffee, you can get away with murder the rest of the time. They don’t notice other odors when they smell bacon. I’m going to have to coach you.”
My daughter reversed the field, fast. She turned to her husband and said meekly, “What does my Captain wish for breakfast?”
“My Princess, whatever your lovely hands offer me.”
What we were offered, as fast as Deety could pour batter and Hilda could serve, was a gourmet specialty that would enrage a Cordon Bleu but which, for my taste, is ambrosia: A one-eyed Texas stack – a tall stack of thin, tender buttermilk pancakes to Jane’s recipe, supporting one large egg, up and easy, surrounded by hot sausage, and the edifice drowned in melting butter and hot maple syrup, with a big glass of orange juice and a big mug of coffee on the side.
Zeb ate two stacks. I concluded that my daughter would have a happy marriage.

Chapter VI

Are men and women one race?

Hilda:
Deety and I washed dishes, then soaked in her tub and talked about husbands. We giggled, and talked with the frankness of women who trust each other and are sure that no men can overhear. Do men talk that openly in parallel circumstances? From all I have been able to learn in after-midnight horizontal conversations, all passion spent, men do not. Or not men I would take to bed. Whereas a “perfect lady” (which Jane was, Deety is, and I can simulate) will talk with another “perfect lady” she trusts in a way that would cause her father, husband, or son to faint.
I had better leave out our conversation; this memoir might fall into the hands of one of the weaker sex and I would not want his death on my conscience.
Are men and women one race? I know what biologists say – but history is loaded with “scientists” jumping to conclusions from superficial evidence. It seems to me far more likely that they are symbiotes. I am not speaking from ignorance; I was one trimester short of a B.S. in biology (and a straight-A student) when a “biology experiment” blew up in my face and caused me to leave school abruptly.
Not that I need that degree – I’ve papered my private bath with honorary degrees, mostly doctorates. I hear that there are things no whore will do for money but I have yet to find anything that a university chancellor faced with a deficit will boggle at. The secret is never to set up a permanent fund but to dole it out when need is sharpest, once every academic year. Done that way, you not only own a campus but also the town cops learn that it’s a waste of time to hassle you. A univer$ity alway$ $tand$ $taunchly by it$ $olvent a$$ociate$; that’$ the ba$ic $ecret of $chola$tic $ucce$$.
Forgive my digre$$ion; we were speaking of men and women. I am strong for women’s rights but was never taken in by unisex nonsense. I don’t yearn to be equal; Sharpie is as unequal as possible, with all the perks and bonuses and special privileges that come from being one of the superior sex. If a man fails to hold a door for me, I fail to see him and step on his instep. I feel no shame in making lavish use of the strongest muscles, namely male ones (but my own strongest muscle is dedicated to the service of men – noblesse oblige). I don’t begrudge men one whit of their natural advantages as long as they respect mine. I am not an unhappy pseudomale; I am female and like it that way.
I borrowed makeup that Deety rarely uses, but I carry my own perfume in my purse and used it in the twenty-two classic places. Deety uses only the basic aphrodisiac: soap and water. Perfume on her would be gilding the lily; fresh out of a hot tub she smells like a harem. If I had her natural fragrance, I could have saved at least ten thousand newdollars over the years as well as many hours spent dabbing bait here and there.
She offered me a dress and I told her not to be silly; any dress of hers would fit me like a tent. “You put something bridal and frilly around your hips and lend me your boldest G-string job. Dear, I surprised you when I jockeyed you into taking off your halter, after telling you that you were wise not to rush it. But the chance showed up and I grabbed the ring on the fly. We’ve got our men gentled to nearly naked and we’ll hold that gain. At first opportunity we’ll get pants off all of us, too, without anything as childish as strip poker. Deety, I want us to be a solid family, and relaxed about it. So that skin doesn’t mean sex, it just means we are home, en famille.”
“Your skin is pretty sexy, Nanny Goat.”
“Deety, do you think I’m trying to make a pass at Zebbie?”
“Heavens, no, Aunt Hilda. You would never do that.”
“Piffle, dear. I don’t have morals, just customs. I don’t wait for a man to make a pass; they fumble around and waste time. But when I met him I picked Zebbie for a chum – so I gave him an opening; he made a polite pass, I carefully failed to see it, and that ended it. I’m sure he’s as much fun on the workbench as you tell me he is – but bedmates are easy to find, while worthwhile male friends are scarce. Zebbie is one to whom I can holler for help in the middle of the night and be certain he’ll rally around. I’m not going to let that change merely because a weird concatenation now makes him my son-in-law. Besides, Deety, although your old Aunt Sharpie may seem undignified, I refuse to be the campus widow who seduces younger men. Save for minor exceptions close to my age, I always have bedded older men. When I was your age, I tripped several three times my age. Educational.”
“It certainly is! Aunt Hilda, I got ninety percent of my instruction two years ago – a widower three times my age. I was programming for him and we took shared time when we could get it, often after midnight. I didn’t think anything of it until one night I was startled to find that I was helping him to take off my panties. Then I was still more surprised to learn how little I had learned in seven years. He gave me a tutored seminar, usually three times a week- all the time he was willing to spare me – for the next six months. I’m glad I got tutoring from an expert before last night rolled around – or Zebadiah would have found me a dead arse, willing but clumsy. I didn’t tell this to my darling; I let him think he was teaching me.”
“That’s right, dear. Never tell a man anything he doesn’t need to know, and lie with a straight face rather than hurt his feelings or diminish his pride.”
“Aunt Nanny Goat, I just plain love you.”
We quit yakking and looked for our men. Deety said that they were certain to be in the basement. “Aunt Hilda, I don’t go there without invitation. It’s Pop’s sanctum sanctorum.”
“You’re warning me not to risk a faux pas?”
“I’m his daughter, you’re his wife. Not the same.”
“Well… he hasn’t told me not to – and today he’ll forgive me, if ever. Where do you hide the stairs?”
“That bookcase swings out.”
“Be darned! For a so-called cabin this place is loaded with surprises. A bidet in each bath didn’t startle me; Jane would have required them. Your walk-in freezer startled me only by being big enough for a restaurant. But a bookcase concealing a priest’s hole – as Great-Aunt Nettie used to say, ‘I do declare!'”
“You should see our septic tank – yours, now.”
“I’ve seen septic tanks. Pesky things – always need pumping at the most inconvenient time.”
“This one won’t have to be pumped. Over three hundred meters deep. An even thousand feet.”
“For the love of – Why?”
“It’s an abandoned mine shaft below us that some optimist dug a hundred years back. Here was this big hole, so Pop used it. There is a spring farther up the mountain. Pop cleaned that out, covered it, concealed it, put pipe underground, and we have lavish pure water under pressure. The rest of Snug Harbor Pop designed mostly from prefab catalogs, fireproof and solid and heavily insulated. We have – you have, I mean – this big fireplace and the little ones in the bedrooms, but you won’t need them, other than for homeyness. Radiant heat makes it skin-comfortable even in a blizzard.”
“Where do you get your power? From the nearest town?”
“Oh, no! Snug Harbor is a hideout, nobody but Pop and me – and now you and Zebadiah – knows it’s here. Power packs, Aunt Hilda, and an inverter in a space behind the back wall of the garage. We bring in power packs ourselves, and take them out the same way. Private. Oh, the leasehold record is buried in a computer in Washington or Denver, and the Federal rangers know the leaseholds. But they don’t see us if we see or hear them first. Mostly they cruise on past. Once one came by on horseback. Pop fed him beer out under the trees – and from outside this is just a prefab, a living room and two shedroof bedrooms. Nothing to show that important parts are underground.”
“Deety, I’m beginning to think that this place – this cabin – cost more than my townhouse.”
“Uh, probably.”
“I think I’m disappointed. Sugar Pie, I married your papa because I love him and want to take care of him and promised Jane that I would. I’ve been thinking happily that my wedding present to my bridegroom would be his weight in bullion, so that dear man need never work again.”
“Don’t be disappointed, Aunt Hilda. Pop has to work; it’s his nature. Me, too. Work is necessary to us. Without it, we’re lost.”
“Well… yes. But working because you want to is the best sort of play.”
“Correct!”
“That’s what I thought I could give Jacob. I don’t understand it. Jane wasn’t rich, she was on a scholarship. Jacob had no money – still a teaching fellow, a few months shy of his doctorate. Deety, Jacob’s suit that he wore to be married in was threadbare. I know that he pulled up from that; he made full professor awfully fast. I thought it was that and Jane’s good management.”
“It was both.”
“That doesn’t account for this. Forgive me, Deety, but Utah State doesn’t pay what Harvard pays.”
“Pop doesn’t lack offers. We like Logan. Both the town and the civilized behavior of Mormons. But – Aunt Hilda, I must tell you some things.”
The child looked worried. I said, “Deety, if Jacob wants me to know something he’ll tell me.”
“Oh, but he won’t and I must!”
“No, Deety!”
“Listen, please! When I said, ‘I do,’ I resigned as Pop’s manager. When you said, ‘I do,’ the load landed on you. It has to be that way, Aunt Hilda. Pop won’t do it; he has other things to think about, things that take genius. Mama did it for years, then I learned how, and now it’s your job. Because it can’t be farmed out. Do you understand accountancy?”
“Well, I understand it, I took a course in it. Have to understand it, or the government will skin you alive. But I don’t do it, I have accountants for that – and smart shysters to keep it inside the law.”
“Would it bother you to be outside the law? On taxes?”
“What? Heavens, no! But Sharpie wants to stay outside of jail – I detest an institutional diet.”
“You’ll stay out of jail. Don’t worry, Aunt Hilda – I’ll teach you double-entry bookkeeping they don’t teach in school. Very double. One set for the revenooers and another set for you and Jake.”
“It’s that second set that worries me. That one puts you in the pokey. Fresh air alternate Wednesdays.”
“Nope. The second set is not on paper; it’s in the campus computer at Logan.”
“Worse!”
“Aunt Hilda, please! Certainly my computer address code is in the department’s vault and an I.R.S. agent could get a court order. It wouldn’t do him any good. It would spill out our first set of books while wiping every trace of the second set. Inconvenient but not disastrous. Aunt Hillbilly, I’m not a champion at anything else but I’m the best software artist inthe business. I at your elbow until you are sure of yourself.
“Now about how Pop got rich – All the time he’s been teaching he’s also been inventing gadgets – as automatically as a hen lays eggs. A better can opener. A lawn irrigation system that does a better job, costs less, uses less water. Lots of things. But none has his name on it and royalties trickle back in devious ways.
“But we aren’t freeloaders. Every year Pop and I study the Federal Budget and decide what is useful and what is sheer waste by fat-arsed chairwarmers and pork-barrel raiders. Even before Mama died we were paying more income tax than the total of Pop’s salary, and we’ve paid more each year while I’ve been running it. It does take a bundle to run this country. We don’t begrudge money spent on roads and public health and national defense and truly useful things. But we’ve quit paying for parasites wherever we can identify them.
“It’s your job now, Aunt Hilda. If you decide that it’s dishonest or too risky, I can cause the computer to make it all open and legal so smoothly that hankypanky would never show. It would take me maybe three years, and Pop would pay high capital gains. But you are in charge of Pop now.”
“Deety, don’t talk dirty.”
“Dirty, how? I didn’t even say ‘spit.'”
“Suggesting that I would willingly pay what those clowns in Washington want to squeeze out of us. I would not be supporting so many accountants and shysters if I didn’t think we were being robbed blind. Deety, how about being manager for all of us?”
“No, ma’am! I’m in charge of Zebadiah. I have my own interests to manage, too. Mama wasn’t as poor as you thought. When I was a little girl, she came into a chunk from a trust her grandmother had set up. She and Pop gradually moved it over into my name and again avoided inheritance and estate taxes, all legal as Sunday School. When I was eighteen, I converted it into cash, then caused it to disappear. Besides that, I’ve been paying me a whopping salary as Pop’s manager. I’m not as rich as you are, Aunt Hilda, and certainly not as rich as Pop. But I ain’t hurtin’.”
“Zebbie may be richer than all of us.”
“You said last night that he was loaded but I didn’t pay attention because I had already decided to marry him. But after experiencing what sort of car he drives I realize that you weren’t kidding. Not that it matters. Yes, it did matter – it took both Zebadiah’s courage and Gay Deceiver’s unusual talents to save our lives.”
“You may never find out how loaded Zebbie is, dear. Some people don’t let their left hands know what their right hands are doing. Zebbie doesn’t let his thumb know what his fingers are doing.”
Deety shrugged. “I don’t care. He’s kind and gentle and he’s a storybook hero who saved my life and Pop’s and yours … and last night he proved to me that life is worth living when I’ve been uncertain about it since Mama had to leave us. Let’s go find our men, Aunt Nanny Goat. I’ll risk Pop’s Holy of Holies if you’ll go first.”
“Suits. Lay on your duff and cursed be he who first cries, ‘Nay, enough.”
“I don’t think they’re interested in that now, Nanny Goat.”
“Spoilsport. How do you swing back this bookcase?”
“Switch on the cove lights, then turn on the cold water at the sink. Then switch off the cove lights, then turn off the water – in that order.”
“‘”Curiouser and curiouser,” said Alice.'”
The bookcase closed behind us and was a door with a knob on the upper landing side. The staircase was wide, treads were broad and nonskid, risers gentle, guard rails on both sides – not the legbreaker most houses have as cellar stairs. Deety went down beside me, holding my hand like a child needing reassurance.
The room was beautifully lighted, well ventilated, and did not seem like a basement. Our men were at the far end, bent over a table, and did not appear to notice us. I looked around for a time machine, could not spot it – at least not anything like George Pal’s or any I had ever read about. All around was machinery. A drill press looks the same anywhere and so does a lathe, but others were strange – except that they reminded me of machine shops.
My husband caught sight of us, stood up, and said, “Welcome, ladies!”
Zebbie turned his head and said sharply, “Late to class! Find seats, no whispering during the lecture, take notes; there will be a quiz at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. If you have questions, raise your hands and wait to be called on. Anyone who misbehaves will remain after class and wash the chalk boards.”
Deety stuck out her tongue, sat down quietly. I rubbed his brush cut and whispered an indecency into his ear. Then I kissed my husband and sat down.
My husband resumed talking to Zebbie. “I lost more gyroscopes that way.”
I held up my hand. My husband said, “Yes, Hilda dear?”
“Monkey Ward’s sells gyro tops – I’ll buy you a gross.”
“Thank you, dearest, but these weren’t that sort. They were made by Sperry Division of General Foods.”
“So I’ll get them from Sperry.”
“Sharpie,” put in Zeb, “you’re honing to clean the erasers, too.”
“Just a moment, Son. Hilda may be the perfect case to find out whether or not what I have tried to convey to you – and which really can’t be conveyed save in the equations your cousin Zebulon used, a mathematics you say is unfamiliar to you -“
“It is!”
” – but which you appear to grasp as mechanics. Would you explain the concept to Hilda? If she understands it, we may hypothesize that a continua craft can be designed to be operated by a nontechnical person.”
“Sure,” I said scornfully, “poor little me, with a button for a head. I don’t have to know where the electrons go to use television or holovision. Ijust twist knobs. Go ahead, Zebbie. Take a swing at it, I dare you.”
“I’ll try,” Zebbie agreed. “But, Sharpie, don’t chatter and keep your comments to the point. Or I’ll ask Pop to give you a fat lip.”
“He wouldn’t dast!”
“So? I’m going to give him a horsewhip for a wedding present – besides the Weird Tales, Jake; you get those too. But you need a whip. Attention, Sharpie.”
“Yes, Zebbie. And the same to you doubled.”
“Do you know what ‘precess’ means?”
“Certainly. Precession of the equinoxes. Means that Vega will be the North Star when I’m a great-grandmother. Thirty thousand years or some such.”
“Correct in essence. But you’re not even a mother yet.”
“You don’t know what happened last night. I’m an expectant mother. Jacob doesn’t dare use a whip on me.”
My husband looked startled but pleased – and I felt relieved. Zebbie looked at his own bride. Deety said solemnly, “It is possible, Zebadiah. Neither of us was protected, each was on or close on ovulation. Hilda is blood type B Rhesus positive and my father is AB positive. I am A Rh positive. May I inquire yours, sir?”
“I’m an 0 positive. Uh… I may have shot you down the first salvo.”
“It would seem likely. But – does this meet with your approval?”
“‘Approval’!” Zebbie stood up, knocking over his chair. “Princess, you could not make me happier! Jake! This calls for a toast!”
My husband stopped kissing me. “Unanimous! Daughter, is there champagne chilled?”
“Yes, Pop.”
“Hold it!” I said. “Let’s not get excited over a normal biological function. Deety and I don’t know that we caught; we just hope so. And -“
“So we try again,” Zebbie interrupted. “What’s your calendar?”
“Twenty-eight and a half days, Zebadiah. My rhythm is pendulum steady.”
“Mine’s twenty-seven; Deety and I just happen to be in step. But I want that toast at dinner and a luau afterwards; it might be the last for a long time. Deety, do you get morning sick?”
“I don’t know; I’ve never been pregnant… before.”
“I have and I do and it’s miserable. Then I lost the naked little grub after trying hard to keep it. But I’m not going to lose this one! Fresh air and proper exercise and careful diet and nothing but champagne for me tonight, then not another drop until I know. In the meantime – Professors, may I point out that class is in session? I want to know about time machines and I’m not sure I could understand with champagne buzzing my buttonhead.”
“Sharpie, sometimes you astound me.”
“Zebbie, sometimes I astound myself. Since my husband builds time machines, I want to know what makes them tick. Or at least which knobs to turn. He might be clawed by the Bandersnatch and I would have to pilot him home. Get on with your lecture.”
“I read you loud and clear.”
But we wasted (“wasted?”) a few moments because everybody had to kiss everybody else – even Zebbie and my husband pounded each other on the back and kissed both cheeks Latin style. Zebbie tried to kiss me as if I were truly his mother-in-law but I haven’t kissed that way since junior high. Once I was firm with him he gave in and kissed me better than he ever had before – whew! I’m certain Deety is right but I won’t risk worrying my older husband over a younger man and I’d be an idiot to risk competing with Deety’s teats et cetera when all I have is fried eggs and my wonderful old goat seems so pleased with my et cetera.
Class resumed. “Sharpie, can you explain precession in gyroscopes?”
“Well, maybe. Physics One was required but that was a long time ago. Push a gyroscope and it doesn’t go the way you expect, but ninety degrees from that direction so that the push lines up with the spin. Like this – ” I pointed a forefinger like a little boy going: “Bang! – you’re dead!”
“My thumb is the axis, my forefinger represents the push, the other fingers show the rotation.”
“Go to the head of the class. Now – think hard! – suppose we put a gyroscope in a frame, then impress equal forces at all three spatial coordinates at once; what would it do?”
I tried to visualize it. “I think it would either faint or drop dead.”
“A good first hypothesis. According to Jake, it disappears.”
“They do disappear, Aunt Hilda. I watched it happen several times.”
“But where do they go?”
“I can’t follow Jake’s math; I have to accept his transformations without proof. But it is based on the notion of six space-time coordinates, three of space, the usual three that we see – marked x, y, and z – and three time coordinates: one marked ‘t’ like this – ” (t) ” – and one marked ‘tau,’ Greek alphabet – ” (T) ” – and the third from the Cyrillic alphabet, ‘teh’ – ” (M)
“Looks like an ‘m’ with a macron over it.”
“So it does, but it’s what the Russians use for ‘t’.”
“No, the Russians use ‘chai’ for tea. In thick glasses with strawberry jam.”
“Stow it, Sharpie. So we have x, y, and z; t, tau, and teh, six dimensions. It is basic to the theory that all are at right angles to each other, and that any one may be swapped for any of the others by rotation – or that a new coordinate may be found (not a seventh but replacing any of the six) by translation – say ‘tau’ to ‘tau prime’ by displacement along ‘x.'”
“Zebbie, I think I fell off about four coordinates back.”
My husband suggested, “Show her the caltrop, Zeb.”
“Good idea.” Zeb accepted a widget from my husband, placed it in front of me. It looked like jacks I used to play with as a little girl but not enough things sticking out – four instead of six. Three touched the table, a tripod; the fourth stuck straight up.
Zeb said, “This is a weapon, invented centuries ago. The points should be sharp but these have been filed down.” He flipped it, let it fall to the table. “No matter how it falls, one prong is vertical. Scatter them in front of cavalry; the horses go down – discouraging. They came into use again in Wars One and Two against anything with pneumatic tires – bicycles, motorcycles, lorries, and so forth. Big enough, they disable tanks and tracked vehicles. A small sort can be whittled from thorn bushes for guerrilla warfare – usually poisoned and quite nasty.
“But here this lethal toy is a geometrical projection, a drawing of the coordinates of a four-dimensional space-time continuum. Each spike is exactly ninety degrees from every other spike.”
“But they aren’t,” I objected. “Each angle is more than a right angle.”
“I said it was a projection. Sharpie, it’s an isometric projection of four-dimensional coordinates in three-dimensional space. That distorts the angles… and the human eye is even more limited. Cover one eye and hold still and you see only two dimensions. The illusion of depth is a construct of the brain.”
“I’m not very good at holding still -“
“No, she isn’t,” agreed my bridegroom whom I love dearly and at that instant could have choked.
“But I can close both eyes and feel three dimensions with my hands.”
“A good point. Close your eyes and pick this up and think of the prongs as the four directions of a four-dimensional space. Does the word tesseract mean anything to you?”
“My high school geometry teacher showed us how to construct them – projections – with modeling wax and toothpicks. Fun. I found other four-dimensional figures that were easy to project. And a number of ways to project them.”
“Sharpie, you must have had an exceptional geometry teacher.”
“In an exceptional geometry class. Don’t faint, Zebbie, but I was grouped with what they called ‘overachievers’ after it became ‘undemocratic’ to call them ‘gifted children.'”
“Be durned! Why do you always behave like a fritterhead?”
“Why don’t you ever look beneath the surface, young man! I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke. That doesn’t mean I don’t read and can’t think. I read everything from Giblett to Hoyle, from Sartre to Pauling. I read in the tub, I read on the john, I read in bed, I read when I eat alone, and I would read in my sleep if I could keep my eyes open. Deety, this is proof that Zebbie has never been in my bed: the books downstairs are display; the stuff I read is stacked in my bedroom.”
“Deety, did you think I had been sleeping with Sharpie?”
“No, Zebadiah.”
“And you never will! Deety told me what a sex maniac you are! You lay your lecherous hands on me and I’ll scream for Jacob and he’ll beat you to a pulp.”
“Don’t count on it, dear one,” my husband said mildly. “Zeb is bigger and younger and stronger than I… and if I found it needful to try, Deety would cry and beat me to a pulp. Son, I should have warned you: my daughter is vicious at karate. The killer instinct.”
“Thanks. Forewarned, forearmed. I’ll use a kitchen chair in one hand, a revolver in the second, and a whip in the other, just as I used to do in handling the big cats for Ringling, Barnum, and Bailey.”
“That’s three hands,” said Deety.
“I’m four-dimensional, darling. Professor, we can speed up this seminar; we’ve been underrating our overachiever. Hilda is a brain.”
“Zebbie, can we kiss and make up?”
“Class is in session.”
“Zebadiah, there is always time for that. Right, Pop?”
“Kiss her, Son, or she’ll sulk.”
“I don’t sulk, I bite.”
“I think you’re cute, too,” Zebbie answered, grabbed me by both shoulders, dragged me over the table, and kissed me hard. Our teeth grated and my nipples went spung! Sometimes I wish I weren’t so noble.
He dropped me abruptly and said, “Attention, class. The two prongs of the caltrop painted blue represent our three-dimensional space of experience. The third prong painted yellow is the t-time we are used to. The red fourth prong simulates both Tau-time and Teh-time, the unexplored time dimensions necessary to Jake’s theory. Sharpie, we have condensed six dimensions into four, then we either work by analogy into six, or we have to use math that apparently nobody but Jake and my cousin Ed understands. Unless you can think of some way to project six dimensions into three – you seem to be smart at such projections.”
I closed my eyes and thought hard. “Zebbie, I don’t think it can be done. Maybe Escher could have done it.”
“It can be done, my dearest,” answered my dearest, “but it is unsatisfactory. Even with a display computer with capacity to subtract one or more dimensions at a time. A superhypertesseract – a to the sixth power – has too many lines and corners and planes and solids and hypersolids for the eye to grasp. Cause the computer to subtract dimensions and what you have left is what you already knew. I fear it is an innate incapacity of visual conception in the human brain.”
“I think Pop is right,” agreed Deety. “I worked hard on that program. I don’t think the late great Dr. Marvin Minsky could have done it better in flat projection. Holovision? I don’t know. I would like to try if I ever get my hands on a computer with holovideo display and the capacity to add, subtract, and rotate six coordinates.”
“But why six dimensions?” I asked. “Why not five? Or even four, since you speak of rotating them interchangeably.”
“Jake?” said Zeb.
My darling looked fussed. “It bothered me that a space-time continuum seemed to require three space dimensions but only one time dimension. Granted that the universe is what it is, nevertheless nature is filled with symmetries. Even after the destruction of the parity principle, scientists kept finding new ones. Philosophers stay wedded to symmetry – but I don’t count philosophers.”
“Of course not,” agreed Zeb. “No philosopher allows his opinions to be swayed by facts – he would be kicked out of his guild. Theologians, the lot of them.”
“I concur. Hilda my darling, after I found a way to experiment, it turned out that six dimensions existed. Possibly more – but I see no way to reach them.”
“Let me see,” I said. “If I understood earlier, each dimension can be swapped for any other.”
“By ninety-degree rotation, yes.”
“Wouldn’t that be the combinations taken four at a time out of a set of six? How many is that?”
“Fifteen,” Zebbie answered.
“Goodness! Fifteen whole universes? And we use only one?”
“No, no, my darling! That would be ninety-degree rotations of one Euclidean universe. But our universe, or universes, has been known to be non-Euclidean at least since 1919. Or 1886 if you prefer. I stipulate that cosmology is an imperfect discipline, nevertheless, for considerations that I cannot state in nonmathematical terms, I was forced to assume a curved space of positive radius – that is to say, a closed space. That makes the universes possibly accessible to use either by rotation or by translation this number.” My husband rapidly wrote three sixes.
“Six sixty-six,” I said wonderingly. “‘The Number of the Beast.'”
“Eh? Oh! The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. But I scrawled it sloppily. You took it that I wrote this: ‘666.’ But what I intended to write was this: ‘6^6^6.’ Six raised to its sixth power, and the result in turn raised to its sixth power. That number is this:” 1.03144+ X 10^28 ” – or written in full:” 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056 ” – or more than ten million sextillion universes in our group.”
What can one say to that? Jacob went on, “Those universes are our nextdoor neighbors, one rotation or one translation away. But if one includes combinations of rotation and translation – think of a hyperplane slicing through superhypercontinua not at the point of here-now – the total becomes indenumerable. Not infinity – infinity has no meaning. Uncountable. Not subject to manipulation by mathematics thus far invented. Accessible to continua craft but no known way to count them.”
“Pop -“
“Yes, Deety?”
“Maybe Aunt Hilda hit on something. Agnostic as you are, you nevertheless keep the Bible around as history and poetry and myth.”
“Who said I was agnostic, my daughter?”
“Sorry, sir. I long ago reached that conclusion because you won’t talk about it. Wrong of me. Lack of data never justifies a conclusion. But this key number – one-point-oh-three-one-four-four-plus times ten to its twenty-eighth power – perhaps that is the ‘Number of the Beast.'”
“What do you mean, Deety?”
“That Revelation isn’t history, it’s not good poetry, and it’s not myth. There must have been some reason for a large number of learned men to include it – while chucking out several dozen gospels. Why not make a first hypothesis with Occam’s Razor and read it as what it purports to be? Prophecy.”
“Hmm. The shelves under the stairs, next to Shakespeare. The King James version, never mind the other three.”
Deety was back in a moment with a well-worn black book – which surprised me. I read the Bible for my own reasons but it never occurred to me that Jacob would. We always marry strangers.
“Here,” said Deety. “Chapter thirteen, verse eighteen: ‘Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”
“That can’t be read as exponents, Deety.”
“But this is a translation, Pop. Wasn’t the original in Greek? I don’t remember when exponents were invented but the Greek mathematicians of that time certainly understood powers. Suppose the original read ‘Zeta, Zeta, Zeta!’ – and those scholars, who weren’t mathematicians, mistranslated it as six hundred and sixty-six?”
“Uh… moondrift, Daughter.”
“Who taught me that the world is not only stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine? Who has already taken me into two universes that are not this one… and brought me safely home?”
“Wait a half!” Zebbie said. “You and Pop have already tried the time-space machine?”
“Didn’t Pop tell you? We made one minimum translation. We didn’t seem to have gone anywhere and Pop thought he had failed. Until I tried to look up a number in the phone book. No ‘J’ in the book. No ‘J’ in the Britannica. No ‘J’ in any dictionary. So we popped back in, and Pop returned the verniers to zero, and we got out, and the alphabet was back the way it ought to be and I stopped shaking. But our rotation was even more scary and we almost died. Out in space with blazing stars – but air was leaking out and Pop just barely put it back to zero before we passed out… and came to, back here in Snug Harbor.”
“Jake,” Zebbie said seriously, “that gadget has got to have more fail-safes, in series with deadman switches for homing.” He frowned. “I’m going to keep my eye open for both numbers, six sixty-six and the long one. I trust Deety’s hunches. Deety, where is the verse with the description of the Beast? It’s somewhere in the middle of the chapter.”
“Here. ‘And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.'”
“Hmm – I don’t know how dragons speak. But if something comes up out of the earth and has two horns… and I see or hear either number – I’m going to assume that he has a ‘Black Hat’ and try to do unto him before he does unto us. Deety, I’m peaceable by policy… but two near misses is too many. Next time I shoot first.”
I would as lief Zebbie hadn’t mentioned “Black Hats.” Hard to believe that someone was trying to kill anyone as sweet and innocent and harmless as my darling Jacob. But they were – and we knew it.
I said, “Where is this time machine? All I’ve seen is a claptrap.”
“‘Caltrop,’ Aunt Hilda. You’re looking at the space-time machine.”
“Huh? Where? Why aren’t we in it and going somewhere fast? I don’t want my husband killed; he’s practically brand-new. I expect to get years of wear out of him.”
“Sharpie, stop the chatter,” Zebbie put in. “It’s on that bench, across the table from you.”
“All I see is a portable sewing machine.”
“That’s it.”
“What? How do you get inside? Or do you ride it like a broom?”
“Neither. You mount it rigidly in a vehicle – one airtight and watertight by strong preference. Pop had it mounted in their car – not quite airtight and now kaputt. Pop and I are going to mount it in Gay Deceiver, which is airtight. With better fail-safes.”
“Much better fail-safes, Zebbie,” I agreed.
“They will be. I find that being married makes a difference. I used to worry about my own skin. Now I’m worried about Deety’s. And yours. And Pop’s. All four of us.”
“Hear, hear!” I agreed. “All for one, and one for all!”
“Yup,” Zebbie answered. “Us four, no more. Deety, when’s lunch?”

Chapter VII

“Avete, alieni, nos morituri vos spernimus!”

Deety:
While Aunt Hilda and I assembled lunch, our men disappeared. They returned just in time to sit down. Zebadiah carried an intercom unit; Pop had a wire that he plugged into a jack in the wall, then hooked to the intercom.
“Gentlemen, your timing is perfect; the work is all done,” Aunt Hilda greeted them. “What is that?”
“A guest for lunch, my dearest,” Pop answered. “Miss Gay Deceiver.”
“Plenty for all,” Aunt Hilda agreed. “I’ll set another place.” She did so; Zebadiah placed the intercom on the fifth plate. “Does she take coffee or tea?”
“She’s not programmed for either, Hilda,” Zebadiah answered, “but I thank you on her behalf. Ladies, I got itchy about news from Singapore and Sumatra. So I asked my autopilot to report. Jake came along, then pointed out that he had spare cold circuits here and there, just in case – and this was a just-in-case. Gay is plugged to the garage end of that jack, and this is a voice-switched master-master intercom at this end. I can call Gay and she can call me if anything new comes in – and I increased her programming by reinstating the earlier programs, Logan and back home, for running retrieval of new data.”
“I’ll add an outlet in the basement,” agreed Pop. “But, Son, this is your home – not California.”
“Well -“
“Don’t fight it, Zebbie. This is my home since Jacob legalized me… and any step-son-in-law of mine is at home here; you heard Jacob say so. Right, Deety?”
“Of course,” I agreed. “Aunt Hilda is housewife and I’m scullery maid. But Snug Harbor is my home, too, until Pop and, Aunt Hilda kick me out into the snow – and that includes my husband.”
“Not into snow, Deety,” Aunt Hilda corrected me. “Jacob would insist on a sunny day; he’s kind and gentle. But that would not leave you with no roof over your head. My California home – mine and Jacob’s – has long been your home-from-home, and Zebbie has been dropping in for years, whenever he was hungry.”
“I had better put my bachelor flat into the pot.”
“Zebbie, you can’t put Deety on your day bed. It’s lumpy, Deety. Broken springs. Bruises. Zebbie, break your lease and send your furniture back to Good Will.”
“Sharpie, you’re at it again. Deety, there is no day bed in my digs. An emperor-size bed big enough for three – six if they are well acquainted.”
“My Captain, do you go in for orgies?” I asked.
“No. But you can’t tell what may turn up in the future.”
“You always look ahead, Zebadiah,” I said approvingly. “Am I invited?”
“At any orgy of mine, my wife will pick the guests and send the invitations.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll wait until you seem to be bored, then look over the crop and pick out choice specimens for you. Assorted flavors and colors.”
“My Princess, I will not spank a pregnant woman. But I can think about it. Pop, Snug Harbor continues to impress me. Did you use an architect?”
“Hrrumph! ‘Architect’ is a dirty word. I studied engineering. Architects copy each other’s mistakes and call it ‘Art.’ Even Frank Lloyd Wright never understood what the Gilbreths were doing. His houses looked great from the outside – inside they were hideously inefficient. Dust collectors. Gloomy. Psych lab rat mazes. Pfui!”
“How about Neutra?”
“If he hadn’t been hamstrung by building codes and union rules and zoning laws, Neutra could have been great. But people don’t want efficient machines for living; they prefer to crouch in medieval hovels, as their flea-bitten forebears did. Cold, drafty, unsanitary, poor lighting, and no need for any of it.”
“I respect your opinion, sir. Pop – three fireplaces… no chimneys. How? Why?”
“Zeb, I like fireplaces – and a few cords of wood can save your life in the mountains. But I see no reason to warm the outdoors or to call attention to the fact that we are in residence or to place trust in spark arresters in forestfire country. Lighting a fire in a fireplace here automatically starts its exhaust fan. Smoke and particles are electrostatically precipitated. The precipitators are autoscrubbed when stack temperature passes twenty-five Celsius, dropping. Hot air goes through labyrinths under bathtubs and floors, then under other floors, thence into a rock heat-sink under the garage, a sink that drives the heat pump that serves the house. When flue gas finally escapes, at points distant from the house, it is so close to ambient temperature that only the most sensitive heat-seeker could sniff it. Thermal efficiency plus the security of being inconspicuous.”
“But suppose you are snowed in so long that your power packs play out?”
“Franklin stoves in storage, stove pipe to match, stops in the walls removable from inside to receive thimbles for flue pipes.”
“Pop,” I inquired, “is this covered by Rule One? Or was Rule One abolished last night in Elko?”
“Eh? The chair must rule that it is suspended until Hilda ratifies or cancels it. Hilda my love, years back Jane instituted Rule One -“
“I ratify it!”
“Thank you. But listen first. It applies to meals. No news broadcasts -“
“Pop,” I again interrupted, “while Rule One is still in limbo – did Gay Deceiver have any news? I worry, I do!”
“Null retrievals, dear. With the amusing conclusion that you and I are still presumed to have died twice, but the news services do not appear to have noticed the discrepancy. However, Miss Gay Deceiver will interrupt if a bulletin comes in; Rule One is never invoked during emergencies. Zeb, do you want this rig in your bedroom at night?”
“I don’t want it but should have it. Prompt notice might save our skins.”
“We’ll leave this here and parallel another into there, with gain stepped to wake you. Back to Rule One: No news broadcasts at meals, no newspapers. No shop talk, no business or financial matters, no discussion of ailments. No political discussion, no mention of taxes, or of foreign or domestic policy. Reading of fiction permitted en famille – not with guests present. Conversation limited to cheerful subjects -“
“No scandal, no gossip?” demanded Aunt Hilda.
“A matter of your judgment, dear. Cheerful gossip about friends and acquaintances, juicy scandal about people we do not like – fine! Now – do you wish to ratify, abolish, amend, or take under advisement?”
“I ratify it unchanged. Who knows some juicy scandal about someone we don’t like?”
“I know an item about ‘No Brain’ – Doctor Neil Brain,” Zebadiah offered.
“Give!”
“I got this from a reliable source but can’t prove it.”
“Irrelevant as long as it’s juicy. Go ahead, Zebbie.”
“Well, a certain zaftig coed told this on herself. She tried to give her all to ‘Brainy’ in exchange for a passing grade in the general math course necessary to any degree on our campus. It is rigged to permit prominent but stupid athletes to graduate. Miss Zaftig was flunking it, which takes exceptional talent.
“So she arranged an appointment with the department head – ‘Brainy’ – and made her quid-pro-quo clear. He could give her horizontal tutoring then and there or in her apartment or his apartment or in a motel and she would pay for it or whenever and wherever he chose. But she had to pass.”
“Happens on every campus, Son,” Pop told him.
“I haven’t reached the point. She blabbed the story – not angry but puzzled. She says that she was unable to get her intention over to him (which seems impossible, I’ve seen this young woman). ‘Brainy’ didn’t accept, didn’t refuse, wasn’t offended, didn’t seem to understand. He told her that she had better talk to her instructor about getting tutoring and a re-exam. Now Miss Zaftig is circulating the story that Prof ‘No Brain’ must be a eunuch or a robot. Not even a homo. Totally sexless.”
“He’s undoubtedly stupid,” Aunt Hilda commented. “But I’ve never met a man I couldn’t get that point across to, if I tried. Even if he was uninterested in my fair virginal carcass. I’ve never tried with Professor Brain because I’m not interested in his carcass. Even barbecued.”
“Then, Hilda my darling, why did you invite him to your party?”
“What? Because of your note, Jacob. I don’t refuse you favors.”
“But, Hilda, I don’t understand. When I talked to you by telephone, I asked you to invite Zeb – under the impression that he was his cousin Zebulon – and I did say that two or three others from the department of mathematics might make it less conspicuously an arranged meeting. But I didn’t mention Doctor Brain. And I did not write.”
“Jacob – I have your note. In California. On your University stationery with your name printed on it.”
Professor Burroughs shook his head, looked sad. Zebadiah Carter said, “Sharpie – handwritten or typed?”
“Typed. But it was signed! Wait a moment, let me think. It has my name and address down in the lower left. Jacob’s name was typed, too, but it was signed ‘Jake.’ Uh… ‘My dear Hilda, A hasty P.S. to my phone call of yesterday – Would you be so kind as to include Doctor Neil O. Brain, chairman of mathematics? I don’t know what possessed me that I forgot to mention him. Probably the pleasure of hearing your dear voice.
“‘Deety sends her love, as do I. Ever yours, Jacob J. Burroughs’ with ‘Jake’ signed above the typed name.”
Zebadiah said to me, “Watson, you know my methods.”
“Certainly, my dear Holmes. A ‘Black Hat.’ In Logan.”
“We knew that. What new data?”
“Well… Pop made that call from the house; I remember it. So somebody has a tap on our phone. Had, I mean; the fire probably destroyed it.”
“A recording tap. The purpose of that fire may have been to destroy it and other evidence. For now we know that the ‘Blokes in the Black Hats’ knew that your father – and you, but it’s Pop they are after – was in California last evening. After ‘killing’ him in California, they destroyed all they could in Utah. Professor, I predict that we will learn that your office was robbed last night – any papers on six-dimensional spaces.”
Pop shrugged. “They wouldn’t find much. I had postponed my final paper after the – humiliating – reception my preliminary paper received. I worked on it only at home, or here, and moved notes made in Logan to our basement here each time we came down.”
“Any missing here?”
“I am certain this place has not been entered. Not that papers would matter; I have it in my head. The continua apparatus has not been touched.”
“Zebadiah, is Doctor Brain a ‘Black Hat’?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Deety. He may be a stooge in their hire. But he’s part of their plot, or they would not have risked forging a letter to put him into Hilda’s house. Jake, how difficult is it to steal your professional stationery?”
“Not difficult. I don’t keep a secretary; I send for a stenographer when I need one. I seldom lock my office when I’m on campus.”
“Deety, can you scrounge pen and paper? I want to see how Jake signs ‘Jake.'”
“Sure.” I fetched them. “Pop’s signature is easy; I often sign it. I hold his power of attorney.”
“It’s the simple signatures that are hardest to forge well enough to fool a handwriting expert. But their scheme did not require fooling an expert – phrasing the note was more difficult… since Hilda accepted it as ringing true.”
“It does ring true, Son; it is very like what I would have said had I written such a note to Hilda.”
“The forger probably has read many of your letters and listened to many of your conversations. Jake, will you write ‘Jake’ four or five times, the way you sign a note to a friend?”
Pop did so, my husband studied the specimens. “Normal variations.” Zebadiah then signed “Jake” about a dozen times, looked at his work, took a fresh sheet, signed “Jake” once, passed it to Aunt Hilda. “Well, Sharpie?”
Aunt Hilda studied it. “It wouldn’t occur to me to question it – on Jacob’s stationery under a note that sounded like his phrasing. Where do we stand now?”
“Stuck in the mud. But we have added data. At least three are involved, two ‘Black Hats’ and Doctor Brain, who may or may not be a ‘Black Hat.’ He is, at minimum, a hired hand, an unwitting stooge, or a puppet they can move around like a chessman.
“While two plus ‘Brainy’ is minimum, it is not the most probable number. This scheme was not whipped up overnight. It involves arson, forgery, booby-trapping a car, wiretapping, theft, and secret communications between points widely separated, with coordinated criminal actions at each end – and it may involve doing in my cousin Zebulon. We can assume that the ‘Black Hats’ know that I am not the Zeb Carter who is the n-dimensional geometer; I’m written off as a bystander who got himself killed.
“Which doesn’t bother them. These playful darlings would swat a fly with a sledgehammer, or cure a cough with a guillotine. They are smart, organized, efficient, and vicious – and the only clue is an interest in six-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry.
“We don’t have a glimmer as to ‘who’ – other than Doctor Brain, whose role is unclear. But, Jake, I think I know ‘why’ – and that will lead us to ‘who.”
“Why, Zebadiah?” I demanded.
“Princess, your father could have worked on endless other branches of mathematics and they would not have bothered him. But he happened – I don’t mean chance; I don’t believe in ‘chance’ in this sense – he worked on the one variety of the endless possible number of geometries – the only one that correctly describes how space-time is put together. Having found it, because he is a genius in both theory and practice, he saw that it was a means by which to build a simple craft – amazingly simple, the greatest invention since the wheel – a space-time craft that offers access to all universes to the full Number of the Beast. Plus undenumerable variations of each of those many universes.
“We have one advantage.”
“I don’t see any advantage! They’re shooting at my Jacob!”
“One strong advantage, Sharpie. The ‘Black Hats’ know that Jake has worked out this mathematics. They don’t know that he has built his space-time tail-twister; they think he has just put symbols on paper. They tried to discredit his work and were successful. They tried to kill him and barely missed. They probably think Jake is dead – and it seems likely that they have killed Ed. But they don’t know about Snug Harbor.”
“Why do you say that, Zeb? Oh, I hope they do not! – but why do you feel sure?”
“Because these blokes aren’t fooling. They blew up your car and burned your flat; what would they do here? – if they knew. An A-bomb?”
“Son, do you think that criminals can lay hands on atomic weapons?”
“Jake, these aren’t criminals. A ‘criminal’ is a member of the subset of the larger set ‘human beings.’ These creatures are not human.”
“Eh? Zeb, your reasoning escapes me.”
“Deety. Run it through the computer. The one between your ears.”
I did not answer; I just sat and thought. After several minutes of unpleasant thoughts I said, “Zebadiah, the ‘Black Hats’ don’t know about the apparatus in our basement.”
“Conclusive assumption,” my husband agreed, “because we are still alive.”
“They are determined to destroy a new work in mathematics… and to kill the brain that produced it.”
“A probability approaching unity,” Zebadiah again agreed.
“Because it can be used to travel among the universes.”
“Conclusive corollary,” my husband noted.
“For this purpose, human beings fall into three groups. Those not interested in mathematics more complex than that needed to handle money, those who know a bit about other mathematics, and a quite small third group who could understand the possibilities.”
“Yes.”
“But our race does not know anything of other universes so far as I know.”
“They don’t. Necessary assumption.”
“But that third group would not try to stop an attempt to travel among the universes. They would wait with intellectual interest to see how it turned out. They might believe or disbelieve or suspend judgment. But they would not oppose; they would be delighted if my father succeeded. The joy of intellectual discovery – the mark of a true scientist.”
I sighed and added, “I see no other grouping. Save for a few sick people, psychotic, these three subsets complete the set. Our opponents are not psychotic; they are intelligent, crafty, and organized.”
“As we all know too well,” Zebadiah echoed.
“Therefore our opponents are not human beings. They are alien intelligences from elsewhere.” I sighed again and shut up. Being an oracle is a no-good profession!
“Or elsewhen. Sharpie, can you kill?”
“Kill whom, Zebbie? Or what?” “Can you kill to protect Jake?”
“You bet your frimpin’ life I’ll kill to protect Jacob!”
“I won’t ask you, Princess; I know Dejah Thoris.” Zebadiah went on, “That’s the situation, ladies. We have the most valuable man on this planet to protect. We don’t know from what. Jake, your bodyguard musters two Amazons, one small, one medium large, both probably knocked up, and one Cowardly Lion. I’d hire the Dorsai if I knew their P.O. Box. Or the Gray Lensman and all his pals. But we are all there are and we’ll try! Avete, alieni, nos morituri vos spernimus! Let’s break out that champagne.”
“My Captain, do you think we should?” I asked. “I’m frightened.”
“We should. I’m no good for more work today, and neither is Jake. Tomorrow we’ll start installing the gadget in Gay Deceiver, do rewiring and reprogramming so that she will work for any of us. Meanwhile we need a couple of laughs and a night’s sleep. What better time to drink life to the dregs than when we know that any hour may be our last?”
Aunt Hilda punched Zebadiah in the ribs. “Yer dern tootin’, Buster! I’m going to get giggle happy and make a fool of myself and then take my man and put him to sleep with Old Mother Sharpie’s Time-Tested Nostrum. Deety, I prescribe the same for you.”
I suddenly felt better. “Check, Aunt Hilda! Captain John Carter always wins. ‘Cowardly Lion’ my foot! Who is Pop? The Little Wizard?”
“I think he is.”
“Could be. Pop, will you open the bubbly? I always hurt my thumbs.”
“Right away, Deety. I mean ‘Dejah Thoris, royal consort of the Warlord.'”
“No need to be formal, Pop. This is going to be an informal party. Very! Pop! Do I have to keep my pants on?”
“Ask your husband. You’re his problem now.”

Chapter VIII

“Let us all preserve our illusions – “

Hilda:
In my old age, sucking my gums in front of the fire and living over my misdeeds, I’ll remember the next few days as the happiest in my life. I’d had three honeymoons earlier, one with each of my term-contract husbands: two had been good, one had been okay and (eventually) very lucrative. But my honeymoon with Jacob was heavenly.
The whiff of danger sharpened the joy. Jacob seemed unworried, and Zebbie has hunches, like a horseplayer. Seeing that Zebbie was relaxed, Deety got over being jumpy – and I never was, as I hope to end like a firecracker, not linger on, ugly, helpless, useless…
A spice of danger adds zest to life. Even during a honeymoon – especially during a honeymoon.
An odd honeymoon. We worked hard but our husbands seemed never too busy for pat fanny, squeeze titty, and unhurried kisses. Not a group marriage but two twosomes that were one family, comfortable each with the others. I dropped most of my own sparky-bitch ways, and Zebbie sometimes called me “Hilda” rather than “Sharpie.”
Jacob and I moved into marriage like ham and eggs. Jacob is not tall (178 centimeters) (but tall compared with my scant one fifty-two) and his hairline recedes and he has a paunch from years at a desk – but he looks just right to me. If I wanted to look at male beauty, I could always look at Deety’s giant – appreciate him without lusting: my own loving goat kept Sharpie quite blunted.
I did not decide, when Zebbie came on campus, to make a pet of him for his looks but for his veering sense of humor. But if there was ever a man who could have played the role of John Carter, Warlord of Mars, it was Zebadiah Carter whose middle name just happens to be “John.” Indoors with clothes and wearing his fake horn-rims he looks awkward, too big, clumsy. I did not realize that he was beautiful and graceful until the first time he used my pool. (That afternoon I was tempted to seduce him. But, as little dignity as I have, I had resolved to stick to older men, so I shut off the thought.)
Outdoors at Snug Harbor, wearing little or no clothes, Zebbie looked at home – a mountain lion in grace and muscle. An incident one later afternoon showed me how much he was like the Warlord of Mars. A sword – Those old stories were familiar to me. My father had acquired the Ballantine Del Rey paperback reissues; they were around the house when I was a little girl. Once I learned to read, I read everything, and vastly preferred Barsoom stories to “girls” books given to me for birthdays and Christmas. Thuvia was the heroine I identified with – “toy” of the cruel priests of Issus, then with virginity miraculously restored in the next book: Thuvia, Maid of Mars. I resolved to change my name to Thuvia when I was old enough. When I was eighteen, I did not consider it; I had always been “Hilda,” a new name held no attraction.
I was responsible in part for Deety’s name, one that embarrassed her until she discovered that her husband liked it. Jacob had wanted to name his daughter “Dejah Thoris” (Jacob looks like and is a professor, but he is incurably romantic). Jane had misgivings. I told her, “Don’t be a chump, Janie. If your man wants something, and you can accommodate him with no grief, give it to him! Do you want him to love this child or to resent her?” Jane looked thoughtful and “Doris Anne” became “Dejah Thoris” at christening, then “Deety” before she could talk – which satisfied everyone.
We settled into a routine: Up early every day; our men worked on instruments and wires and things and installing the time-space widget into Gay Deceiver’s gizzard – while Deety and I gave the housework a lick and a promise (our mountain home needed little attention – more of Jacob’s genius), then Deety and I got busy on a technical matter that Deety could do with some help from me.
I’m not much use for technical work, biology being the only thing I studied in depth and never finished my degree. This was amplified by almost six thousand hours as volunteer nurse’s aid in our campus medical center and I took courses that make me an uncertified nurse or medical tech or even jackleg paramedic – I don’t shriek at the sight of blood and can clean up vomit without a qualm and would not hesitate to fill in as scrub nurse. Being a campus widow with too much money is fun but not soul filling. I like to feel that I’ve paid rent on the piece of earth I’m using.
Besides that, I have a smattering of everything from addiction to the printed page, plus attending campus lectures that sound intriguing… then sometimes auditing a related course. I audited descriptive astronomy, took the final as if for credit – got an “A.” I had even figured a cometary orbit correctly, to my surprise (and the professor’s).
I can wire a doorbell or clean out a stopped-up soil pipe with a plumber’s “snake” – but if it’s really technical, I hire specialists.
So Hilda can help but usually can’t do the job alone. Gay Deceiver had to be reprogrammed – and Deety, who does not look like a genius, is one. Jacob’s daughter should be a genius and her mother had an I.Q. that startled even me, her closest friend. I ran across it while helping poor grief-stricken Jacob to decide what to save, what to burn. (I burned unflattering pictures, useless papers, and clothes. A dead person’s clothes should be given away or burned; nothing should be kept that does not inspire happy memories. I cried a bit and that saved Jacob and Deety from having to cry later.)
We all held private duo licenses; Zebbie, as Captain Z. J. Carter, U.S.A.S.R., held “command” rating as well – he told us that his space rating was largely honorary, just some free-fall time and one landing of a shuttle. Zebbie is mendacious, untruthful, and tells fibs; I got a chance to sneak a look at his aerospace log and shamelessly took it. He had logged more than he claimed in one exchange tour with Australia. Someday I’m going to sit on his chest and make him tell Mama Hilda the truth. Should be interesting… if I can sort out fact from fiction. I do not believe his story about intimate relations with a female kangaroo.
Zebbie and Jacob decided that we all must be able to control Gay Deceiver all four ways, on the road, in the air, in trajectory (she’s not a spaceship but can make high-trajectory jumps), and in space-time, i.e. among the universes to the Number of the Beast, plus variants impossible to count.
I had fingers crossed about being able to learn that, but both men assured me that they had worked out a fail-safe that would get me out of a crunch if I ever had to do it alone.
Part of the problem lay in the fact that Gay Deceiver was a one-man girl; her doors unlocked only to her master’s voice or to his thumbprint, or to a tapping code if he were shy both voice and right thumb; Zeb tended to plan ahead – “Outwitting Murphy’s Law,” he called it, “‘Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.'” (Grandma called it “The Butter-Side Down Rule.”)
First priority was to introduce us to Gay Deceiver – teach her that all four voices and right thumbprints were acceptable.
That took a couple of hours, with Deety helping Zebbie. The tapping code took even less, it being based on an old military cadence – its trickiness being that a thief would be unlikely to guess that this car would open if tapped a certain way and in guessing the correct cadence. Zebbie called the cadence “Drunken Soldier.” Jacob said that it was “Bumboat.” Deety claimed that its title was “Pay Day,” because she had heard it from Jane’s grandfather.
Our men conceded that she must be right, as she had words for it. Her words included “Drunken Sailor” instead of “Drunken Soldier” – plus both “Pay Day” and “Bumboat.”
Introductions taken care of, Zeb dug out Gay’s anatomy, one volume her body, one her brain. He handed the latter to Deety, took the other into our basement. The next two days were easy for me, hard for Deety. I held lights and made notes on a clip board while she studied that book and frowned and got smudged and sweaty getting herself into impossible positions and once she cursed in a fashion that would have caused Jane to scold. She added, “Aunt Nanny Goat, your step-son-in-law has done things to this mass of spaghetti that no decent computer should put up with! It’s a bastard hybrid.”
“You shouldn’t call Gay ‘it,’ Deety. And she’s not a bastard.”
“She can’t hear us; I’ve got her ears unhooked – except that piece that is monitoring news retrieval programs – and that goes through this wire to that jack in the wall; she can talk with Zebadiah only in the basement now. Oh, I’m sure she was a nice girl until that big ape of mine raped her. Aunt Hilda, don’t worry about hurting Gay’s feelings; she hasn’t any. This is an idiot as computers go. Any one-horse college and most high schools own or share time in computers much more complex. This one is primarily cybernetics, an autopilot plus limited digital capacity and limited storage. But the mods Zebadiah has tacked on make it more than an autopilot but not a general-purpose computer. A misbegotten hybrid. It has far more random-number options than it needs and it has extra functions that IBM never dreamed of.”
“Deety, why are you taking off cover plates? I thought you were strictly a programmer? Software. Not a mechanic.”
“I am strictly a software mathematician. I wouldn’t attempt to modify this monster even on written orders from my lovable but sneaky husband. But how in the name of Allah can a software hack think about simplification analysis for program if she doesn’t know the circuitry? The first half of this book shows what this autopilot was manufactured to do… and the second half, the Xeroxed pages, show the follies Zebadiah has seduced her into. This bleedin’ bundle of chips now speaks three logic languages, interfaced – when it was built to use only one. But it won’t accept any of them until it has been wheedled with Zebadiah’s double talk. Even then it rarely answers a code phrase with the same answer twice in a row. What does it say in answer to: ‘You’re a smart girl, Gay.’?”
“I remember. ‘Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over.”
“Sometimes. Oftenest, as that answer is weighted to come up three times as often as any of the others. But listen to this:
“‘Zeb, I’m so smart I scare myself.’
“‘Then why did you turn me down for that raise?’
“‘Never mind the compliments! Take your hand off my knee!’
“‘Not so loud, dear. I don’t want my boyfriend to hear.’
” – and there are more. There are at least four answers to any of Zebadiah’s code phrases. He uses just one list, but the autopilot answers several ways for each of his phrases – and all any of them mean is either ‘Roger’ or ‘Null program; rephrase.'”
“I like the idea. Fun.”
“Well… I do myself. I animize a computer; I think of them as people… and this semirandom answer list makes Gay Deceiver feel much more alive… when she isn’t. Not even versatile compared with a ground-based computer. But – ” Deety gave a quick smile. “I’m going to hand my husband some surprises.”
“How, Deety?”
“You know how he says, ‘Good morning, Gay. How are you?’ when we sit down for breakfast.”
“Yes. I like it. Friendly. She usually answers, ‘I’m fine, Zeb.'”
“Yes. It’s a test code. It orders the autopilot to run a self-check throughout and to report any running instruction. Which takes less than a millisecond. If he didn’t get that or an equivalent answer, he would rush straight here to find out what’s wrong. But I’m going to add another answer. Or more.”
“I thought you refused to modify anything.”
“Aunt Hillbilly, this is software, not hardware. I’m authorized and directed to amplify the answers to include all of us, by name for each of our voices. That is programming, elementary. You say good morning to this gadget and it will – when I’m finished – answer you and call you either ‘Hilda’ or ‘Mrs. Burroughs.'”
“Oh, let her call me Hilda.'”
“All right, but let her call you ‘Mrs. Burroughs’ now and then for variety.”
“Well… all right. Keep her a personality.”
“I could even have her call you – low weighting! – ‘Nanny Goat.'”
I guffawed. “Do, Deety, please do. But I want to be around to see Jacob’s face.”
“You will be; it won’t be programmed to answer that way to any voice but yours. Just don’t say, ‘Good morning, Gay’ unless Pop is listening. But here’s one for my husband: Zebadiah says, ‘Good morning, Gay. How are you?’ – and the speaker answers, ‘I’m fine, Zeb. But your fly is unzipped and your eyes are bloodshot. Are you hung over again?'”
Deety is so solemn and yet playful. “Do it, dear! Poor Zebbie – who drinks least of any of us. But he might not be wearing anything zippered.”
“Zebadiah always wears something at meals. Even his underwear shorts are zippered. He dislikes elastic.”
“But he’ll recognize your voice, Deety.”
“Nope. Because it will be your voice – modified.”
And it was. I’m contralto about the range of the actress – or girl friend – who recorded Gay Deceiver’s voice originally. I don’t think my voice has her sultry, bedroom quality but I’m a natural mimic. Deety borrowed a wigglescope – oscilloscope? – from her father, my Jacob, and I practiced until my patterns for Gay Deceiver’s original repertoire matched hers well enough – Deety said she could not tell them apart without close checking.
I got into the spirit of it, such as having Deety cause Gay Deceiver occasionally to say to my husband, “Fine – except for my back ache, you wicked old Billy Goat!” – and Jacob tripped that reply one morning when I did have a back ache, and I feel sure he had one, too.
We didn’t put in answers that Deety felt might be too bawdy for Jacob’s “innocent” mind – I didn’t even hint how her father actually talked, to me in private. Let us all preserve our illusions; it lubricates social relations. Possibly Deety and Zebbie talked the same way to each other in private – and regarded us “old folks” as hopelessly square.

Chapter IX

Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws.

Deety:
Aunt Hilda and I finished reprogramming in the time it took Zebadiah and Pop to design and make the fail-safes and other mods needed to turn Gay Deceiver, with the time-space widget installed, into a continua traveler – which included placing the back seats twenty centimeters farther back (for leg room) after they had been pulled out to place the widget abaft the bulkhead and weld it to the shell. The precessing controls and triple verniers were remoted to the driver’s instrument board – with one voice control for the widget, all others manual:
If any of our voices said, “Gay Deceiver, take us home!” car and passengers would instantly return to Snug Harbor.
I don’t know but I trust my Pop. He brought us home safe twice, doing it with no fail-safes and no dead-man switch. The latter paralleled the “Take us home!” voice order, was normally clamped closed and covered – but could be uncovered and held in a fist, closed. There were other fail-safes for temperature, pressure, air, radar collision course, and other dangers. If we wound up inside a star or planet, none of this could save us, but it is easy to prove that the chances of falling downstairs and breaking your neck are enormously higher than the chance of co-occupying space with other matter in our native universe – space is plentiful, mass is scarce. We hoped that this would be true of other universes.
No way ahead of time to check on the Number-of-the-Beast spaces – but “The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way.” None of us ever mentioned not trying to travel the universes. Besides, our home planet had turned unfriendly. We didn’t discuss “Black Hats” but we all knew that they were still here, and that we remained alive by lying doggo and letting the world think we were dead.
We ate breakfast better each morning after hearing Gay Deceiver offer “null report” on news retrievals. Zebadiah, I am fairly certain, had given up his cousin for dead. I feel sure Zebadiah would have gone to Sumatra to follow a lost hope, were it not that he had acquired a wife and a prospective child. I missed my next period, so did Hilda. Our men toasted our not-yet bulging bellies; Hilda and I smugly resolved to be good girls, yes, sir! – and careful. Hilda joined my morning toning up, and the men joined us the first time they caught us at it.
Zebadiah did not need it but seemed to enjoy it. Pop brought his waistline down five centimeters in one week.
Shortly after that toast Zebadiah pressure-tested Gay Deceiver’s shell – four atmospheres inside her and a pressure gauge sticking out through a fitting in her shell.
There being little we could do while our space-time rover was sealed, we knocked off early. “Swim, anybody?” I asked. Snug Harbor doesn’t have a citytype pool, and a mountain stream is too cooold. Pop had fixed that when he concealed our spring. Overflow was piped underground to a clump of bushes and thereby created a “natural” mountain rivulet that passed near the house; then Pop had made use of a huge fallen boulder, plus biggish ones, to create a pool, one that filled and spilled. He had done work with pigments in concrete to make this look like an accident of water flow.
This makes Pop sound like Paul Bunyan. Pop could have built Snug Harbor with his own hands. But Spanish-speaking labor from Nogales built the underground and assembled the prefab shell of the cabin. An air crane fetched parts and materials from an Albuquerque engineering company Jane had bought for Pop through a front – lawyers in Dallas. The company’s manager drove the air crane himself, having had it impressed on him that this was for a rich client of the law firm, and that it would be prudent to do the job and forget it. Pop bossed the work in TexMex, with help from his secretary – me – Spanish being one language I had picked for my doctorate.
Laborers and mechanics never got a chance to pinpoint where they were, but they were well paid, well fed, comfortably housed in prefabs brought in by crane, and the backbreaking labor was done by power – who cares what “locos gringos” do? Two pilots had to know where we were building, but they homed in on a radar beacon that is no longer there.
“Blokes in Black Hats” had nothing to do with this secrecy; it was jungle caution I had learned from Mama: Never let the revenooers know anything. Pay cash, keep your lips closed, put nothing through banks that does not appear later in tax returns – pay taxes greater than your apparent standard of living and declare income accordingly. We had been audited three times since Mama died; each time the government returned a small “overpayment” – I was building a reputation of being stupid and honest.
My inquiry of “Swim, anybody?” was greeted with silence. Then Pop said, “Zeb, your wife is too energetic. Deety, later the water will be warmer and the trees will give us shade. Then we can walk slowly down to the pool. Zeb?”
“I agree, Jake. I need to conserve ergs.”
“Nap?”
“I don’t have the energy to take one. What were you saying this morning about reengineering the system?”
Aunt Hilda looked startled. “I thought Miss Gay Deceiver was already engineered? Are you thinking of changing everything?”
“Take it easy, Sharpie darlin’. Gay Deceiver is finished. A few things to stow that have been weighed and their moment arms calculated.”
I could have told her. In the course of figuring what could be stowed in every nook and cranny and what that would do to Gay’s balance, I had discovered that my husband had a highly illegal laser cannon. I said nothing, merely included its mass and distance from optimum center of weight in my calculations. I sometimes wonder which of us is the outlaw: Zebadiah or I? Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws. But that concealed L-cannon made me wonder.
“Why not leave well enough alone?” Aunt Hilda demanded. “Jacob and God know I’m happy here… But You All Know Why We Should Not Stay Here Longer Than We Must.”
“We weren’t talking about Gay Deceiver; Jake and I were discussing reengineering the Solar System.”
“The Solar System! What’s wrong with it the way it is?”
“Lots of things,” Zebadiah told Aunt Hilda. “It’s untidy. Real estate going to waste. This tired old planet is crowded and sort o’ worn in spots. True, industry in orbit and power from orbit have helped, and both Lagrange-Four and -Five have self-supporting populations; anybody who invested in space stations early enough made a pile.” (Including Pop, Zebadiah!) “But these are minor compared with what can be done – and this planet is in worse shape each year. Jake’s six-dimensional principle can change that.”
“Move people into another universe? Would they go?”
“We weren’t thinking of that, Hilda. We’re trying to apply Clarke’s Law.”
“I don’t recall it. Maybe it was while I was out with mumps.”
“Arthur C. Clarke,” Pop told her. “Great man – too bad he was liquidated in The Purge. Clarke defined how to make a great discovery or create a key invention. Study what the most respected authorities agree can not be done – then do it. My continua craft is a godchild of Clarke via his Law. His insight inspired my treatment of six-dimensional continua. But this morning Zeb added corollaries.”
“Jake, don’t kid the ladies. I asked a question; you grabbed the ball and ran.”
“Uh, we heterodyned. Hilda, you know that the time-space traveler doesn’t require power.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, darling man. Why were you installing power packs in Gay Deceiver?”
“Auxiliary uses. So that you won’t have to cook over an open fire, for example.”
“But the pretzel bender doesn’t use power,” agreed Zebadiah. “Don’t ask why. I did, and Jake started writing equations in Sanskrit and I got a headache.”
“It doesn’t use power, Aunt Hilda,” I agreed. “Just parasitic power. A few microwatts so that the gyros never slow down, milliwatts for instrument readouts and for controls – but the widget itself uses none.”
“What happened to the law of conservation of energy?”
“Sharpie,” my husband answered, “as a fairish mechanic, an amateur electron pusher, and as a bloke who has herded unlikely junk through the sky, I never worry about theory as long as machinery does what it is supposed to do. I worry when a machine turns and bites me. That’s why I specialize in fail-safes and backups and triple redundancy. I try never to get a machine sore at me. There’s no theory for that but every engineer knows it.”
“Hilda my beloved, the law of conservation of mass-energy is not broken by our continua craft; it is simply not relevant to it. Once Zeb understood that -“
“I didn’t say I understood it.”
“Well… once Zeb stipulated that, he raised interesting questions. For example: Jupiter doesn’t need Ganymede – “
“Whereas Venus does. Although Titan might be better.”
“Mmm… possible.”
“Yes. Make an inhabitable base more quickly. But the urgent problem, Jake, is to seed Venus, move atmosphere to Mars, put both of them through forced aging. Then respot them. Earth-Sol Trojan points?”
“Certainly. We’ve had millions of years of evolution this distance from the Sun. We had best plan on living neither closer nor farther. With careful attention to stratospheric protection. But I still have doubts about anchoring in the Venerian crust. We wouldn’t want to lose the planet on Tau axis.”
“Mere R. & D., Jake. Calculate pressures and temperatures; beef up the vehicle accordingly – spherical, save for exterior anchors – then apply a jigger factor of four. With automatic controls quintuply redundant. Catch it when it comes out and steady it down in Earth’s orbit, sixty degrees trailing – and start selling subdivisions the size of old Spanish Land Grants. Jake, we should gather enough mass to create new earths at all Trojan points, a hexagon around the Sun. Five brand-new earths would give the race room enough to breed. On this maiden voyage let’s keep our eyes open.”
Aunt Hilda looked at Zebadiah with horror. “Zebbie! Creating planets indeed! Who do you think you are? Jesus Christ?”
“I’m not that junior. That’s the Holy Ghost over there, scratching his belly, The Supreme Inseminator. I’m the other one, the Maker and Shaper. But in setting up a pantheon for the Celestial Age, we’re going to respect women’s rights, Hilda. Deety is Earth Mother; she’s perfect for the job. You are Moon Goddess, Selene. Good job, dear – more moons than earths. It fits you. You’re little and silvery and you wax and wane and you’re beautiful in all your phases. How about it? Us four and no more.”
“Quit pulling my leg!”
My husband answered, “I haven’t been pulling your leg. Come closer and I will; you have pretty legs, Step-Mother-in-Law. These things Jake and I have been discussing are practical – once we thought about the fact that the spacetime twister uses no power. Move anything anywhere – all spaces, all times. I add the plural because at first I could not see what Jake had in mind when he spoke of forced aging of a planet. Rotate Venus into the Tau axis, fetch it back along Teh axis, reinsert it centuries – or millennia – older at this point in ‘t’ axis. Perhaps translate it a year or so into the future – our future – so as to be ready for it when it returns, all sweet and green and beautiful and ready to grow children and puppies and butterflies. Terraformed but virginal.”
Aunt Hilda looked frightened. “Jacob? Would one highball do any harm to this peanut inside me? I need a bracer.”
“I don’t think so. Jane often had a drink with me while she was pregnant. Her doctor did not have her stop until her third trimester. Can’t see that it hurt Deety. Deety was so healthy she drove Jane home from the hospital.”
“Pop, that’s a fib. I didn’t learn to drive until I was three months old. But I need one, too,” I added. “Zebadiah?”
“Certainly, Princess. A medicinal drink should be by body mass. That’s half a jigger for you, Sharpie dear, a jigger for Deety, a jigger and a half for Jake – two jiggers for me.”
“Oh, how unfair!”
“It certainly is,” I agreed. “I outweigh Pop – he’s been losing, I’ve been gaining. Pick us up and see!”
My husband took us each around the waist, crouched, then straightened and lifted us.
“Close to a standoff,” he announced. “Pop may be a trifle heavier, but you’re more cuddly” – kissed me and put us down.
“There is no one more cuddly than Jacob!”
“Hilda, you’re prejudiced. Let’s each mix our own drinks, at the strength required for our emotional and physical conditions.”
So we did – it wound up with Hilda and me each taking a jigger with soda, Pop taking a jigger and a half over ice – and Zebadiah taking a half jigger of vodka and drowning it with Coke.
While we were sipping our “medicine,” Zebadiah, sprawled out, looked up over the fireplace. “Pop, you were in the Navy?”
“No – Army. If you count ‘chair-borne infantry.’ They handed me a commission for having a doctorate in mathematics, told me they needed me for ballistics. Then I spent my whole tour as a personnel officer, signing papers.”
“Standard Operating Procedure. That’s a Navy sword and belt up there. Thought it might be yours.”
“It’s Deety’s – belonged to Jane’s Grandfather Rodgers. I have a dress saber. Belonged to my Dad, who gave it to me when the Army took me. Dress blues, too. I took them with me, never had occasion to wear either.” Pop got up and went into his – their bedroom, calling back, “I’ll show you the saber.”
My husband said to me, “Deety, would you mind my handling your sword?”
“My Captain, that sword is yours.”
“Heavens, dear, I can’t accept an heirloom.”
“If my warlord will not permit his princess to gift him with a sword, he can leave it where it is! I’ve been wanting to give you a wedding present – and did not realize that I had the perfect gift for Captain John Carter.”
“My apologies, Dejah Thoris. I accept and will keep it bright. I will defend my princess with it against all enemies.”
“Helium is proud to accept. If you make a cradle of your hands, I can stand in them and reach it down.”
Zebadiah grasped me, a hand above each knee, and I was suddenly three meters tall. Sword and belt were on hooks; I lifted them down, and myself was placed down. My husband stood straight while I buckled it around him – then he dropped to one knee and kissed my hand.
My husband is mad north-northwest but his madness suits me. I got tears in my eyes which Deety doesn’t do much but Dejah Thoris seems prone to, since John Carter made her his.
Pop and Aunt Hilda watched – then imitated, including (I saw!) tears in Hilda’s eyes after she buckled on Pop’s saber, when he knelt and kissed her hand.
Zebadiah drew sword, tried its balance, sighted along its blade. “Handmade and balanced close to the hilt. Deety, your great-grandfather paid a pretty penny for this. It’s an honest weapon.”
“I don’t think he knew what it cost. It was presented to him.”
“For good reason, I feel certain.” Zebadiah stood back, went into hanging guard, made fast moulinets vertically, left and right, then horizontally clockwise and counterclockwise – suddenly dropped into swordsman’s guard – lunged and recovered, fast as a striking cat.
I said softly to Pop, “Did you notice?”
Pop answered quietly. “Know saber. Sword, too.”
Hilda said loudly, “Zebbie! You never told me you went to Heidelberg.”
“You never asked, Sharpie. Around the Red Ox they called me ‘The Scourge of the Neckar.'”
“What happened to your scars?”
“Never got any, dear. I hung around an extra year, hoping for one. But no one got through my guard – ever. Hate to think about how many German faces I carved into checkerboards.”
“Zebadiah, was that where you took your doctorate?”
My husband grinned and sat down, still wearing sword. “No, another school.”
“M.I.T.?” inquired Pop.
“Hardly. Pop, this should stay in the family. I undertook to prove that a man can get a doctorate from a major university without knowing anything and without adding anything whatever to human knowledge.”
“I think you have a degree in aerospace engineering,” Pop said flatly.
“I’ll concede that I have the requisite hours. I hold two degrees – a baccalaureate in humane arts… meaning I squeaked through… and a doctorate from an old and prestigious school – a Ph.D. in education.”
“Zebadiah! You wouldn’t!” (I was horrified.)
“But I did, Deety. To prove that degrees per se are worthless. Often they are honorifics of true scientists or learned scholars or inspired teachers. Much more frequently they are false faces for overeducated jackasses.”
Pop said, “You’ll get no argument from me, Zeb. A doctorate is a union card to get a tenured job. It does not mean that the holder thereof is wise or learned.”
“Yes, sir. I was taught it at my grandfather’s knee – my Grandfather Zachariah, the man responsible for the initial ‘Z’ in the names of his male descendants. Deety, his influence on me was so strong that I must explain him – no, that’s impossible; I must tell about him in order to explain me… and how I happened to take a worthless degree.”
Hilda said, “Deety, he’s pulling a long bow again.”
“Quiet, woman. ‘Get thee to a nunnery, go!”
“I don’t take orders from my step-son-in-law. Make that a monastery and I’ll consider it.”
I kept my blinkin’ mouf shut. My husband’s fibs entertain me. (If they are fibs.)
“Grandpa Zach was as cantankerous an old coot as you’ll ever meet. Hated government, hated lawyers, hated civil servants, hated preachers, hated automobiles, public schools, and telephones, was contemptuous of most editors, most writers, most professors, most of almost anything. But he overtipped waitresses and porters and would go out of his way to avoid stepping on an insect.
“Grandpa had three doctorates: biochemistry, medicine, and law – and he regarded anyone who couldn’t read Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and German as illiterate.”
“Zebbie, can you read all those?”
“Fortunately for me, my grandfather had a stroke while filling out a tax form before he could ask me that question. I don’t know Hebrew. I can read Latin, puzzle out Greek, speak and read French, read technical German, understand it in some accents, swear in Russian – very useful! – and speak an ungrammatical smattering of Spanish picked up in cantinas and from horizontal dictionaries.
“Grandpa would have classed me as subliterate as I don’t do any of these well – and I sometimes split infinitives which would have infuriated him. He practiced forensic medicine, medical jurisprudence, was an expert witness in toxicology, pathology, and traumatology, bullied judges, terrorized lawyers, medical students, and law students. He once threw a tax assessor out of his office and required him to return with a search warrant setting forth in detail its constitutional limitations, He regarded the income tax and the Seventeenth Amendment and the direct primary as signs of the decay of the Republic.”
“How did he feel about the Nineteenth?”
“Hilda, Grandpa Zach supported female suffrage. I remember hearing him say that if women were so dad-burned foolish as to want to assume the burden, they should be allowed to – they couldn’t do the country more harm than men had. ‘Votes for Women’ didn’t annoy him but nine thousand other things did. He lived at a slow simmer, always ready to break into a rolling boil.
“He had one hobby: collecting steel engravings.”
“‘Steel engravings’?” I repeated.
“Of dead presidents, my Princess. Especially of McKinley, Cleveland, and Madison – but he didn’t scorn those of Washington. He had that instinct for timing so necessary to a collector. In 1929 on Black Thursday he held not one share of common stock; instead he had sold short. When the 1933 Bank Holiday came along every old-dollar he owned, except current cash, was in Zurich in Swiss money. Eventually U.S. citizens were forbidden by ’emergency’ decree to own gold even abroad.
“Grandpa Zach ducked into Canada, applied for Swiss citizenship, got it, and thereafter split his time between Europe and America, immune to inflation and the confiscatory laws that eventually caused us to knock three zeros off the old-dollar in creating the newdollar.
“So he died rich, in Locarno – beautiful place; I stayed with him two summers as a boy. His will was probated in Switzerland and the U.S. Revenue Service could not touch it.
“Most of it was a trust with its nature known to his offspring before his death or I would not have been named Zebadiah.
“Female descendants got pro-rata shares of income with no strings attached but males had to have first names starting with ‘Z’ – and even that got them not one Swiss franc; there was a ‘Root, hog, or die!’ clause. Zachariah believed in taking care of daughters, but sons and grandsons had to go out and scratch, with no help from their fathers, until they had earned and saved on their own – or accumulated without going to jail – assets equal to one pro-rata share of the capital sum of the trust before they shared in the trust’s income.”
“Sexism,” said Aunt Hilda. “Raw, unadulterated sexism. Any FemLib gal would sneer at his dirty old money, on those terms.”
“Would you have refused it, Sharpie?”
“Me? Zebbie dear, are you feverish? I would have both greedy hands out. I’m strong for women’s rights but no fanatic. Sharpie wants to be pampered and that’s what men are best at – their natural function.”
“Pop, do you need help in coping with her?”
“No, Son. I like pampering Hilda. I don’t see you abusing my daughter.”
“I don’t dare; you told me she’s vicious at karate.” (I am good at karate; Pop made sure that I learned all the dirty fighting possible. But not against Zebadiah! If I ever do – Heaven forbid! – find myself opposed to my husband, I’ll quiver my chin and cry.)
“On my graduation from high school my father had a talk with me. ‘Zeb,’ he told me. ‘The time has come. I’ll put you through any school you choose. Or you can take what you have saved, strike out on your own, and try to qualify for a share in your grandfather’s will. Suit yourself, I shan’t influence you.’
“Folks, I had to think. My father’s younger brother was past forty and still hadn’t qualified. The size of the trust made a pro-rata of its assets amount to a requirement that a male descendant had to get rich on his own – well-to-do at least – whereupon he was suddenly twice as rich. But with over half of this country’s population living on the taxes of the lesser number it is not as easy to get rich as it was in Grandpa’s day.
“Turn down a paid-for education at Princeton, or M.I.T.? Or go out and try to get rich with nothing but a high school education? – I hadn’t learned much in high school; I had majored in girls.
“So I had to think hard and long. Almost ten seconds. I left home next day with one suitcase and a pitiful sum of money.
“Wound up on campus that had two things to recommend it: an Aerospace R.O.T.C. that would pick up part of my expenses, and a phys. ed. department willing to award me a jockstrap scholarship in exchange for daily bruises and contusions, plus all-out effort whenever we played. I took the deal.”
“What did you play?” asked my father.
“Football, basketball, and track – they would have demanded more had they been able to figure a way to do it.”
“I had thought you were going to mention fencing.”
“No, that’s another story. These did not quite close the gap. So I also waited tables for meals – food so bad the cockroaches ate out. But that closed the gap, and I added to it by tutoring in mathematics. That gave me my start toward piling up money to qualify.”
I asked, “Did tutoring math pay enough to matter? I tutored math before Mama died; the hourly rate was low.”
“Not that sort of tutoring, Princess. I taught prosperous young optimists not to draw to inside straights, and that stud poker is not a game of chance, but that craps is, controlled by mathematical laws that cannot be flouted with impunity. To quote Grandfather Zachariah, ‘A man who bets on greed and dishonesty won’t be wrong too often.’ There is an amazingly high percentage of greedy people and it is even easier to win from a dishonest gambler than it is from an honest one… and neither is likely to know the odds at craps, especially side bets, or all of the odds in poker, in particular how odds change according to the number of players, where one is seated in relation to the dealer, and how to calculate changes as cards are exposed in stud.
“That was also how I quit drinking, my darling, except for special celebrations. In every ‘friendly’ game some players contribute, some take a profit; a player determined to take a profit must be neither drunk nor tired. Pop, the shadows are growing long – I don’t think anybody wants to know how I got a worthless doctorate.”
“I do!” I put in. “Me, too!” echoed Aunt Hilda.
“Son, you’re outvoted.”
“Okay. Two years active duty after I graduated. Sky jockeys are even more optimistic than students and have more money – meanwhile I learned more math and engineering. Was sent inactive just in time to be called up again for the Spasm War. Didn’t get hurt, I was safer than civilians. But that kept me on another year even though fighting was mostly over before I reported in. That made me a veteran, with benefits. I went to Manhattan and signed up for school again. Doctoral candidate. School of Education. Not serious at first, simply intending to use my veteran’s benefits while enjoying the benefits of being a student – and devote most of my time to piling up cash to qualify for the trust.
“I knew that the stupidest students, the silliest professors, and the worst bull courses are concentrated in schools of education. By signing for large-class evening lectures and the unpopular eight a.m. classes I figured I could spend most of my time finding out how the stock market ticked. I did, by working there, before I risked a dime.
“Eventually I had to pick a research problem or give up the advantages of being a student. I was sick of a school in which the pie was all meringue and no filling but I stuck as I knew how to cope with courses in which the answers are matters of opinion and the opinion that counts is that of the professor. And how to cope with those large-class evening lectures: Buy the lecture notes. Read everything that professor ever published. Don’t cut too often and when you do show up, get there early, sit front row center, be certain the prof catches your eye every time he looks your way – by never taking your eyes off him. Ask one question you know he can answer because you’ve picked it out of his published papers – and state your name in asking a question. Luckily ‘Zebadiah Carter’ is a name easy to remember. Family, I got straight ‘A’s’ in both required courses and seminars… because I did not study ‘education,’ I studied professors of education.
“But I still had to make that ‘original contribution to human knowledge’ without which a candidate may not be awarded a doctor’s degree in most so-called disciplines… and the few that don’t require it are a tough row to hoe.
“I studied my faculty committee before letting myself be tied down to a research problem… not only reading everything each had published but also buying their publications or paying the library to make copies of out-of-print papers.”
My husband took me by my shoulders. “Dejah Thoris, here follows the title of my dissertation. You can have your divorce on your own terms.”
“Zebadiah, don’t talk that way!”
“Then brace yourself. ‘An Ad-Hoc Inquiry Concerning the Optimization of the Infrastructure of Primary Educational Institutions at the Interface Between Administration and Instruction, with Special Attention to Group Dynamics Desiderata.”
“Zebbie! What does that mean?”
“It means nothing, Hilda.”
“Zeb, quit kidding our ladies. Such a title would never be accepted.”
“Jake, it seems certain that you have never taken a course in a school of education.”
“Well… no. Teaching credentials are not required at university level but -“
“But me no ‘buts,’ Pop. I have a copy of my dissertation; you can check its authenticity. While that paper totally lacks meaning it is a literary gem in the sense in which a successful forging of an ‘old master’ is itself a work of art. It is loaded with buzz words. The average length of sentences is eighty-one words. The average word length, discounting ‘of,’ ‘a,’ ‘the,’ and other syntactical particles, is eleven-plus letters in slightly under four syllables. The bibliography is longer than the dissertation and cites three papers of each member of my committee and four of the chairman, and those citations are quoted in part – while avoiding any mention of matters on which I knew that members of the committee held divergent (but equally stupid) opinions.
“But the best touch was to get permission to do field work in Europe and have it count toward time on campus; half the citations were in foreign languages, ranging from Finnish to Croatian – and the translated bits invariably agreed with the prejudices of my committee. It took careful quoting out of context to achieve this, but it had the advantage that the papers were unlikely to be on campus and my committee were not likely to go to the trouble of looking them up even if they were. Most of them weren’t at home in other languages, even easy ones like French, German, and Spanish.
“But I did not waste time on phony field work; I simply wanted a trip to Europe at student air fares and the use of student hostels – dirt cheap way to travel. And a visit to the trustees of Grandpa’s fund.
“Good news! The fund was blue chips and triple-A bonds and, at that time, speculative stocks were rising. So the current cash value of the fund was down, even though income was up. And two more of my cousins and one uncle had qualified, again reducing the pro-rata… so, Glory Be! – I was within reaching distance. I had brought with me all that I had saved, swore before a notary that it was all mine, nothing borrowed, nothing from my father – and left it on deposit in Zurich, using the trustees as a front. And I told them about my stamp and coin collection.
“Good stamps and coins never go down, always up. I had nothing but proof sets, first-day covers, and unbroken sheets, all in perfect condition – and had a notarized inventory and appraisal with me. The trustees got me to swear that the items I had collected before I left home had come from earned money – true, the earliest items represented mowed lawns and such – and agreed to hold the pro-rata at that day’s cash value – lower if the trend continued – if I would sell my collection and send a draft to Zurich, with businesslike speed as soon as I returned to the States.
“I agreed. One trustee took me to lunch, tried to get me liquored up – then offered me ten percent over appraisal if I would sell that very afternoon, then send it to him by courier at his expense (bonded couriers go back and forth between Europe and America every week).
“We shook hands on it, went back and consulted the other trustees. I signed papers transferring title, the trustee buying signed his draft to me, I endorsed it to the trustees to add to the cash I was leaving in their custody. Three weeks later I got a cable certifying that the collection matched the inventory. I had qualified.
“Five months later I was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy, summa cum laude, And that, dear ones, is the shameful story of my life, Anyone have the energy to go swimming?”
“Son, if there is a word of truth in that, it is indeed a shameful story.”
“Pop! That’s not fair! Zebadiah used their rules – and outsmarted them!”
“I didn’t say that Zeb had anything to be ashamed of. It is a commentary on American higher education. What Zeb claims to have written is no worse than trash I know is accepted as dissertations these days. His case is the only one I have encountered wherein an intelligent and able scholar – you, Zeb – set out to show that an ‘earned’ Ph.D. could be obtained from a famous institution – I know which one! – in exchange for deliberately meaningless pseudoresearch. The cases I have encountered have involved button-counting by stupid and humorless young persons under the supervision of stupid and humorless old fools. I see no way to stop it; the rot is too deep. The only answer is to chuck the system and start over.” My father shrugged. “Impossible.”
“Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda asked, “what do you do on campus? I’ve never asked.”
My husband grinned. “Oh, much what you do, Sharpie.”
“I don’t do anything. Enjoy myself.”
“Me, too. If you look, you will find me listed as ‘research professor in residence.’ An examination of the university’s books would show that I am paid a stipend to match my rank. Further search would show that slightly more than that amount is paid by some trustees in Zurich to the university’s general fund… as long as I remain on campus, a condition not written down. I like being on campus, Sharpie; it gives me privileges not granted the barbarians outside the pale. I teach a course occasionally, as supply for someone on sabbatical or ill.”
“Huh? What courses? What departments?”
“Any department but education. Engineering mathematics. Physics One-Oh-One. Thermogoddamics. Machine elements. Saber and dueling sword. Swimming. And – don’t laugh – English poetry from Chaucer through the Elizabethans. I enjoy teaching something worth teaching. I don’t charge for courses I teach; the Chancellor and I understand each other.”
“I’m not sure I understand you,” I said, “but I love you anyhow. Let’s go swimming.”

Chapter X

“‘ – and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon’!”

Zeb:
Before heading for the pool our wives argued over how Barsoomian warriors dress – a debate complicated by the fact that I was the only one fairly sober. While I was telling my “shameful story,” Jake had refreshed his Scotch-on-rocks and was genially argumentative, Our brides had stuck to one highball each but, while one jigger gave Deety a happy glow, Sharpie’s mass is so slight that the same dosage made her squiffed.
Jake and I agreed to wear side arms. Our princesses had buckled them on; we would wear them. But Deety wanted me to take off the grease-stained shorts I had worn while working. “Captain John Carter never wears clothes. He arrived on Barsoom naked, and from then on never wore anything but the leather and weapons of a fighting man. Jeweled leather for state occasions, plain leather for fighting – and sleeping silks at night. Barsoomians don’t wear clothes. When John Carter first laid eyes on Dejah Thoris,” Deety closed her eyes and recited: “‘She was as destitute of clothes as the Green Martians… save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked… ‘” Deety opened her eyes, stared solemnly. “The women never wear clothes, just jewelry.”
“Purty shilly,” said her father, with a belch. “Scuse me!”
“When they were chilly, they wrapped furs around them, Pop. I mean ‘Mors Kajak, my revered father.'”
Jake answered with slow precision. “Not… ‘chilly.’ Silly! With a clash of blades and flash of steel, man doesn’t want family treasures swinging in the breeze ‘n’ banging his knees. Distracts him. Might get ’em sliced off. Correc’, Captain John Carter?”
“Logical,” I agreed.
“Besides, illustrations showed men wearing breech clouts. Pro’ly steel jockstrap underneath. I would.”
“Those pictures were painted early in the twentieth century, Pop. Censored. But the stories make it clear. Weapons for men, jewelry for women – furs for cold weather.”
“I know how I should dress,” put in Sharpie. “Thuvia wears jewels on bits of gauze – I remember the book cover. Not clothes. Just something to fasten jewels to. Deety – Dejah Thoris, I mean – do you have a gauze scarf I can use? Fortunately I was wearing pearls when Mors Kajak kidnapped me.”
“Sharpie,” I objected, “you can’t be Thuvia. She married Carthoris. Mors Kajak – or Mors Kajake, might be a misspelling – is your husband.”
“Cer’nly Mors Jake is my husband! But I’m his second wife; that explains everything. But it ill becomes the Warlord to address a princess of the House of Ptarth as ‘Sharpie.” Mrs. Burroughs drew herself up to her full 152 centimeters and tried to look offended.
“My humble apologies, Your Highness.”
Sharpie giggled. “Can’t stay mad at our Warlord. Dejah Thoris hon – Green tulle? Blue? Anything but white.”
“I’ll go look.”
“Ladies,” I objected, “if we don’t get moving, the pool will cool off. You can sew on pearls this evening. Anyhow, where do pearls come from on Barsoom? Dead sea bottoms – no oysters.”
“From Korus, the Lost Sea of Dor,” Deety explained.
“They’ve got you, Son. But I either go swimming right now – or I have another drink… and then another, and then another. Working too hard. Too tense. Too much worry.”
“Okay, Pop; we swim. Aunt H – Aunt Thuvia?”
“All right, Dejah Thoris. To save Mors Jacob from himself. But I won’t wear earthling clothes. You can have my mink cape; may be chilly coming back.”
Jake wrapped his sarong into a breech clout, strapped it in place with his saber belt. I replaced those grimy shorts with swim briefs which Deety conceded were “almost Barsoomian.” I was no longer dependent on Jake’s clothes; my travel kit, always in my car, once I got at it, supplied necessities from passport to poncho. Sharpie wore pearls and rings she had been wearing at her party, plus a scarf around her waist to which she attached all the costume jewelry Deety could dig up. Deety carried Hilda’s mink cape – then wrapped it around her. “My Captain, someday I want one like this.”
“I’ll skin the minks personally,” I promised her.
“Oh, dear! I think this is synthetic.”
“I don’t. Ask Hilda.”
“I will most carefully not ask her. But I’ll settle for synthetic.”
I said, “My beloved Princess, you eat meat. Minks are vicious carnivores and the ones used for fur are raised for no other purpose – not trapped. They are well treated, then killed humanely. If your ancestors had not killed for meat and fur as the last glaciation retreated, you would not be here. Illogical sentiment leads to the sort of tragedy you find in India and Bangladesh.”
Deety was silent some moments as we followed Jake and Hilda down toward the pool. “My Captain -“
“Yes, Princess?”
“I stand corrected. But your brain works so much like a computer that you scare me.”
“I don’t ever want to scare you. I’m not bloodthirsty – not with minks, not with steers, not with anything. But I’ll kill without hesitation… for you.”
“Zebadiah -“
“Yes, Deety?”
“I am proud that you made me your wife. I will try to be a good wife… and your princess.”
“You do. You have. You always will. Dejah Thoris, my princess and only love, until I met you, I was a boy playing with oversized toys. Today I am a man. With a wife to protect and cherish… a child to plan for. I’m truly alive, at last! Hey! What are you sniffling about? Stop it!”
“I’ll cry if I feel like it!”
“Well… don’t get it on Hilda’s cape.”
“Gimme a hanky.”
“I don’t even have a Kleenex.” I brushed away her tears with my fingers. “Sniff hard. You can cry on me tonight. In bed.”
“Let’s go to bed early.”
“Right after dinner. Sniffles all gone?”
“I think so. Do pregnant women always cry?”
“So I hear.”
“Well… I’m not going to do it again. No excuse for it; I’m terribly happy.”
“The Polynesians do something they call ‘Crying happy.’ Maybe that’s what you do.”
“I guess so. But I’ll save it for private.” Deety started to shrug the cape off. “Too hot, lovely as it feels.” She stopped with the cape off her shoulders, suddenly pulled it around her again. “Who’s coming up the hill?”
I looked up, saw that Jake and Hilda had reached the pool – and a figure was appearing from below, beyond the boulder that dammed it.
“I don’t know. Stay behind me.” I hurried toward the pool.
The stranger was dressed as a Federal Ranger. As I closed in, I heard the stranger say to Jake, “Are you Jacob Burroughs?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Are you or aren’t you? If you are, I have business with you. If you’re not, you’re trespassing. Federal land, restricted access.”
“Jake!” I called out. “Who is he?”
The newcomer turned his head. “Who are you?”
“Wrong sequence,” I told him. “You haven’t identified yourself.”
“Don’t be funny,” the stranger said. “You know this uniform. I’m Bennie Hibol, the Ranger hereabouts.”
I answered most carefully, “Mr. Highball, you are a man in a uniform, wearing a gun belt and a shield. That doesn’t make you a Federal officer. Show your credentials and state your business.”
The uniformed character sighed. “I got no time to listen to smart talk.” He rested his hand on the butt of his gun. “If one of you is Burroughs, speak up. I’m going to search this site and cabin. There’s stuff coming up from Sonora; this sure as hell is the transfer point.”
Deety suddenly came out from behind me, moved quickly and placed herself beside her father. “Where’s your search warrant? Show your authority!” She had the cape clutched around her; her face quivered with indignation.
“Another joker!” This clown snapped open his holster. “Federal land – here’s my authority!”
Deety suddenly dropped the cape, stood naked in front of him. I drew, lunged, and cut down in one motion – slashed the wrist, recovered, thrust upward from low line into the belly above the gun belt.
As my point entered, Jake’s saber cut the side of the neck almost to decapitation. Our target collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, lay by the pool, bleeding at three wounds.
“Zebadiah, I’m sorry!”
“About what, Princess?” I asked as I wiped my blade on the alleged ranger’s uniform. I noticed the color of the blood with distaste.
“He didn’t react! I thought my strip act would give you more time.”
“You did distract him,” I reassured her. “He watched you and didn’t watch me. Jake, what kind of a creature has bluish green blood?”
“I don’t know.”
Sharpie came forward, squatted down, dabbed a finger in the blood, sniffed it. “Hemocyanin. I think,” she said calmly. “Deety, you were right. Alien. The largest terrestrial fauna with that method of oxygen transport is a lobster. But this thing is no lobster, it’s a ‘Black Hat.’ How did you know?”
“I didn’t. But he didn’t sound right. Rangers are polite. And they never fuss about showing their I.D.’s.”
“I didn’t know,” I admitted. “I wasn’t suspicious, just annoyed.”
“You moved mighty fast,” Jake approved.
“I never know why till it’s over. You didn’t waste time yourself, tovarishch. Drawing saber while he was pulling a gun – that takes guts and speed. But let’s not talk now – where are his pals? We may be picked off getting back to the house.”
“Look at his pants,” Hilda suggested. “He hasn’t been on horseback. Hasn’t climbed far, either. Jacob, is there a jeep trail?”
“No. This isn’t accessible by jeep – just barely by horse.”
“Hasn’t been anything overhead,” I added. “No chopper, no air car.”
“Continua craft,” said Deety.
“Huh?”
“Zebadiah, the ‘Black Hats’ are aliens who don’t want Pop to build a time-space machine. We know that. So it follows that they have continua craft.”
I thought about it. “Deety. I’m going to bring you breakfast in bed. Jake, how do we spot an alien continua craft? It doesn’t have to look like Gay Deceiver.”
Jake frowned. “No. Any shape. But a one-passenger craft might not be much larger than a phone booth.”
“If it’s a one-man – one-alien – job, it should be parked down in that scrub,” I said, pointing. “We can find it.”
“Zebadiah,” protested Deety, “we don’t have time to search. We ought to get out of here! Fast!”
Jake said, “My daughter is right but not for that reason. Its craft is not necessarily waiting. It could be parked an infinitesimal interval away along any of six axes, and either return automatically, preprogrammed, or by some method of signaling that we can postulate but not describe. The alien craft would not be here-now… but will be here-later. For pickup.”
“In that case, Jake, you and I and the gals should scram out of here-now to there-then. Be missing. How long has our pressure test been running? What time is it?”
“Seventeen-seventeen,” Deety answered instantly.
I looked at my wife. “Naked as a frog. Where do you hide your watch, dearest? Surely, not there.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Smarty. I have a clock in my head. I never mention it because people give me funny looks.”
“Deety does have innate time sense,” agreed her father, “accurate to thirteen seconds plus or minus about four seconds; I’ve measured it.”
“I’m sorry, Zebadiah – I don’t mean to be a freak.”
“Sorry about what, Princess? I’m impressed. What do you do about time zones?”
“Same as you do. Add or subtract as necessary. Darling, everyone has a built-in circadian. Mine is merely more nearly exact than most people’s. Like having absolute pitch – some do, some don’t.”
“Are you a lightning calculator?”
“Yes… but computers are so much faster that I no longer do it much. Except one thing – I can sense a glitch – spot a wrong answer. Then I look for garbage in the program. If I don’t find it, I send for a hardware specialist. Look, sweetheart, discuss my oddities later. Pop, let’s dump that thing down the septic tank and go. I’m nervous, I am.”
“Not so fast, Deety.” Hilda was still squatting by the corpse. “Zebbie. Consult your hunches. Are we in danger?”
“Well… not this instant.”
“Good. I want to dissect this creature.”
“Aunt Hilda!”
“Take a Miltown, Deety. Gentlemen, the Bible or somebody said, ‘Know thy enemy.’ This is the only ‘Black Hat’ we’ve seen… and he’s not human and not born on earth. There is a wealth of knowledge lying here and it ought not to be shoved down a septic tank until we know more about it. Jacob, feel this.”
Hilda’s husband got down on his knees, let her guide his hand through the “ranger’s” hair. “Feel those bumps, dearest?”
“Yes!”
“Much like the budding horns of a lamb, are they not?”
“Oh – ‘And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon’!”
I squatted down, felt for horn buds. “Be damned! He did come up out of the earth – up this slope anyhow – and he spake as a dragon. Talked unfriendly, and all the dragons I’ve ever heard of talked mean or belched fire. Hilda, when you field-strip this critter, keep an eye out for the Number of the Beast.”
“I shall! Who’s going to help me get this specimen up to the house? I want three volunteers.”
Deety gave a deep sigh, “I volunteer. Aunt Hilda… must you do this?”
“Deety, it ought to be done at Johns Hopkins, with x-ray and proper tools and color holovision. But I’m the best biologist for it because I’m the only biologist. Honey child, you don’t have to watch. Aunt Sharpie has helped in an emergency room after a five-car crash; to me, blood is just a mess to clean up. Green blood doesn’t bother me even that much.”
Deety gulped. “I’ll help carry. I said I would!”
“Dejah Thoris!”
“Sir? Yes, my Captain?”
“Back away from that. Take this. And this.” I unbuckled sword and belt, shoved down my swimming briefs, handed all of it to Deety. “Jake, help me get him up into fireman’s carry.”
“I’ll help carry, Son.”
“No, I can tote him easier than two could. Sharpie, where do you want to work?”
“It will have to be the dining table.”
“Aunt Hilda, I don’t want that thing on my – ! I beg your pardon; it’s your dining table.”
“You’re forgiven only if you’ll concede that it is our dining table. Deety, how many times must I repeat that I am not crowding you out of your home? We are co-housewives – my only seniority lies in being twenty years older. To my regret.”
“Hilda my dear one, what would you say to a workbench in the garage with a drop cloth on it and flood lights over it?”
“I say, ‘Swell!’ I don’t think a dining table is the place for a dissection, either. But I couldn’t think of anywhere else.”
With help from Jake, I got that damned carcass draped across my shoulders in fireman’s carry. Deety started up the path with me, carrying my belt and sword and my briefs in one arm so that she could hold my free hand – despite my warning that she might be splashed with alien blood. “No, Zebadiah, I got overtaken by childishness. I won’t let it happen again. I must conquer all squeamishness – I’ll be changing diapers soon.” She was silent a moment. “That is the first time I’ve seen death. In a person, I mean. An alien humanoid person I should say… but I thought he was a man. I once saw a puppy run over – I threw up. Even though it was not my puppy and I didn’t go close.” She added, “An adult should face up to death, should she not?”
“Face up to it, yes,” I agreed. “But not grow calloused. Deety, I’ve seen too many men die. I’ve never grown inured to it. One must accept death, learn not to fear it, then never worry about it. ‘Make Today Count!’ as a friend whose days are numbered told me. Live in that spirit and when death comes, it will come as a welcome friend.”
“You say much what my mother told me before she died.”
“Your mother must have been an extraordinary woman. Deety, in the two weeks I’ve known you, I’ve heard so much about her from all three of you that I feel as if I knew her. A friend I hadn’t seen lately. She sounds like a wise woman.”
“I think she was, Zebadiah. Certainly she was good. Sometimes, when I have a hard choice, I ask myself, ‘What would Mama do?’ – and everything falls into place.”
“Both good and wise… and her daughter shows it. Uh, how old are you, Deety?”
“Does it matter, sir?”
“No. Curiosity.”
“I wrote my birth date on our marriage license application.”
“Beloved, my head was spinning so hard that I had trouble remembering my own. But I should not have asked – women have birthdays, men have ages. I want to know your birthday; I have no need to know the year.”
“April twenty-second, Zebadiah – one day older than Shakespeare.”
“‘Age could not wither her – ‘ Woman, you carry your years well.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“That snoopy question came from having concluded in my mind that you were twenty-six… figuring from the fact that you have a doctor’s degree. Although you look younger.”
“I think twenty-six is a satisfactory age.”
“I wasn’t asking,” I said hastily. “I got confused from knowing Hilda’s age… then hearing her say that she is – or claims to be – twenty years older than you. It did not jibe with my earlier estimate, based on your probable age on graduating from high school plus your two degrees.”
Jake and Hilda had lingered at the pool while Jake washed his hands and rinsed from his body smears of alien ichor. Being less burdened, they climbed the path faster than we and came up behind us just as Deety answered,
“Zebadiah, I never graduated from high school.”
“Oh.”
“That’s right,” agreed her father. “Deety matriculated by taking College Boards. At fourteen. No problem since she stayed home and didn’t have to live in a dorm. Got her B.S. in three years… and that was a happy thing, as Jane lived to see Deety move the tassel from one side of her mortar board to the other. Jane in a wheelchair and happy as a child – her doctor said it couldn’t hurt her… meaning she was dying anyhow.” He added, “Had her mother been granted only three more years she could have seen Deety’s doctorate conferred, two years ago.”
“Pop… sometimes you chatter.”
“Did I say something out of line?”
“No, Jake,” I assured him. “But I’ve just learned that I robbed the cradle. I knew I had but hadn’t realized how much. Deety darling, you are twenty-two.”
“Is twenty-two an unsatisfactory age?”
“No, my Princess. Just right.”
“My Captain said that women have birthdays while men have ages. Is it permitted to inquire your age, sir? I didn’t pay close attention to that form we had to fill out, either.”
I answered solemnly. “But Dejah Thoris knows that Captain John Carter is centuries old, cannot recall his childhood, and has always looked thirty years old.”
“Zebadiah, if that is your age, you’ve had a busy thirty years. You said you left home when you graduated from high school, worked your way through college, spent three years on active duty, then worked your way through a doctor’s degree -“
“A phony one!”
“That doesn’t reduce required residence. Aunt Hilda says you’ve been a professor four years.”
“Uh… will you settle for nine years older than you are?”
“I’ll settle for whatever you say.”
“He’s at it again,” put in Sharpie. “He was run off two other campuses. Co-ed scandals. Then he found that in California nobody cared, so he moved west.”
I tried to look hurt. “Sharpie darling, I always married them. One gal turned out already to be married and in the other case the child wasn’t mine; she slipped one over on me.”
“The truth isn’t in him, Deety. But he’s brave and he bathes every day and he’s rich – and we love him anyhow.”
“The truth isn’t in you either, Aunt Hilda. But we love you anyhow. It says in ‘Little Women’ that a bride should be half her husband’s age plus seven years. Zebadiah and I hit close to that.”
“A rule that makes an old hag out of me. Jacob, I’m just Zebbie’s age – thirty-one. But we’ve both been thirty-one for ages.”
“I’ll bet he does feel aged after carrying that thing uphill. Atlas, can you support your burden while I get the garage open, a bench dragged out and covered? Or shall I help you put it down?”
“I’d just have to pick it up again. But don’t dally.”

Chapter XI

” – citizens must protect themselves.”

Zeb:
I felt better after I got that “ranger’s” corpse dumped and the garage door closed, everyone indoors. I had told Hilda that I felt no “immediate” danger – but my wild talent does not warn me until the Moment of Truth. The “Blokes in the Black Hats” had us located. Or possibly had never lost us; what applies to human gangsters has little to do with aliens whose powers and motives and plans we had no way to guess.
We might be as naive as a kitten who thinks he is hidden because his head is, unaware that his little rump sticks out.
They were alien, they were powerful, they were multiple (three thousand? three million? – we didn’t know the Number of the Beast) – and they knew where we were. True, we had killed one – by luck, not by planning. That “ranger” would be missed; we could expect more to call in force.
Foolhardiness has never appealed to me. Given a chance to run, I run. I don’t mean I’ll bug out on wing mate when the unfriendlies show up, and certainly not on a wife and unborn child. But I wanted us all to run – me, my wife, my blood brother who was also my father-in-law, and his wife, my chum Sharpie who was brave, practical, smart, and unsqueamish (that she would joke in the jaws of Moloch was not a fault but a source of esprit).
I wanted us to go! – Tau axis, Teh axis, rotate, translate, whatever – anywhere not infested by gruesomes with green gore.
I checked the gauge and felt better; Gay’s inner pressure had not dropped. Too much to expect Gay to be a spaceship – not equipped to scavenge and replenish air. But it was pleasant to know that she would hold pressure much longer than it would take us to scram for home if we had to – assuming that unfriendlies had not shot holes in her graceful shell.
I went by the inside passageway into the cabin, used soap and hot water, rinsed off and did it again, dried down and felt clean enough to kiss my wife, which I did. Deety held onto me and reported.
“Your kit is packed, sir. I’m finishing mine, the planned weight and space, and nothing but practical clothes -“
“Sweetheart.”
“Yes, Zebadiah?”
“Take the clothes you were married in and mine too. Same for Jake and Hilda. And your father’s dress uniform. Or was it burned in Logan?”
“But, Zebadiah, you emphasized rugged clothes.”
“So I did. To keep your mind on the fact that we can’t guess the conditions we’ll encounter and don’t know how long we’ll be gone or if we’ll be back. So I listed everything that might be useful in pioneering a virgin planet – since we might be stranded and never get home. Everything from Jake’s microscope and water-testing gear to technical manuals and tools. And weapons – and flea powder. But it’s possible that we will have to play the roles of ambassadors for humanity at the court of His Extreme Majesty, Overlord of Galactic Empires in thousandth-and-third continuum. We may need the gaudiest clothes we can whip up. We don’t know, we can’t guess.”
“I’d rather pioneer.”
“We may not have a choice. When you were figuring weights, do you recall spaces marked ‘Assigned mass such and such – list to come’?”
“Certainly. Total exactly one hundred kilos, which seemed odd. Space slightly less than one cubic meter split into crannies.”
“Those are yours, snubnose. And Pop or Hilda. Mass can be up to fifty percent over; I’ll tell Gay to trim to match. Got an old doll? A security blanket? A favorite book of poems? Scrapbook? Family photographs? Bring ’em all!”
“Golly!” (I never enjoy looking at my wife quite so much as when she lights up and is suddenly a little girl.)
“Don’t leave space for me. I have only what I arrived with. What about shoes for Hilda?”
“She claims she doesn’t need any, Zebadiah – that her calluses are getting calluses on them. But I’ve worked out expedients. I got Pop some Dr. Scholl’s shoe liners when we were building; I have three pairs left and can trim them. Liners and enough bobby sox make her size three-and-half feet fit my clodhoppers pretty well. And I have a sentimental keepsake; Keds Pop bought me when I first went to summer camp, at ten. They fit Aunt Hilda.”
“Good girl!” I added, “You seem to have everything in hand. How about food? Not stores we are carrying, I mean now. Has anybody thought about dinner? Killing aliens makes me hungry.”
“Buffet style, Zebadiah. Sandwiches and stuff on the kitchen counter, and I thawed and heated an apple pie. I fed one sandwich to Hilda, holding it for her; she says she’s going to finish working, then scrub before she eats anything more.”
“Sharpie munched a sandwich while she carved that thing?”
“Aunt Hilda is rugged, Zebadiah – almost as rugged as you are.”
“More rugged than I am. I could do an autopsy if I had to – but not while eating. I think I speak for Jake, too.”
“I know you speak for Pop. He saw me feeding her, turned green and went elsewhere. Go look at what she’s been doing, Zebadiah; Hilda has found interesting things.”
“Hmmm – Are you the little girl who had a tizzy at the idea of dissecting a dead alien?”
“No, sir, I am not. I’ve decided to stay grown up. It’s not easy. But it’s more satisfying. An adult doesn’t panic at a snake; she just checks to see if it’s got rattles. I’ll never squeal again. I’m grown up at last… a wife instead of a pampered princess.”
“You will always be my Princess!”
“I hope so, my Chieftain. But to merit that, I must learn to be a pioneer mother – wring the neck of a rooster, butcher a hog, load while my husband shoots, take his place and his rifle when he is wounded. I’ll learn – I’m stubborn, I am. Grab a hunk of pie and go see Hilda. I know just what to do with the extra hundred kilos: books, photographs, Pop’s microfilm files and portable viewer, Pop’s rifle and a case of ammo that the weight schedule didn’t allow for -“
“Didn’t know he had it – what calibre?”
“Seven point six two millimeters, long cartridge.”
“Glory be! Pop and I use the same ammo!”
“Didn’t know you carried a rifle, Zebadiah.”
“I don’t advertise it, it’s unlicensed. I must show all of you how to get at it.”
“Got any use for a lady’s purse gun? A needle gun, Skoda fléchettes. Not much range but either they poison or they break up and expand… and it fires ninety times on one magazine.”
“What are you, Deety? Honorable Hatchet Man?”
“No, sir. Pop got it for me – black market – when I started working nights. He said he would rather hire shysters to get me acquitted – or maybe probation – than to have to go down to the morgue to identify my body. Haven’t had to use it; in Logan I hardly need it. Zebadiah, Pop has gone to a great deal of trouble to get me the best possible training in self-defense. He’s just as highly trained – that’s why I keep him out of fist fights. Because it would be a massacre. He and Mama decided this when I was a baby. Pop says cops and courts no longer protect citizens, so citizens must protect themselves.”
“I’m afraid he’s right.”
“My husband, I can’t evaluate my opinions of right and wrong because I learned them from my parents and haven’t lived long enough to have formed opinions in disagreement with theirs.”
“Deety, your parents did okay.”
“I think so… but that’s subjective. As may be, I was kept out of blackboard jungles – public schools – until we moved to Utah. And I was trained to fight – armed or unarmed. Pop and I noticed how you handled a sword. Your moulinets are like clockwork. And when you drop into point guard, your forearm is perfectly covered.”
“Jake is no slouch. He drew so fast I never saw it, and cut precisely above the collar.”
“Pop says you are better at it.”
“Mmm – Longer reach. He’s probably faster. Deety, the best swordmaster I ever had was your height and reach. I couldn’t even cross blades with him unless he allowed me to.”
“You never did say where you had taken up swordsmanship.”
I grinned down at her. “Y.M.C.A. in downtown Manhattan. I had foil in high school. I fiddled with saber and épée in college. But I never encountered swordsmen until I moved to Manhattan. Took it up because I was getting soft. Then during that so-called ‘research trip’ in Europe I met swordsmen with family tradition – sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of maîtres d’armes. Learned that it was a way of life – and I had started too late. Deety, I fibbed to Hilda; I’ve never fought a student duel. But I did train in saber in Heidelberg under the Säbelmeister reputed to coach one underground Korps. He was the little guy I couldn’t cross steel with. Fast! Up to then I had thought I was fast. But I got faster under his tutelage. The day I was leaving he told me that he wished he had had me twenty years sooner; he might have made a swordsman of me.”
“You were fast enough this afternoon!”
“No, Deety. You had his eye, I attacked from the flank. You won that fight – not me, not Pop. Although what Pop did was far more dangerous than what I did.”
“My Captain, I will not let you disparage yourself! I cannot hear you!”
Women, bless their warm hearts and strange minds – Deety had appointed me her hero; that settled it. I would have to try to measure up. I cut a piece of apple pie, ate it quickly while I walked slowly through the passage into the garage – didn’t want to reach the “morgue” still eating.
The “ranger” was on its back with clothes cut away, open from chin to crotch, and spread. Nameless chunks of gizzard were here and there around the cadaver. It gave off a fetid odor.
Hilda was still carving, ice tongs in left hand, knife in her right, greenish goo up over her wrists. As I approached she put down the knife, picked up a razor blade – did not look up until I spoke. “Learning things, Sharpie?”
She put down her tools, wiped her hands on a towel, pushed back her hair with her forearm. “Zebbie, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Well… look at this.” She touched the corpse’s right leg, and spoke to the corpse itself. “What’s a nice joint like this doing in a girl like you?”
I saw what she meant: a long, gaunt leg with an extra knee lower than the human knee; it bent backwards. Looking higher, I saw that its arms had similar extra articulation. “Did you say ‘girl’?”
“I said ‘girl.’ Zebbie, this monster is either female or hermaphroditic. A fully developed uterus, two-horned like a cat, one ovary above each horn. But there appear to be testes lower down and a dingus that may be a retractable phallus. Female – but probably male as well. Bisexual but does not impregnate itself; the plumbing wouldn’t hook up. I think these critters can both pitch and catch.”
“Taking turns? Or simultaneously?”
“Wouldn’t that be sump’n? No, for mechanical reasons I think they take turns. Whether ten minutes apart or ten years, deponent sayeth not. But I’d give a pretty to see two of ’em going to it!”
“Sharpie, you’ve got a one-track mind.”
“It’s the main track. Reproduction is the main track; the methods and mores of sexual copulation are the central feature of all higher developments of life.”
“You’re ignoring money and television.”
“Piffle! All human activities including scientific research are either mating dances and care of the young, or the dismal sublimations of born losers in the only game in town. Don’t try to kid Sharpie. Took me forty-two years to grab a real man and get myself knocked up – but I made it! Everything I’ve done up to the last two weeks has been ‘vamp till ready.’ How about you, you shameless stud? Am I not right? Careful how you answer; I’ll tell Deety.”
“I’ll take the Fifth.”
“Make mine a quart. Zebbie, I hate these monsters; they interfere with my plans – a rose-covered cottage, a baby in the crib, a pot roast in the oven, me in a gingham dress, and my man coming down the lane after a hard day flunking freshmen – me with his slippers and his pipe and a dry martini waiting for him. Heaven! All else is vanity and vexation. Four fully developed mammary glands but lacking the redundant fat characteristic of the human female – ‘cept me, damn it. A double stomach, a single intestine. A two-compartment heart that seems to pump by peristalsis rather than by beating. Cordate. I haven’t examined the brain; I don’t have a proper saw – but it must be as well developed as ours. Definitely humanoid, outrageously nonhuman. Don’t knock over those bottles; they are specimens of body fluids.”
“What are these things?”
“Splints to conceal the unhuman articulation. Plastic surgery on the face, too, I’m pretty sure, and cheaters to reshape the skull. The hair is fake; these Boojums don’t have hair. Something like tattooing – or maybe masking I haven’t been able to peel off – to make the face and other exposed skin look human instead of blue-green. Zeb, seven-to-two a large number of missing persons have been used as guinea pigs before they worked out methods for this masquerade. Swoop! A flying saucer dips down and two more guinea pigs wind up in their laboratories.”
“There hasn’t been a flying saucer scare in years.”
“Poetic license, dear. If they have space-time twisters, they can pop up anywhere, steal what they want – or replace a real human with a convincing fake – and be gone like switching off a light.”
“This one couldn’t get by very long. Rangers have to take physical examinations.”
“This one may be a rush job, prepared just for us. A permanent substitution might fool anything but an x-ray – and might fool even x-ray if the doctor giving the examination was one of Them … a theory you might think about. Zebbie, I must get to work. There is so much to learn and so little time. I can’t learn a fraction of what this carcass could tell a real comparative biologist.”
“Can I help?” (I was not anxious to.)
“Well -“
“I haven’t much to do until Jake and Deety finish assembling the last of what they are going to take. So what can I do to help?”
“I could work twice as fast if you would take pictures. I have to stop to wipe my hands before I touch the camera.”
“I’m your boy, Sharpie. Just say what angle, distance, and when.”
Hilda looked relieved. “Zebbie, have I told you that I love you despite your gorilla appearance and idiot grin? Underneath you have the soul of a cherub. I want a bath so badly I can taste it – could be the last hot bath in a long time. And the bidet – the acme of civilized decadence. I’ve been afraid I would still be carving strange meat when Jacob said it was time to leave.”
“Carve away, dear; you’ll get your bath.” I picked up the camera, the one Jake used for record-keeping: a Polaroid Stereo-Instamatic-self-focusing, automatic irising, automatic processing, the perfect camera for engineer or scientist who needs a running record.
I took endless pictures while Hilda sweated away. “Sharpie, doesn’t it worry you to work with bare hands? You might catch the Never-Get-Overs.”
“Zebbie, if these critters could be killed by our bugs, they would have arrived here with no immunities and died quickly. They didn’t. Therefore it seems likely that we can’t by hurt by their bugs. Radically different biochemistries.”
It sounded logical – but I could not forget Kettering’s Law: “Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.”
Deety appeared, set down a loaded hamper. “That’s the last.” She had her hair up in a bath knot and was dressed solely in rubber gloves. “Hi, dearest. Aunt Hilda, I’m ready to help.”
“Not much you can do, Deety hon – unless you want to relieve Zebbie.”
Deety was staring at the corpse and did not look happy – her nipples were down flat. “Go take a bath!” I told her. “Scram.”
“Do I stink that badly?”
“You stink swell, honey girl. But Sharpie pointed out that this may be our last chance at soap and hot water in quite a while. I’ve promised her that we won’t leave for Canopus and points east until she has her bath. So get yours out of the way, then you can help me stow while she gets sanitary.”
“All right.” Deety backed off and her nipples showed faintly – not rigid but she was feeling better. My darling keeps her feelings out of her face, mostly – but those pretty pink spigots are barometers of her morale.
“Just a sec, Deety,” Hilda added. “This afternoon you said, ‘He didn’t react!’ What did you mean?”
“What I said. Strip in front of a man and he reacts, one way or another. Even if he tries to ignore it, his eyes give him away. But he didn’t. Of course he’s not a man – but I didn’t know that when I tried to distract him.”
I said, “But he did notice you, Deety – and that gave me my chance.”
“But only the way a dog, or a horse, or any animal, will notice any movement. He noticed but ignored it. No reaction.”
“Zebbie, does that remind you of anything?”
“Should it?”
“The first day we were here you told us a story about a ‘zaftig co-ed.'”
“I did?”
“She was flunking math.”
“Oh! ‘Brainy.'”
“Yes, Professor N. O’Heret Brain. See any parallel?”
“But ‘No Brain’ has been on campus for years. Furthermore he turns red in the face. Not a tattoo job.”
“I said this one might be a rush job. Would anyone be in a better position to discredit a mathematical theory than the head of the department of mathematics at a very prominent university? Especially if he was familiar with that theory and knew that it was correct?”
“Hey, wait a minute!” put in Deety. “Are you talking about that professor who argued with Pop? The one with the phony invitation? I thought he was just a stooge? Pop says he’s a fool.”
“He behaves like a pompous old fool,” agreed Hilda. “I can’t stand him. I plan to do an autopsy on him.”
“But he’s not dead.”
“That can be corrected!” Sharpie said sharply.

Chapter XII

“They might fumigate this planet and take it.”

Hilda:
By the time I was out of my bath, Jacob, Deety, and Zebbie had Gay Deceiver stowed and lists checked (can opener, cameras, et cetera) – even samples of fluids and tissues from the cadaver, as Zebbie’s miracle car had a small refrigerator. Deety wasn’t happy about my specimens being in the refrigerator but they were very well packed, layer on layer of plastic wrap, then sealed into a freezer box. Besides, that refrigerator contained mostly camera film, dynamite caps, and other noneatables. Food was mostly freeze-dried and sealed in nitrogen, except foods that won’t spoil.
We were dog tired. Jacob moved that we sleep, then leave. “Zeb, unless you expect a new attack in the next eight hours, we should rest. I need to be clearheaded in handling verniers. This house is almost a fortress, will be pitch black, and does not radiate any part of the spectrum. They may conclude that we ran for it right after we got their boy – hermaphrodite, I mean; the fake ‘ranger’ – what do you think?”
“Jake, I wouldn’t have been surprised had we been clobbered at any moment. Since they didn’t – Well, I don’t like to handle Gay when I’m not sharp. More mistakes are made in battle through fatigue than from any other cause. Let’s sack in. Anybody need a sleeping pill?”
“All I need is a bed. Hilda my love, tonight I sleep on my own side.”
I said, “Can’t I even cuddle up your back?”
“Promise not to tickle?”
I made a face at my darling. “I promise.”
“Zebadiah,” Deety said. “I don’t want to cuddle; I want to be held… so I’ll know I’m safe. For the first time since my twelfth birthday I don’t feel sexy.”
“Princess, it’s settled; we sleep. But I suggest that we be up before daylight. Let’s not crowd our luck.”
“Sensible,” agreed Jacob.
I shrugged. “You men have to pilot; Deety and I are cargo. We can nap in the back seats – if we miss a few universes, what of it? If you’ve seen one universe, you’ve seen ’em all. Deety?”
“If it were up to me, I would lam out of here so fast my shoes would be left standing. But Zebadiah has to pilot and Pop has to set verniers… and both are tired and don’t want to chance it. But, Zebadiah… don’t fret if I rest with my eyes and ears open.”
“Huh? Deety – why?”
“Somebody ought to be on watch. It might give us that split-second advantage – split seconds have saved us at least twice. Don’t worry, darling; I often skip a night to work a long program under shared time. Doesn’t hurt me; a nap next day and I’m ready to bite rattlesnakes. Tell him, Pop.”
“That’s correct, Zeb, but -“
Zebbie cut him off. “Maybe you gals can split watches and have breakfast ready. Right now I’ve got to hook up Gay Deceiver so that she can reach me in our bedroom. Deety, I can add a program so that she can listen around the cabin, too. Properly programmed, Gay’s the best watch dog of any of us. Will that satisfy you duty-struck little broads?”
Deety said nothing so I kept quiet. Zebbie, frowning, turned back to his car, opened a door and prepared to hook Gay’s voice and ears to the three house intercoms. “Want to shift the basement talky-talk to your bedroom, Jake?”
“Good idea,” Jacob agreed.
“Wait a half while I ask Gay what she has. Hello, Gay.”
“Howdy, Zeb. Wipe off your chin.”
“Program. Running new retrievals. Report new items since last report.”
“Null report, Boss.”
“Thank you, Gay.”
“You’re welcome, Zeb.”
“Program, Gay. Add running news retrieval. Area, Arizona Strip north of Grand Canyon plus Utah. Persons: all persons listed in current running news retrieval programs plus rangers, Federal rangers, forest rangers, park rangers, state rangers. End of added program.”
“New program running, Boss.”
“Program. Add running acoustic report, maximum gain.”
“New program running, Zeb.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Isn’t it time you married me?”
“Good night, Gay.”
“Good night, Zeb. Sleep with your hands outside the covers.”
“Deety, you’ve corrupted Gay. I’ll run a lead outdoors for a microphone while Jake moves the basement intercom to the master bedroom. But maximum gain will put a coyote yapping ten miles away right into bed with you. Jake, I can tell Gay to subtract acoustic report from the news retrieval for your bedroom.”
“Hilda my love, do you want the acoustic subtracted?”
I didn’t but didn’t say so; Gay interrupted:
“Running news retrieval, Boss.”
“Report!”
“Reuters, Straits Times, Singapore. Tragic News of Marston Expedition. Indonesian News Service, Palembang. Two bodies identified as Dr. Cecil Yang and Dr. Z. Edward Carter were brought by jungle buggy to National Militia Headquarters, Telukbetung. The district commandant stated that they will be transferred by air to Palembang for further transport to Singapore when the commandant-in-chief releases them to the Minister of Tourism and Culture. Professor Marston and Mr. Smythe-Belisha are still unreported. Commandants of both districts concede that hopes of finding them alive have diminished. However, a spokesman for the Minister of Tourism and Culture assured a press conference that the Indonesian government would pursue the search more assiduously than ever.”
Zebbie whistled tunelessly. Finally, he said, “Opinions, anyone?”
“He was a brilliant man, Son,” my husband said soberly. “An irreplaceable loss. Tragic.”
“Ed was a good Joe, Jake. But that’s not what I mean. Our tactical situation. Now. Here.”
My husband paused before answering, “Zeb, whatever happened in Sumatra apparently happened about a month ago. Emotionally I feel great turmoil. Logically I am forced to state that I cannot see that our situation has changed.”
“Hilda? Deety?”
“News retrieval report,” announced Gay.
“Report!”
“AP San Francisco via satellite from Saipan, Marianas. TWA hypersonicsemiballistic liner Winged Victory out of San Francisco International at twenty o’clock this evening Pacific Coast Time was seen by eye and radar to implode on reentry. AP Honolulu US Navy Official. USS Submersible Carrier Flying Fish operating near Wake Island has been ordered to proceed flank speed toward site of Winged Victory reentry. She will surface and launch search craft at optimum point. Navy PIO spokesman, when asked what was ‘optimum,’ replied ‘No comment.’ Associated Press’s military editor noted that submerged speed of Flying Fish class, and type and characteristics of craft carried, are classified information. AP-UPI add San Francisco, Winged Victory disaster. TWA public relations released a statement quote if reports received concerning Winged Victory are correct it must be tentatively assumed that no survivors can be expected. But our engineering department denies that implosion could be cause. Collision with orbital debris decaying into atmosphere or even a strike by a meteor could repeat could endrep cause disaster by mischance so unlikely that it can only be described as an Act of God endquote TWA spokesmen released passenger list by order of the Civil Aerospace Board. List follows: California -“
The list was longish. I did not recognize any names until Gay reached: “Doctor Neil O. Brain -“
I gasped. But no one said a word until Gay announced:
“End running news retrieval.”
“Thank you, Gay.”
“A pleasure, Zeb.”
Zebbie said, “Professor?”
“You’re in command, Captain!”
“Very well, sir! All of you – lifeboat rules! I expect fast action and no back talk. Estimated departure – five minutes! First everybody take a pee! Second, put on the clothes you’ll travel in. Jake, switch off, lock up – whatever you do to secure your house for long absence. Deety – follow Jake, make sure he hasn’t missed anything – then you, not Jake, switch out lights and close doors. Hilda, bundle what’s left of that Dutch lunch and fetch it – fast, not fussy. Check the refrigerator for solid foods – no liquids – and cram what you can into Gay’s refrigerator. Don’t dither over choices. Questions, anyone? Move!”
I gave Jacob first crack at our bathroom because the poor dear tenses up; I used the time to slide sandwiches into a freezer sack and half a pie into another. Potato salad? Scrape it into a third and stick in one plastic picnic spoon; germs were now community property. I stuffed this and some pickles into the biggest freezer sack Deety stocked, and closed it.
Jake came out of our bedroom; I threw him a kiss en passant, ducked into our john, turned on water in the basin, sat down, and recited mantras – that often works when I’m jumpy – then used the bidet – patted it and told it goodbye without stopping. My travel clothes were Deety’s baby tennis shoes with a green-and-gold denim miniskirt dress of hers that came to my knees but wasn’t too dreadful with a scarf to belt it. Panties? I had none. Deety had put a pair of hers out for me – but her size would fall off me. Then I saw that the dear baby had gotten at the elastic and knotted it. Yup! pretty good fit – and, with no telling when our next baths would be, panties were practical even though a nuisance.
I spread my cape in front of the refrigerator, dumped my purse and our picnic lunch into it, started salvaging – half a boned ham, quite a bit of cheese, a loaf and a half of bread, two pounds of butter (freezer sacks, and the same for the ham – if Deety hadn’t had a lavish supply of freezer sacks I could not have salvaged much – as it was, I didn’t even get spots on my cape). I decided that jams and jellies and catsup were liquid within Zebbie’s meaning – except some in squeeze tubes. Half a chocolate cake, and the cupboard was bare.
By using my cape as a Santa Claus pack, I carried food into the garage and put it down by Gay – and was delighted to find that I was first.
Zebbie strode in behind me, dressed in a coverall with thigh pockets, a pilot suit. He looked at the pile on my cape. “Where’s the elephant, Sharpie?”
“Cap’n Zebbie, you didn’t say how much, you just said what. What won’t go she can have.” I hooked a thumb at the chopped-up corpse.
“Sorry, Hilda; you are correct.” Zebbie glanced at his wrist watch, the multiple-dial sort they call a “navigator’s watch.”
“Cap’n, this house has loads of gimmicks and gadgets and bells and whistles. You gave them an impossible schedule.”
“On purpose, dear. Let’s see how much food we can stow.”
Gay’s cold chest is set flush in the deck of the driver’s compartment. Zebbie told Gay to open up, then with his shoulders sideways, reached down and unlocked it. “Hand me stuff.”
I tapped his butt. “Out of there, you overgrown midget, and let Sharpie pack. I’ll let you know when it’s tight as a girdle.”
Space that makes Zebbie twist and grunt is roomy for me. He passed things in, I fitted them for maximum stowage. The third item he handed me was the leavings of our buffet dinner. “That’s our picnic lunch,” I told him, putting it on his seat.
“Can’t leave it loose in the cabin.”
“Cap’n, we’ll eat it before it can spoil. I will be strapped down; is it okay if I clutch it to my bosom?”
“Sharpie, have I ever won an argument with you?”
“Only by brute force, dear. Can the chatter and pass the chow.”
With the help of God and a shoehorn it all went in. I was in a back seat with our lunch in my lap and my cape under me before our spouses showed up. “Cap’n Zebbie? Why did the news of Brainy’s death cause your change of mind?”
“Do you disapprove, Sharpie?”
“On the contrary, Skipper. Do you want my guess?”
“Yes.”
“Winged Victory was booby-trapped. And dear Doctor Brain, who isn’t the fool I thought he was, was not aboard. Those poor people were killed so that he could disappear.”
“Go to the head of the class, Sharpie. Too many coincidences… and they – the ‘Blokes in the Black Hats’ – know where we are.”
“Meaning that Professor No Brain, instead of being dead in the Pacific, might show up any second.”
“He and a gang of green-blooded aliens who don’t like geometers.”
“Zebbie, what do you figure their plans are?”
“Can’t guess. They might fumigate this planet and take it. Or conquer us as cattle or as slaves. The only data we have is that they are alien, that they are powerful – and that they have no compunction about killing us. So I have no compunction about killing them. To my regret, I don’t know how. So I’m running – running scared – and taking the three I’m certain are in danger with me.”
“Will we ever be able to find them and kill them?”
Zebbie didn’t answer because Deety and my Jacob arrived, breathless. Father and daughter were in jump suits. Deety looked chesty and cute; my darling looked trim – but worried. “We’re late. Sorry!”
“You’re not late,” Zeb told them. “But into your seats on the bounce.”
“As quick as I open the garage door and switch out the lights.”
“Jake, Jake – Gay is now programmed to do those things herself. In you go, Princess, and strap down. Seat belts, Sharpie. Copilot, after you lock the starboard door, check its seal all the way around by touch before you strap down.”
“Wilco, Cap’n.” It tickled me to hear my darling boning military. He had told me privately that he was a reserve colonel of ordnance – but that Deety had promised not to tell this to our smart young captain and that he wanted the same promise from me – because the T.O. was as it should be; Zeb should command while Jacob handled space-time controls – to each his own. Jacob had asked me to please take orders from Zeb with no back talk… which had miffed me a little. I was an unskilled crew member; I am not stupid, I knew this. In direst emergency I would try to get us home. But even Deety was better qualified than I.
Checkoffs completed, Gay switched off lights, opened the garage door, and backed out onto the landing flat.
“Copilot, can you read your verniers?”
“Captain, I had better loosen my chest belt.”
“Do so if you wish. But your seat adjusts forward twenty centimeters – here, I’ll get it.” Zeb reached down, did something between their seats. “Say when.”
“There – that’s about right. I can read ’em and reach ’em, with chest strap in place. Orders, sir?”
“Where was your car when you and Deety went to the space-time that lacked the letter ‘J’?”
“About where we are now.”
“Can you send us there?”
“I think so. Minimum translation, positive – entropy increasing – along Tau axis.”
“Please move us there, sir.”
My husband touched the controls. “That’s it, Captain.”
I couldn’t see any change. Our house was still a silhouette against the sky, with the garage a black maw in front of us. The stars hadn’t even flickered.
Zebbie said, “Let’s check,” and switched on Gay’s roading lights, brightly lighting our garage. Empty and looked normal.
Zebbie said, “Hey! Look at that!”
“Look at what?” I demanded, and tried to see around Jacob.
“At nothing, rather. Sharpie, where’s your alien?”
Then I understood. No corpse. No green-blood mess. Workbench against the wall and flood lights not rigged.
Zebbie said, “Gay Deceiver, take us home!”
Instantly the same scene… but with carved-up corpse. I gulped.
Zebbie switched out the lights. I felt better but not much.
“Captain?”
“Copilot.”
“Wouldn’t it have been well to have checked for that letter ‘J’? It would have given me a check on calibration.”
“I did check, Jake.”
“Eh?”
“You have bins on the back of your garage neatly stenciled. The one at left center reads ‘Junk Metal.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, and your analog in that space – your twin, Jake-prime, or what you will – has your neat habits. The left-corner bin read ‘Iunk Metal’ spelled with an ‘I.’ A cupboard above and to the right contained ‘Iugs & Iars.’ So I told Gay to take us home. I was afraid they might catch us. Embarrassing.”
Deety said, “Zebadiah – I mean ‘Captain’ – embarrassing how, sir? Oh, that missing letter in the alphabet scared me but it no longer does. Now I’m nervous about aliens. ‘Black Hats.'”
“Deety, you were lucky that first time. Because Deety-prime was not at home. But she may be, tonight. Possibly in bed with her husband, named Zebadiah-prime. Unstable cuss. Likely to shoot at a strange car shining lights into his father-in-law’s garage. A violent character.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“No, Princess; it did worry me. A parallel space, with so small a difference as the lack of one unnecessary letter, but with house and grounds you mistook for your own, seems to imply a father and daughter named ‘Iacob’ and ‘Deiah Thoris.” (Captain Zebbie pronounced the names ‘Yacob’ and ‘Deyah Thoris.’)
“Zebadiah, that scares me almost as much as aliens.”
“Aliens scare me far more. Hello, Gay.”
“Howdy, Zeb. Your nose is runny.”
“Smart Girl, one gee vertically to one klick. Hover.”
“Roger dodger, you old codger.”
We rested on our backs and head rests for a few moments, then with the stomach-surging swoosh of a fast lift, we leveled off and hovered. Zebbie said, “Deety, can the autopilot accept a change in that homing program by voice? Or does it take an offset in the verniers?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Same ell-and-ell two klicks above ground.”
“I think so. Shall I? Or do you want to do it, Captain?”
“You try it, Deety.”
“Yes, sir. Hello, Gay.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Program check. Define ‘Home.”
“‘Home.’ Cancel any-all inertials transitions translations rotations. Return to preprogrammed zero latitude longitude, ground level.”
“Report present location.”
“One klick vertically above ‘Home.”
“Gay. Program revision.”
“Waiting, Deety.”
“Home program. Cancel ‘Ground level.’ Substitute ‘Two klicks above ground level, hovering.”
“Program revision recorded.”
“Gay Deceiver, take us home!”
Instantly, with no feeling of motion, we were much higher.
Zeb said, “Two klicks on the nose! Deety, you’re a smart girl!”
“Zebadiah, I bet you tell that to all the girls.”
“No, just to some. Gay, you’re a smart girl.”
“Then why are you shacked up with that strawberry blonde with the fat knockers?”
Zebbie craned his neck and looked at me. “Sharpie, that’s your voice.”
I ignored him with dignity. Zebbie drove south to the Grand Canyon, eerie in starlight. Without slowing, he said, “Gay Deceiver, take us home!” – and again we were hovering over our cabin. No jar, no shock, no nothing.
Zebbie said, “Jake, once I figure the angles, I’m going to quit spending money on juice. How does she do it when we haven’t been anywhere? – no rotation, no translation.”
“I may have given insufficient thought to a trivial root in equation ninety-seven. But it is analogous to what we were considering doing with planets. A five-dimensional transform simplified to three.”
“‘I dunno, I just work here,'” Captain Zebbie admitted. “But it looks like we will be peddling gravity and transport, as well as real estate and time. Burroughs and Company, Space Warps Unlimited – ‘No job too large, no job too small.’ Send one newdollar for our free brochure.”
“Captain,” suggested Jacob, “would it not be prudent to translate into another space before experimenting further? The alien danger is still with us – is it not?”
Zebbie sobered at once. “Copilot, you are right and it is your duty to advise me when I goof off. However, before we leave, we have one duty we must carry out.”
“Something more urgent than getting our wives to safety?” my Jacob asked – and I felt humble and proud.
“‘Something more urgent.’ Jake, I’ve bounced her around not only to test but to make it hard to track us. Because we must break radio silence. To warn our fellow humans.”
“Oh. Yes, Captain. My apologies, sir. I sometimes forget the broader picture.”
“Don’t we all! I’ve wanted to run and hide ever since this rumpus started. But that took preparation and the delay gave me time to think. Point number one: We don’t know how to fight these critters so we must take cover. Point number two: We are duty-bound to tell the world what we know about aliens. While that little isn’t much – we’ve stayed alive by the skin of our teeth – if five billion people are watching for them, they can be caught. I hope.”
“Captain,” asked Deety, “may I speak?”
“Of course! Anyone with ideas about how to cope with these monsters must speak.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t have such ideas. You must warn the world, sir – of course! But you won’t be believed.”
“I’m afraid you’re right, Deety. But they don’t have to believe me. That monster in the garage speaks for itself. I’m going to call rangers – real rangers! – to pick it up.”
I said, “So that was why you told me just to leave it! I thought it was lack of time.”
“Both, Hilda. We didn’t have time to sack that cadaver and store it in the freezer room. But, if I can get rangers – real rangers – to that garage before ‘Black Hats’ get there, that corpse tells its own story: an undeniable alien lying in its goo on a ranger’s uniform that has been cut away from it. Not a ‘close encounter’ UFO that can be explained away, but a creature more startling than the duckbill platypus ever was. But we have to hook it in with other factors to show them what to look for. Your booby-trapped car, an arson case in Logan, Professor Brain’s convenient disappearance, my cousin’s death in Sumatra – and your six-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry.”
I said, “Excuse me, gentlemen. Can’t we move somewhere away from right over our cabin before you break silence? I’m jumpy – ‘Black Hats’ are hunting us.”
“You’re right, Sharpie; I’m about to move us. The story isn’t long – all but the math – so I taped a summary while the rest of you were getting ready. Gay will speed-zip it, a hundred to one.” Zebbie reached for the controls. “All secure?”
“Captain Zebadiah!”
“Trouble, Princess?”
“May I attempt a novel program? It may save time.”
“Programming is your pidgin. Certainly.”
“Hello, Gay.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Retrieve last program. Report execute code.”
“Reporting, Deety. ‘Gay Deceiver, take us home!'”
“Negative erase permanent program controlled by execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home. Report confirm.”
“Confirmation report. Permanent program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home negative erase. I tell you three times.”
“Deety,” said Zeb, “a neg scrub to Gay tells her to place item in perms three places. Redundancy safety factor.”
“Don’t bother me, dear! She and I sling the same lingo. Hello, Gay.”
“Hello, Deety!”
“Analyze latest program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home. Report.”
“Analysis complete.”
“Invert analysis.”
“Null program.”
Deety sighed. “Typing a program is easier. New program.”
“Waiting, Deety.”
“Execute-code new permanent program. Gay Deceiver, countermarch! At new execute-code, repeat reversed in real time latest sequence inertials transitions translations rotations before last use of program execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home.”
“New permanent program accepted.”
“Gay, I tell you three times.”
“Deety, I hear you three times.”
“Gay Deceiver – countermarch!”
Instantly we were over the Grand Canyon, cruising south. I saw Zeb reach for the manual controls. “Deety, that was slick.”
“I didn’t save time, sir – I goofed. Gay, you’re a smart girl.”
“Deety, don’t make me blush.”
“You’re both smart girls,” said Captain Zebbie. “If anyone had us on radar, he must think he’s getting cataracts. Vice versa, if anyone picked us up here, he’s wondering how we popped up. Smart dodge, dear. You’ve got Gay Deceiver so deceptive that nobody can home on us. We’ll be elsewhere.”
“Yes – but I had something else in mind, too, my Captain.”
“Princess, I like your ideas. Spill it.”
“Suppose we used that homing preprogram and went from frying pan into fire. It might be useful to have a preprogram that would take us back into the frying pan, then do something else quickly. Should I try to think up a third escape-maneuver preprogram?”
“Sure – but discuss it with the court magician, your esteemed father – not me. I’m just a sky jockey.”
“Zebadiah, I will not listen to you disparage yours -“
“Deety! Lifeboat rules. Jake, are your professional papers aboard? Both theoretical and drawings?”
“Why, no, Zeb – Captain. Too bulky. Microfilms I brought. Originals are in the basement vault. Have I erred?”
“Not a bit! Is there any geometer who gave your published paper on this six-way system a friendly reception?”
“Captain, there aren’t more than a handful of geometers capable of judging my postulate system without long and intensive study. It’s too unorthodox. Your late cousin was one – a truly brilliant mind! Uh… I now suspect that Doctor Brain understood it and sabotaged it for his own purposes.”
“Jake, is there anyone friendly to you and able to understand the stuff in your vault? I’m trying to figure out how to warn our fellow humans. A fantastic story of apparently unrelated incidents is not enough. Not even with the corpse of an extra-terrestrial to back it up. You should leave mathematical theory and engineering drawings to someone able to understand them and whom you trust. We can’t handle it; every time we stick our heads up, somebody takes a shot at us and we have no way to fight back. It’s a job that may require our whole race. Well? Is there a man you can trust as your professional executor?”
“Well… one, perhaps. Not my field of geometry but brilliant. He did write me a most encouraging letter when I published my first paper – the paper that was so sneered at by almost everyone except your cousin and this one other. Professor Seppo Rãikannonen. Turku. Finland.”
“Are you certain he’s not an alien?”
“What? He’s been on the faculty at Turku for years! Over fifteen.”
I said, “Jacob… that is about how long Professor Brain was around.”
“But – ” My husband looked around at me and suddenly smiled. “Hilda my love, have you ever taken sauna?”
“Once.”
“Then tell our Captain why I am sure that my friend Seppo is not an alien in disguise. I – Deety and I – attended a professional meeting in Helsinki last year. After the meeting we visited their summer place in the Lake Country… and took sauna with them.”
“Papa, Mama, and three kids.” agreed Deety. “Unmistakably human.”
“‘Brainy’ was a bachelor,” I added thoughtfully. “Cap’n Zebbie, wouldn’t disguised aliens have to be bachelors?”
“Or single women. Or pseudo-married couples. No kids, the masquerade wouldn’t hold up. Jake, let’s try to phone your friend. Mmm, nearly breakfast time in Finland – or we may wake him. That’s better than missing him.”
“Good! My comcredit number is Nero Aleph -“
“Let’s try mine. Yours might trigger something… if ‘Black Hats’ are as smart as I think they are. Smart Girl.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Don Ameche.”
“To hear is to obey, O Mighty One.”
“Deety, you’ve been giving Gay bad habits.”
Shortly a flat male voice answered, “The communications credit number you have cited is not a valid number. Please refer to your card and try again. This is a recording.”
Zebbie made a highly unlikely suggestion. “Gay can’t send out my comcredit code incorrectly; she has it tell-me-three-times. The glitch is in their system. Pop, we have to use yours.”
I said, “Try mine, Zebbie. My comcredit is good; I predeposit.”
A female voice this time: ” – not a valid number. Puh-lease refer to your card and try again. This is a recording.”
Then my husband got a second female voice: ” – try again. This is a recording.”
Deety said, “I don’t have one. Pop and I use the same number.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cap’n Zebbie said bitterly. “These aren’t glitches. We’ve been scrubbed. Unpersons. We’re all dead.”
I didn’t argue. I had suspected that we were dead since the morning two weeks earlier when I woke up in bed with my cuddly new husband. But how long had we been dead? Since my party? Or more recently?
I didn’t care. This was a better grade of heaven than a Sunday School in Terre Haute had taught me to expect. While I don’t think I’ve been outstandingly wicked, I haven’t been very good either. Of the Ten Commandments I’ve broken six and bent some others. But Moses apparently had not had the last Word from on High – being dead was weird and wonderful and I was enjoying every minute… or eon, as the case may be.

Chapter XIII

Being too close to a fireball can worry a man –

Zeb:
Not being able to phone from my car was my most frustrating experience since a night I spent in jail through mistake (I made the mistake). I considered grounding to phone – but the ground did not seem healthy. Even if all of us were presumed dead, nullifying our comcredit cards so quickly seemed unfriendly; all of us had high credit ratings.
Canceling Sharpie’s comcredit without proof of death was more than unfriendly; it was outrageous as she used the predeposit method.
I was forced to the decision that it was my duty to make a military report; I radioed NORAD, stated name, rank, reserve commission serial number, and asked for scramble for a crash priority report. and ran into “correct” procedure that causes instant ulcers. What was my clearance? What led me to think that I had crash priority intelligence? By what authority did I demand a scramble code? Do you know how many screwball calls come in here every day? Get off this frequency; it’s for official traffic only. One more word out of you and I shall alert the civil sky patrol to pick you up.
I said one more word after I chopped off. Deety and her father ignored it; Hilda said, “My sentiments exactly!”
I tried the Federal Rangers Kaibab Barracks at Jacob Lake, then the office at Littlefield and back to Kaibab. Littlefield didn’t answer; Jacob Lake answered: “This is a recording. Routine messages may be recorded during beep tone. Emergency reports should be transmitted to Flagstaff HQ. Stand by for beep tone… Beep!… Beep!… Beep!”
I was about to tell Gay to zip my tape – when the whole world was lighted by the brightest light imaginable.
Luckily we were cruising south with that light behind us. I goosed Gay to flank speed while telling her to tuck in her wings. Not one of my partners asked a foolish question, although I suspect that none had ever seen a fireball or mushroom cloud.
“Smart Girl.”
“Here, Boss.”
“DR problem. Record true bearing light beacon relative bearing astern. Record radar range and bearing same beacon. Solve latitude longitude beacon. Compare solution with fixes in perms. Confirm.”
“Program confirmed.”
“Execute.”
“Roger Wilco, Zeb. Heard any new ones lately?” She added at once, “Solution. True bearing identical with fix execute-coded ‘Gay Deceiver take us home.’ True range identical plus-minus zero point six klicks.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Flattery will get you anywhere, Zeb. Over.”
“Roger and out. Hang onto your hats, folks; we’re going straight up.” I had outraced the shock wave but we were close to the Mexican border; either side might send sprint birds homing on us. “Copilot!”
“Captain.”
“Move us! Out of this space!”
“Where, Captain?”
“Anywhere! Fast!”
“Uh, can you ease the acceleration? I can’t lift my arms.”
Cursing myself, I cut power, let Gay Deceiver climb free. Those vernier controls should have been mounted on arm rests. (Designs that look perfect on the drawing board can kill test pilots.)
“Translation complete, Captain.”
“Roger, Copilot. Thank you.” I glanced at the board: six-plus klicks height-above-ground and rising – thin but enough air to bite. “Hang onto our lunch, Sharpie!” I leaned us backwards while doing an Immelman into level flight, course north, power still off. I told Gay to stretch the glide, then tell me when we had dropped to three klicks H-above-G.
What should be Phoenix was off to the right; another city – Flagstaff? – farther away, north and a bit east; we appeared to be headed home. There was no glowing cloud on the horizon. “Jake, where are we?”
“Captain, I’ve never been in this universe. We translated ten quanta positive Tau axis. So we should be in analogous space close to ours – ten minimum intervals or quanta.”
“This looks like Arizona.”
“I would expect it to, Captain. You recall that one-quantum translation on this axis was so very like our own world that Deety and I confused it with our own, until she picked up a dictionary.”
“Phone book, Pop.”
“Irrelevant, dear. Until she missed the letter ‘J’ in an alphabetical list. Ten quanta should not change geological features appreciably and placement of cities is largely controlled by geography.”
“Approaching three klicks, Boss.”
“Thanks, Gay. Hold course and H-above-G. Correction! Hold course and absolute altitude. Confirm and execute.”
“Roger Wilco, Zeb.”
I had forgotten that the Grand Canyon lay ahead – or should. “Smart Girl” is smart, but she’s literal-minded. She would have held height-above-ground precisely and given us the wildest roller-coaster ride in history. She is very flexible but the “garbage-in-garbage-out” law applies. She had many extra fail-safes – because I make mistakes. Gay can’t; anything she does wrong is my mistake. Since I’ve been making mistakes all my life, I surrounded her with all the safeguards I could think of. But she had no program against wild rides – she was beefed up to accept them. Violent evasive tactics had saved our lives two weeks ago, and tonight as well. Being too close to a fireball can worry a man – to death.
“Gay, display map, please.”
The map showed Arizona – our Arizona; Gay does not have in her gizzards any strange universes. I changed course to cause us to pass over our cabin site – its analog for this space-time. (Didn’t dare tell her: “Gay, take us home!” – for reasons left as an exercise for the class.) “Deety, how long ago did that bomb go off?”
“Six minutes twenty-three seconds. Zebadiah, was that really an A-bomb?”
“Pony bomb, perhaps. Maybe two kilotons. Gay Deceiver.”
“I’m all ears, Zeb.”
“Report time interval since radar-ranging beacon.”
“Five minutes forty-four seconds, Zeb.”
Deety gasped. “Was I that far off?”
“No, darling. You reported time since flash. I didn’t ask Gay to range until after we were hypersonic.”
“Oh. I feel better.”
“Captain,” inquired Jake, “how did Gay range an atomic explosion? I would expect radiation to make it impossible. Does she have instrumentation of which I am not aware?”
“Copilot, she has several gadgets I have not shown you. I have not been holding out – any more than you held out in not telling me about guns and ammo you -“
“My apologies, sir!”
“Oh, stuff it, Jake. Neither of us held out; we’ve been running under the whip. Deety, how long has it been since we killed that fake ranger?”
“That was seventeen fourteen. It is now twenty-two twenty. Five hours six minutes,”
I glanced at the board; Deety’s “circadian clock” apparently couldn’t be jarred by anything; Gay’s clock showed 0520 (Greenwich) with “ZONE PLUS SEVEN” display. “Call it five hours – feels like five weeks. We need a vacation.”
“Loud cheers!” agreed Sharpie.
“Check. Jake, I didn’t know that Gay could range an atomic blast. Light ‘beacon’ means a visible light to her just as ‘radar beacon’ means to her a navigational radar beacon. I told her to get a bearing on the light beacon directly aft; she selected the brightest light with that bearing. Then I told her to take radar range and bearing on it – spun my prayer wheel and prayed.
“There was ‘white noise’ possibly blanketing her radar frequency. But her own radar bursts are tagged; it would take a very high noise level at the same frequency to keep her from recognizing echoes with her signature. Clearly she had trouble for she reported ‘plus-minus’ of six hundred meters. Nevertheless range and bearing matched a fix in her permanents and told us our cabin had been bombed. Bad news. But the aliens got there too late to bomb us. Good news.”
“Captain, I decline to grieve over material loss. We are alive.”
“I agree – although I’ll remember Snug Harbor as the happiest home I’ve ever had. But there is no point in trying to warn Earth – our Earth – about aliens. That blast destroyed the clincher: that alien’s cadaver. And papers and drawings you were going to turn over to your Finnish friend. I’m not sure we can go home again.”
“Oh, that’s no problem, Captain. Two seconds to set the verniers. Not to mention the ‘deadman switch’ and the program in Gay’s permanents.”
“Jake, I wish you would knock off ‘Captain’ other than for command conditions.”
“Zeb, I like calling you ‘Captain.”
“So do I! – my Captain.”
“Me, too, Cap’n Zebbie!”
“Don’t overdo it. Jake, I didn’t mean that you can’t pilot us home; I mean we should not risk it. We’ve lost our last lead on the aliens. But they know who we are and have shown dismaying skill in tracking us down. I’d like to live to see two babies born and grown up.”
“Amen!” said Sharpie. “This might be the place for it. Out of a million billion zillion earths this one may be vermin-free. Highly likely.”
“Hilda my dear, there are no data on which to base any assumption.”
“Jacob, there is one datum.”
“Eh? What did I miss, dear?”
“That we do know that our native planet is infested. So I don’t want to raise kids on it. If this isn’t the place we’re looking for, let’s keep looking.”
“Mmm, logical. Yes. Cap – Zeb?”
“I agree. But we can’t tell much before morning. Jake, I’m unclear on a key point. If we translated back to our own earth now, where would we find ourselves? And when?”
“Pop, may I answer that?”
“Go ahead, Deety.”
“The time Pop and I translated to the place with no ‘J’ we thought we had failed. Pop stayed in our car, trying to figure it out. I went inside, intending to fix lunch. Everything looked normal. But the phone book was on the kitchen counter and doesn’t belong there. That book had a toll area map on its back cover. My eye happened to land on ‘Juab County’ – and it was spelled ‘Iuab’ – and I thought, ‘What a funny misprint!’ Then I looked inside and couldn’t find any ‘J’s’ and dropped the book and went running for Pop.”
“I thought Deety was hysterical. But when I checked a dictionary and the Britannica we got out in a hurry.”
“This is the point, Zebadiah. When we flipped back, I dashed into the house. The phone book was where it belonged. The alphabet was back the way it ought to be. The clock in my head said that we had been gone twenty-seven minutes. The kitchen clock confirmed it and it agreed with the clock in the car. Does that answer you, sir?”
“I think so. In a translation, duration just keeps chugging along. I wondered because I’d like to check that crater after it has had time to cool down. What about that one rotation?”
“Harder to figure, Zebadiah. We weren’t in that other space-time but a few seconds and we both passed out. Indeterminate.”
“I’m convinced. But, Jake, what about Earth’s proper motions? Rotation, revolution around the Sun, sidereal motion, and so forth.”
“A theoretical answer calls for mathematics you tell me are outside your scope of study, uh – Zeb.”
“Beyond my capacity, you mean.”
“As you will, sir. An excursion elsewhere-and-elsewhen… and return… brings you back to where you would have been had you experienced that duration on earth. But ‘when’ requires further definition. As we were discussing, uh… earlier this afternoon but it seems longer, we can adjust the controls to reenter any axis at any point with permanent change of interval. For planetary engineering. Or other purposes. Including reentry reversed against the entropy arrow. But I suspect that would cause death.”
“Why, Pop? Why wouldn’t it just reverse your memory?”
“Memory is tied to entropy increase, my darling daughter. Death might be preferable to amnesia combined with prophetic knowledge. Uncertainty may be the factor that makes life tolerable. Hope is what keeps us going. Captain!”
“Copilot.”
“We have just passed over North Rim.”
“Thank you, Copilot.” I placed my hands lightly on the controls.
“Pop, our cabin is still there. Lights in it, too.”
“So I see. They’ve added a wing on the west.”
“Yes. Where we discussed adding a library.”
I said, “Family, I’m not going closer. Your analogs in this world seem to be holding a party. Flood lights show four cars on the grounding flat.” I started Gay into a wide circle. “I’m not going to hover; it could draw attention. A call to their sky cops – Hell’s bells, I don’t even know that they speak English.”
“Captain, we’ve seen all we need. It’s not our cabin.”
“Recommendation?”
“Sir, I suggest maximum altitude. Discuss what to do while we get there.”
“Gay Deceiver.”
“On deck, Captain Ahab.”
“One gee, vertical.”
“Aye aye, sir.” (How many answers had Deety taped?)
“Anybody want a sandwich?” asked Sharpie. “I do – I’m a pregnant mother.”
I suddenly realized that I had had nothing but a piece of pie since noon. As we climbed we finished what was left of supper.
“Zat Marsh?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Sharpie.”
“Zebbie you brute, I said, ‘Is that Mars?’ Over there.”
“That’s Antares. Mars is – Look left about thirty degrees. See it? Same color as Antares but brighter.”
“Got it. Jacob darling, let’s take that vacation on Barsoom!”
“Hilda dearest, Mars is uninhabitable. The Mars Expedition used pressure suits. We have no pressure suits.”
I added, “Even if we did, they would get in the way of a honeymoon.”
Hilda answered, “I read a jingle about ‘A Space Suit Built for Two.’ Anyhow, let’s go to Barsoom! Jacob, you did tell me we could go anywhere in Zip – nothing flat.”
“Quite true.”
“So let’s go to Barsoom.”
I decided to flank her. “Hilda, we can’t go to Barsoom. Mors Kajak and John Carter don’t have their swords.”
“Want to bet?” Deety said sweetly.
“Huh?”
“Sir, you left it to me to pick baggage for that unassigned space. If you’ll check that long, narrow stowage under the instrument board, you’ll find the sword and saber, with belts. With socks and underwear crammed in to keep them from rattling.”
I said soberly, “My Princess, I couldn’t moan about my sword when your father took the loss of his house so calmly – but thank you, with all my heart.”
“Let me add my thanks, Deety. I set much store by that old saber, unnecessary as it is.”
“Father, it was quite necessary this afternoon.”
“Hi ho! Hi ho! It’s to Barsoom we go!”
“Captain, we could use the hours till dawn for a quick jaunt to Mars. Uh – Oh, dear, I have to know its present distance – I don’t.”
“No problem,” I said. “Gay gobbles the Aerospace Almanac each year.”
“Indeed! I’m impressed.”
“Gay Deceiver.”
“You again? I was thinking.”
“So think about this. Calculation program. Data address, Aerospace Almanac. Running calculation, line-of-sight distance to planet Mars. Report current answers on demand. Execute.”
“Program running.”
“Report.”
“Klicks two-two-four-zero-nine-zero-eight-two-seven point plus-minus nine-eight-zero.”
“Display running report.”
Gay did so. “You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“I can do card tricks, too. Program continuing.”
“Jake, how do we this?”
“Align ‘L’ axis with your gun sight. Isn’t that easiest?”
“By far!” I aimed at Mars as if to shoot her out of the sky – then got cold feet. “Jake? A little Tennessee windage? I think those figures are from center-of-gravity to center-of-gravity. Half a mil would place us a safe distance away. Over a hundred thousand klicks.”
“A hundred and twelve thousand,” Jake agreed, watching the display.
I offset one half mil. “Copilot.”
“Captain.”
“Transit when ready. Execute.”
Mars in half phase, big and round and ruddy and beautiful, was swimming off our starboard side.

Chapter XIV

“Quit worrying and enjoy the ride.”

Deety:
Aunt Hilda said softly, “Barsoom. Dead sea bottoms. Green giants.” I just gulped.
“Mars. Hilda darling.” Pop gently corrected her. “Barsoom is a myth.”
“Barsoom.” she repeated firmly. “It’s not a myth, it’s there. Who says its name is Mars? A bunch of long-dead Romans. Aren’t the natives entitled to name it? Barsoom.”
“My dearest, there are no natives. Names are assigned by an international committee sponsored by Harvard Observatory. They confirmed the traditional name.”
“Pooh! They don’t have any more right to name it than I have. Deety, isn’t that right?”
I think Aunt Hilda had the best argument but I don’t argue with Pop unless necessary; he gets emotional. My husband saved me.
“Copilot, astrogation problem. How are we going to figure distance and vector? I would like to put this wagon into orbit. But Gay is no spaceship; I don’t have instruments. Not even a sextant!”
“Mmm, suppose we try it one piece at a time, Captain. We don’t seem to be falling fast and – ulp!”
“What’s the trouble, Jake!”
Pop turned pale, sweat broke out, he clenched his jaws, swallowed and reswallowed. Then his lips barely opened. “M’sheashick.”
“No, you’re space sick. Deety!”
“Yessir!”
“Emergency kit, back of my seat. Unzip it, get Bonine. One pill – don’t let the others get loose.”
I got at the first-aid kit, found a tube marked Bonine. A second pill did get loose but I snatched it out of the air. Free fall is funny – you don’t know whether you are standing on your head or floating sideways. “Here, Captain.”
Pop said, “Mall righ’ now. Jus’ took all over queer a moment.”
“Sure, you’re all right. You can take this pill – or you can have it pushed down your throat with my dirty, calloused finger. Which?”
“Uh, Captain, I’d have to have water to swallow it – and I don’t think I can.”
“Doesn’t take water, pal. Chew it. Tastes good, raspberry flavor. Then keep gulping your saliva. Here.” Zebadiah pinched Pop’s nostrils. “Open up.”
I became aware of a strangled sound beside me. Aunt Hilda had a hanky pressed to her mouth and her eyes were streaming tears – she was split seconds from adding potato salad and used sandwich to the cabin air.
Good thing I was still clutching that wayward pill. Aunt Hilda struggled but she’s a little bitty. I treated her the way my husband had treated her husband, then clamped my hand over her mouth. I don’t understand seasickness (or free-fall nausea); I can walk on bulkheads with a sandwich in one hand and a drink in the other and enjoy it.
But the victims really are sick and somewhat out of their heads. So I held her mouth closed and whispered into her ear. “Chew it, Aunty darling, and swallow it, or I’m going to spank you with a club.”
Shortly I could feel her chewing. After several minutes she relaxed. I asked her, “Is it safe for me to ungag you?”
She nodded. I took my hand away. She smiled wanly and patted my hand. “Thanks, Deety.” She added, “You wouldn’t really beat Aunt Sharpie.”
“I sure would, darling. I’d cry and cry and wallop you and wallop you. I’m glad I don’t have to.”
“I’m glad, too. Can we kiss and make up – or is my breath sour?”
It wasn’t but I wouldn’t have let that stop me. I loosened my chest strap and hers, and put both arms around her. I have two ways of kissing: one is suitable for faculty teas; the other way I mean it. I never got a chance to pick; Aunt Hilda apparently never found out about the faculty-tea sort. No, her breath wasn’t sour – just a slight taste of raspberry.
Me, I’m the wholesome type; if it weren’t for those advertisements on my chest, men wouldn’t give me a second glance. Hilda is a miniature Messalina, pure sex in a small package. Funny how a person can grow up never really believing that the adults you grow up with have sex – just gender. Now my saintly father turns out to be an insatiable goat, and Aunt Hilda, who had babied me and changed my diapers, is sexy enough for a platoon of Marines.
I let her go while thinking pleasant thoughts about teaching my husband technique I had learned – unless Hilda had taught him in the past. No, or he would have taught me – and he hadn’t shown her style of virtuosity. Zebadiah, just wait till I get you alone!
Which might not be too soon. Gay Deceiver is wonderful but no honeymoon cottage. There was space back of the bulkhead behind my head – like a big phone booth on its side – where Zebadiah kept a sleeping bag and (he says) sometimes sacked out. But it had the space-time twister in it and nineteen dozen other things. Hilda and I were going to have to repress our primary imperative until our men found us a pied-à-terre on some planet in some universe, somewhere, somewhen.
Mars-Barsoom seemed to have grown while I was curing Aunt Hilda’s space sickness. Our men were talking astrogation. My husband was saying, “Sorry, but at extreme range Gay’s radar can see a thousand kilos. You tell me our distance is about a hundred times that.”
“About. We’re falling toward Mars. Captain, we must do it by triangulation.”
“Not even a protractor where I can get at it. How?”
“Hmmmm – If the Captain pleases, recall how you worked that ‘Tennessee windage.'”
My darling looked like a school boy caught making a silly answer. “Jake, if you don’t quit being polite when I’m stupid, I’m going to space you and put Deety in the copilot’s seat. No, we need you to get us home. I’d better resign and you take over.”
“Zeb, a captain can’t resign while his ship is underway. That’s universal.”
“This is another universe.”
“Transuniversal. As long as you are alive, you are stuck with it. Let’s attempt that triangulation.”
“Stand by to record.” Zebadiah settled into his seat, pressed his head against its rest. “Copilot.”
“Ready to record, sir.”
“Damn!”
“Trouble, Captain?”
“Some. This reflectosight is scaled fifteen mils on a side, concentric circles crossed at center point horizontally and vertically. Normal to deck and parallel to deck, I mean. When I center the fifteen-mil ring on Mars, I have a border around it. I’m going to have to guesstimate. Uh, the border looks to be about eighteen mils wide. So double that and add thirty.”
“Sixty-six mils.”
“And a mil is one-to-one-thousand. One-to-one-thousand-and-eighteen and a whisker, actually – but one-to-a-thousand is good enough. Wait a half! I’ve got two sharp high lights near the meridian – if the polar caps mark the meridian. Le’me tilt this buggy and put a line crossing them – then I’ll yaw and what we can’t measure in one jump, we’ll catch in three.”
I saw the larger “upper” polar cap (north? south? well, it felt north) roll gently about eighty degrees, while my husband fiddled with Gay’s manual controls. “Twenty-nine point five, maybe… plus eighteen point seven… plus sixteen point three. Add.”
My father answered, “Sixty-four and a half” while I said, six four point five in my mind and kept quiet.
“Who knows the diameter of Mars? Or shall I ask Gay?”
Hilda answered, “Six thousand seven hundred fifty kilometers, near enough.”
Plenty near enough for Zebadiah’s estimates. Zebadiah said, “Sharpie! How did you happen to know that?”
“I read comic books. You know – ‘Zap! Polaris is missing.'”
“I don’t read comic books.”
“Lots of interesting things in comic books, Zebbie. I thought the Aerospace Force used comic-book instruction manuals.”
My darling’s ears turned red. “Some are,” he admitted, “but they are edited for technical accuracy. Hmm – Maybe I had better check that figure with Gay.”
I love my husband but sometimes women must stick together. “Don’t bother, Zebadiah,” I said in chilly tones. “Aunt Hilda is correct. The polar diameter of Mars is six seven five two point eight plus. But surely three significant figures is enough for your data.”
Zebadiah did not answer… but did not ask his computer. Instead he said, “Copilot, will you run it off on your pocket calculator? We can treat it as a tangent at this distance.”
This time I didn’t even try to keep still. Zebadiah’s surprise that Hilda knew anything about astronomy caused me pique. “Our height above surface is one hundred four thousand six hundred and seventy-two kilometers plus or minus the error of the data supplied. That assumes that Mars is spherical and ignores the edge effect or horizon bulge… negligible for the quality of your data.”
Zebadiah answered so gently that I was sorry that I had shown off: “Thank you, Deety. Would you care to calculate the time to fall to surface from rest at this point?”
“That’s an unsmooth integral, sir. I can approximate it but Gay can do it faster and more accurately. Why not ask her? But it will be many hours.”
“I had hoped to take a better look. Jake, Gay has enough juice to put us into a tight orbit, I think… but I don’t know where or when I’ll be able to juice her again. If we simply fall, the air will get stale and we’ll need the panic button – or some maneuver – without ever seeing the surface close up.”
“Captain, would it suit you to read the diameter again? I don’t think we’ve simply been falling.”
Pop and Zebadiah got busy again. I let them alone, and they ran even the simplest computations through Gay. Presently, Pop said, “Over twenty-four kilometers per second! Captain, at that rate we’ll be there in a little over an hour.”
“Except that we’ll scram before that. But, ladies, you’ll get your closer look. Dead sea bottoms and green giants. If any.”
“Zebadiah, twenty-four kilometers per second is Mars’ orbital speed.”
My father answered, “Eh? Why, so it is!” He looked very puzzled, then said, “Captain – I confess to a foolish mistake.”
“Not one that will keep us from getting home, I hope.”
“No, sir. I’m still learning what our continua craft can do. Captain, we did not aim for Mars.”
“I know. I was chicken.”
“No, sir, you were properly cautious. We aimed for a specific point in empty space. We transited to that point… but not with Mars’ proper motion. With that of the Solar System, yes. With Earth’s motions subtracted; that is in the program. But we are a short distance ahead of Mars in its orbit… so it is rushing toward us.”
“Does that mean we can never land on any planet but Earth?”
“Not at all. Any vector can be included in the program – either before or after transition, translation or rotation. Any subsequent change in motion is taken into account by the inertial integrator. But I am learning that we still have things to learn.”
“Jake, that is true even of a bicycle. Quit worrying and enjoy the ride. Brother, what a view!”

“Jake, that doesn’t look like the photographs the Mars Expedition brought back.”
“Of course not,” said Aunt Hilda. “I said it was Barsoom.”
I kept my mouth shut. Ever since Dr. Sagan’s photographs anyone who reads The National Geographic – or anything – knows what Mars looks like. But when it involves changing male minds, it is better to let men reach their own decisions; they become somewhat less pig-headed. That planet rushing toward us was not the Mars of our native sky. White clouds at the caps, big green areas that had to be forest or crops, one deep blue area that almost certainly was water – all this against ruddy shades that dominated much of the planet.
What was lacking were the rugged mountains and craters and canyons of “our” planet Mars. There were mountains – but nothing like the Devil’s Junkyard known to science.
I heard Zebadiah say, “Copilot, are you certain you took us to Mars?”
“Captain, I took us to Mars-ten, via plus on Tau axis. Either that or I’m a patient in a locked ward.”
“Take it easy, Jake. It doesn’t resemble Mars as much as Earth-ten resembles Earth.”
“Uh, may I point out that we saw just a bit of Earth-ten, on a moonless night?”
“Meaning we didn’t see it. Conceded.”
Aunt Hilda said, “I told you it was Barsoom. You wouldn’t listen.”
“Hilda, I apologize. ‘Barsoom.’ Copilot, log it. New planet, ‘Barsoom,’ named by right of discovery by Hilda Corners Burroughs, Science Officer of Continua Craft Gay Deceiver. We’ll all witness: Z. J. Carter, Commanding – Jacob J. Burroughs, Chief Officer – D. T. B. Carter, uh, Astrogator. I’ll send certified copies to Harvard Observatory as soon as possible.”
“I’m not astrogator, Zebadiah!”
“Mutiny. Who reprogrammed this cloud buster into a continua craft? I’m pilot until I can train all of you in Gay’s little quirks. Jake is copilot until he can train more copilots in setting the verniers. You are astrogator because nobody else can acquire your special knowledge of programming and skill at calculation. None of your lip, young woman, and don’t fight the Law of Space. Sharpie is chief of science because of her breadth of knowledge. She not only recognized a new planet as not being Mars quicker than anyone else but carved up that double-jointed alien with the skill of a born butcher. Right, Jake?”
“Sure thing!” agreed Pop.
“Cap’n Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda drawled, “I’m science officer if you say so. But I had better be ship’s cook, too. And cabin boy.”
“Certainly, we all have to wear more than one hat. Log it, Copilot. ‘Here’s to our jolly cabin girl, the plucky little nipper – ‘”
“Don’t finish it. Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda cut in, “I don’t like the way the plot develops.”

‘ – she carves fake ranger,
‘Dubs planet stranger,
‘And dazzles crew and skipper.’

Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. “That’s not the classic version. I like the sentiment better… though the scansion limps.”
“Sharpie darling, you are a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Certainly! Means you’re so sharp you spot the slightest flaw.”
I kept quiet. It was possible that Zebadiah meant it as a compliment. Just barely –
“Maybe I’d better check it in a dictionary.”
“By all means, dear – after you are off watch.” (I dismissed the matter. Merriam Microfilm was all we had aboard and Aunt Hilda would not find that word in anything less than the O.E.D.)
“Copilot, got it logged?”
“Captain, I didn’t know we had a log.”
“No log? Even Vanderdecken keeps a log. Deety, the log falls in your department. Take your father’s notes, get what you need from Gay, and let’s have a taut ship. First time we pass a Woolworth’s we’ll pick up a journal and you can transcribe it – notes taken now are your rough log.”
“Aye aye, sir. Tyrant.”
“‘Tyrant,’ sir, please. Meanwhile let’s share the binoculars and see if we can spot any colorful exotic natives in colorful exotic costumes singing colorful exotic songs with their colorful exotic hands out for baksheesh. First one to spot evidence of intelligent life gets to wash the dishes.”

Chapter XV

“We’ll hit so hard we’ll hardly notice it.”

Hilda:
I was so flattered by Cap’n Zebbie’s crediting me with “discovering” Barsoom that I pretended not to understand the jibe he added. It was unlikely that Deety would know such a useless word, or my beloved Jacob. It was gallant of Zeb to give in all the way, once he realized that this planet was unlike its analog in “our” universe. Zebbie is a funny one – he wears rudeness like a Hallowe’en mask, afraid that someone will discover the Galahad underneath.
I knew that “my” Barsoom was not the planet of the classic romances. But there are precedents: The first nuclear submarine was named for an imaginary undersea vessel made famous by Jules Verne; an aircraft carrier of the Second Global War had been named “Shangri La” for a land as nonexistent as “Erewhon”; the first space freighter had been named for a starship that existed only in the hearts of its millions of fans – the list is endless. Nature copies art.
Or as Deety put it: “Truth is more fantastic than reality.”
During that hour Barsoom rushed at us. It began to swell and swell, so rapidly that binoculars were a nuisance – and my heart swelled with it, in childlike joy. Deety and I unstrapped so that we could see better, floating just “above” and behind our husbands while steadying ourselves on their headrests.
We were seeing it in half phase, one half dark, the other in sunlight – ocher and umber and olive green and brown and all of it beautiful.
Our pilot and copilot did not sightsee; Zebbie kept taking sights, kept Jacob busy calculating. At last he said, “Copilot, if our approximations are correct, at the height at which we will get our first radar range, we will be only a bit over half a minute from crashing. Check?”
“To the accuracy of our data, Captain.”
“Too close. I don’t fancy arriving like a meteor. Is it time to hit the panic button? Advise, please – but bear in mind that puts us – should put us – two klicks over a hot, new crater… possibly in the middle of a radioactive cloud. Ideas?”
“Captain, we can do that just before crashing – and it either works or it doesn’t. If it works, that radioactive cloud will have had more time to blow away. If it doesn’t work – “
“We’ll hit so hard we’ll hardly notice it. Gay Deceiver isn’t built to reenter at twenty-four klicks per second. She’s beefed up – but she’s still a Ford, not a reentry vehicle.”
“Captain, I can try to subtract the planet’s orbital speed. We’ve time to make the attempt.”
“Fasten seat belts and report! Move it, gals!”
Free fall is funny stuff. I was over that deathly sickness – was enjoying weightlessness, but didn’t know how to move in it. Nor did Deety. We floundered the way one does the first time on ice skates – only worse.
“Report, damn it!”
Deety got a hand on something, grabbed me. We started getting into seats – she in mine, I in hers. “Strapping down, Captain!” she called out, while frantically trying to loosen my belts to fit her. (I was doing the same in reverse.)
“Speed it up!”
Deety reported, “Seat belts fastened,” while still getting her chest belt buckled – by squeezing out all her breath. I reached over and helped her loosen it.
“Copilot.”
“Captain!”
“Along ‘L’ axis, subtract vector twenty-four klicks per second – and for God’s sake don’t get the signs reversed.”
“I won’t!”
“Execute.”
Seconds later Jacob reported, “That does it, Captain. I hope.”
“Let’s check. Two readings, ten seconds apart. I’ll call the first, you call the end of ten seconds. Mark!”
Zeb added, “One point two. Record.”
After what seemed a terribly long time Jacob said, “Seven seconds… eight seconds… nine seconds… mark!”
Our men conferred, then Jacob said, “Captain, we are still falling too fast.”
“Of course,” said Deety. “We’ve been accelerating from gravity. Escape speed for Mars is five klicks per second. If Barsoom has the same mass as Mars -“
“Thank you, Astrogator. Jake, can you trim off, uh, four klicks per second?”
“Sure!”
“Do it.”
“Uh… done! How does she look?”
“Uh… distance slowly closing. Hello, Gay.”
“Howdy, Zeb.”
“Program. Radar. Target dead ahead. Range.”
“No reading.”
“Continue ranging. Report first reading. Add program. Display running radar ranges to target.”
“Program running. Who blacked your eye?”
“You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.”
“I’m sexy, too. Over.”
“Continue program.” Zeb sighed, then said, “Copilot, there’s atmosphere down there. I plan to attempt to ground. Comment? Advice?”
“Captain, those are words I hoped to hear. Let’s go!”
“Barsoom – here we come!”

Chapter XVI

• a maiden knight, eager to break a lance –

Jake:
My beloved bride was no more eager than I to visit “Barsoom.” I had been afraid that our captain would do the sensible thing: establish orbit, take pictures, then return to our own space-time before our air was stale. We were not prepared to explore strange planets. Gay Deceiver was a bachelor’s sports car. We had a little water, less food, enough air for about three hours. Our craft refreshed its air by the scoop method. If she made a “high jump,” her scoop valves sealed from internal pressure just as did commercial ballistic-hypersonic intercontinental liners – but “high jump” is not space travel.
True, we could go from point to point in our own or any universe in null time, but how many heavenly bodies have breathable atmospheres? Countless billions – but a small fraction of one percent from a practical viewpoint – and no publication lists their whereabouts. We had no spectroscope, no star catalogs, no atmosphere testing equipment, no radiation instruments, no means of detecting dangerous organisms. Columbus with his cockleshells was better equipped than we.
None of this worried me.
Reckless? Do you pause to shop for an elephant gun while an elephant is chasing you?
Three times we had escaped death by seconds. We had evaded our killers by going to earth – and that safety had not lasted. So again we fled like rabbits.
At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that “news” is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different – in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.
I was not distressed. I felt more alive than I had felt since the death of my first wife.
Underneath the persona each shows the world lies a being different from the masque. My own persona was a professorial archetype. Underneath? Would you believe a maiden knight, eager to break a lance? I could have avoided military service – married, a father, protected profession. But I spent three weeks in basic training, sweating with the rest, cursing drill instructors – and loving it! Then they took my rifle, told me I was an officer, gave me a swivel chair and a useless job. I never forgave them for that.
Hilda, until we married, I knew not at all. I had valued her as a link to my lost love but I had thought her a lightweight, a social butterfly. Then I found myself married to her and learned that I had unnecessarily suffered lonely years. Hilda was what I needed, I was what she needed – Jane had known it and blessed us when at last we knew it. But I still did not realize the diamondhard quality of my tiny darling until I saw her dissecting that pseudo “ranger.” Killing that alien was easy. But what Hilda did – I almost lost my supper.
Hilda is small and weak; I’ll protect her with my life. But I won’t underrate her again!
Zeb is the only one of us who looks the part of intrepid explorer – tall, broadshouldered, strongly muscled, skilled with machines and with weapons, and (sine qua non!) cool-headed in crisis and gifted with the “voice of command.”
One night I had been forced to reason with my darling; Hilda felt that I should lead our little band. I was oldest, I was inventor of the time-space “distorter” – it was all right for Zeb to pilot – but I must command. In her eyes Zeb was somewhere between an overage adolescent and an affectionate Saint Bernard. She pointed out that Zeb claimed to be a “coward by trade” and did not want responsibility.
I told her that no born leader seeks command; the mantle descends on him, he wears the burden because he must. Hilda could not see it – she was willing to take orders from me but not from her pet youngster “Zebbie.”
I had to be firm: Either accept Zeb as commander or tomorrow Zeb and I would dismount my apparatus from Zeb’s car so that Mr. and Mrs. Carter could go elsewhere. Where? Not my business or yours, Hilda. I turned over and pretended to sleep.
When I heard sobs, I turned again and held her. But I did not budge. No need to record what was said; Hilda promised to take any orders Zeb might give – once we left.
But her capitulation was merely coerced until the gory incident at the pool. Zeb’s instantaneous attack changed her attitude. From then on my darling carried out Zeb’s orders without argument – and between times kidded and ragged him as always. Hilda’s spirit wasn’t broken; instead she placed her indomitable spirit subject to the decisions of our captain. Discipline – self-discipline; there is no other sort.
Zeb is indeed a “coward by trade” – he avoids trouble whenever possible – a most commendable trait in a leader. If a captain worries about the safety of his command, those under him need not worry.

Barsoom continued to swell. At last Gay’s voice said, “Ranging, Boss” as she displayed “1000 km,” and flicked at once to “999 km.” I started timing when Zeb made it unnecessary: “Smart Girl!”
“Here, Zeb.”
“Continue range display. Show as H-above-G. Add dive rate.”
“Null program.”
“Correction. Add program. Display dive rate soonest.”
“New program dive rate stored. Display starts H-above-G six hundred klicks.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“‘Smartest little girl in the County, Oh! Daddy and Mommy told me so!’ Over.”
“Continue programs.”
Height-above-ground seemed to drop both quickly and with stomach-tensing slowness. No one said a word; I barely breathed. As “600 km” appeared the figures were suddenly backed by a grid; on it was a steep curve, height-against-time, and a new figure flashed underneath the H-above-G figure: 1968 km/hr. As the figure changed, a bright abscissa lowered down on the grid.
Our captain let out a sigh. “We can handle that. But I’d give fifty cents and a double-dip ice-cream cone for a parachute brake.”
“What flavor?”
“Your choice, Sharpie. Don’t worry, folks; I can stand her on her tail and blast. But it’s an expensive way to slow up. Gay Deceiver.”
“Busy, Boss.”
“I keep forgetting that I can’t ask her to display too many data at once. Anybody know the sea level – I mean ‘surface’ atmospheric pressure of Mars? Don’t all speak at once.”
My darling said hesitantly, “It averages about five millibars. But, Captain – this isn’t Mars.”
“Huh? So it isn’t – and from the looks of that green stuff, Barsoom must have lots more atmosphere than Mars.” Zeb took the controls, overrode the computer, cautiously waggled her elevons. “Can’t feel bite. Sharpie, how come you bone astronomy? Girl Scout?”
“Never got past tenderfoot. I audited a course, then subscribed to ‘Astronomy’ and ‘Sky and Telescope.’ It’s sort o’ fun.”
“Chief of Science, you have again justified my faith in you. Copilot, as soon as I have air bite, I’m going to ease to the east. We’re headed too close to the terminator. I want to ground in daylight. Keep an eye out for level ground. I’ll hover at the last – but I don’t want to ground in forest. Or in badlands.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Astrogator.”
“Yessir!”
“Deety darling, search to port – and forward, as much as you can see around me. Jake can favor the starboard side.”
“Captain – I’m on the starboard side. Behind Pop.”
“Huh? How did you gals get swapped around?”
“Well… you hurried us, sir – any old seat in a storm.”
“Two demerits for wrong seat – and no syrup on the hot cakes we’re going to have for breakfast as soon as we’re grounded.”
“Uh, I don’t believe hot cakes are possible.”
“I can dream, can’t I? Chief Science Officer, watch my side.”
“Yes, Cap’n.”
“While Deety backs up Jake. Any cow pasture.”

“Hey! I feel air! She bites!”
I held my breath while Zeb slowly brought the ship out of dive, easing her east. “Gay Deceiver.”
“How now, Brown Cow?”
“Cancel display programs. Execute.”
“Inshallâh, ya sayyid.”
The displays faded. Zeb held her just short of stalling. We were still high, about six klicks, still hypersonic.
Zeb slowly started spreading her wings as air speed and altitude dropped. After we dropped below speed of sound, he opened her wings full for maximum lift. “Did anyone remember to bring a canary?”
“A canary!” said Deety. “What for, Boss Man?”
“My gentle way of reminding everyone that we have no way to test atmosphere. Copilot.”
“Captain,” I acknowledged.
“Uncover deadman switch. Hold it closed while you remove clamp. Hold it high where we all can see it. Once you report switch ready to operate, I’m going to crack the air scoops. If you pass out, your hand will relax and the switch will get us home. I hope. But – All hands! – if anyone feels dizzy or woozy or faint… or sees any of us start to slump, don’t wait! Give the order orally. Deety, spell the order I mean. Don’t say it – spell it.”
“G, A, Y, D, E, C, I, E, V, E, R, T, A, K, E, U, S, H, O, M, E.”
“You misspelled it.”
“I did not!”
“You did so; ‘”i” before “e” except after “c.”‘ You reversed ’em.”
“Well… maybe I did. That diphthong has always given me trouble. Floccinaucinihilipilificator!”
“So you understood it? From now on, on Barsoom, ‘i’ comes before ‘e’ at all times. By order of John Carter, Warlord. I have spoken. Copilot?”
“Deadman switch ready, Captain,” I answered.
“You gals hold your breaths or breathe, as you wish. Pilot and copilot will breathe. I am about to open air scoops.”
I tried to breathe normally and wondered if my hand would relax if I passed out.
The cabin got suddenly chilly, then the heaters picked up. I felt normal. Cabin pressure slightly higher, I thought, under ram effect.
“Everybody feel right? Does everybody look right? Copilot?”
“I feel fine. You look okay. So does Hilda. I can’t see Deety.”
“Science Officer?”
“Deety looks normal. I feel fine.”
“Deety. Speak up.”
“Golly, I had forgotten what fresh air smells like!”
“Copilot, carefully – most carefully! – put the clamp back on the switch, then rack and cover it. Report completion.”
A few seconds later I reported, “Deadman switch secured, Captain.”
“Good. I see a golf course; we’ll ground.” Zeb switched to powered flight; Gay responded, felt alive. We spiraled, hovered briefly, grounded with a gentle bump. “Grounded on Barsoom. Log it, Astrogator. Time and date.”
“Huh?”
“On the instrument board.”
“But that says oh-eight-oh-three and it’s just after dawn here.”
“Log it Greenwich. With it, log estimated local time and Barsoom day one.” Zeb yawned. “I wish they wouldn’t hold mornings so early.”
“Too sleepy for hot cakes?” my wife inquired.
“Never that sleepy.”
“Aunt Hilda!”
“Deety, I stowed Aunt Jemima mix. And powdered milk. And butter. Zebbie, no syrup – sorry. But there is grape jelly in a tube. And freeze-dried coffee. If one of you will undog this bulkhead door, we’ll have breakfast in a few minutes.”
“Chief Science Officer, you have a duty to perform.”
“I do? But – Yes, Captain?”
“Put your dainty toe to the ground. It’s your planet, your privilege. Starboard side of the car, under the wing, is the ladies’ powder room – portside is the men’s jakes. Ladies may have armed escort on request.”
I was glad Zeb remembered that. The car had a “honey bucket” under the cushion of the port rear seat, and, with it, plastic liners. I did not ever want to have to use it.
Gay Deceiver was wonderful but, as a spaceship, she left much to be desired. However, she had brought us safely to Barsoom.
Barsoom! Visions of thoats and beautiful princesses –

Chapter XVII

The world wobbled –

Deety:
We spent our first hour on “Barsoom” getting oriented. Aunt Hilda stepped outside, then stayed out. “Isn’t cold,” she told us. “Going to be hot later.”
“Watch where you step!” my husband warned her. “Might be snakes or anything.” He hurried after her – and went head over heels.
Zebadiah was not hurt; the ground was padded, a greenish-yellow mat somewhat like “ice plant” but looking more like clover. He got up carefully, then swayed as if walking on a rubber mattress. “I don’t understand it,” he complained. “This gravity ought to be twice that of Luna. But I feel lighter.”
Aunt Hillbilly sat down on the turf. “On the Moon you were carrying pressure suit and tanks and equipment.” She unfastened her shoes. “Here you aren’t.”
“Yeah, so I was,” agreed my husband. “What are you doing?”
“Taking off my shoes. When were you on the Moon? Cap’n Zebbie, you’re a fraud.”
“Don’t take off your shoes! You don’t know what’s in this grass.”
The Hillbilly stopped, one shoe off. “If they bite me, I bite ’em back. Captain, in Gay Deceiver you are absolute boss. But doesn’t your crew have any free will? I’ll play it either way: free citizen… or your thrall who dassn’t even take off a shoe without permission. Just tell me.”
“Uh -“
“If you try to make all decisions, all the time, you’re going to get as hysterical as a hen raising ducklings. Even Deety can be notional. But I won’t even pee without permission. Shall I put this back on? Or take the other off?”
“Aunt Hilda, quit teasing my husband!” (I was annoyed!)
“Dejah Thoris, I am not teasing your husband; I am asking our captain for instructions.”
Zebadiah sighed. “Sometimes I wish I’d stayed in Australia.”
I said, “Is it all right for Pop and me to come out?”
“Oh. Certainly. Watch your step; it’s tricky.”
I jumped down, then jumped high and wide, with entrechats as I floated – landed sur les pointes. “Oh, boy! What a wonderful place for ballet!” I added, “Shouldn’t do that on a full bladder. Aunt Hilda, let’s see if that powder room is unoccupied.”
“I was about to, dear, but I must get a ruling from our captain.”
“You’re teasing him.”
“No, Deety; Hilda is right; doctrine has to be clear. Jake? How about taking charge on the ground?”
“No, Captain. Druther be a Balkan general, given my druthers.”
Aunt Hilda stood up, shoe in hand, reached high with her other hand, patted my husband’s cheek. “Zebbie, you are a dear. You worry about us all – me especially, because you think I’m a featherhead. Remember how we did at Snug Harbor? Each one did what she could do best and there was no friction. If that worked there, it ought to work here.”
“Well… all right. But will you gals please be careful?”
“We’ll be careful. How’s your E.S.P.? Any feeling?”
Zebadiah wrinkled his forehead. “No. But I don’t get advance warning. Just barely enough.”
“‘Just barely’ is enough. Before we had to leave, you were about to program Gay to listen at high gain. Would that change ‘just barely’ to ‘ample’?”
“Yes! Sharpie, I’ll put you in charge, on the ground.”
“In your hat, Buster. Ole Massa done freed us slaves. Zebbie, the quicker you quit dodging, the sooner you get those hot cakes. Spread my cape down and put the hot plate on the step.”
We ate breakfast in basic Barsoomian dress: skin. Aunt Hilda pointed out that laundries seemed scarce, and the car’s water tanks had to be saved for drinking and cooking. “Deety, I have just this dress you gave me; I’ll air it and let the wrinkles hang out. Panties, too. An air bath is better than no bath. I know you’ll divvy with me but you are no closer to a laundry than I am.”
My jump suit joined Hilda’s dress. “Aunt Hilda, you could skip bathing a week. Me, right after a bath I have a body odor but not too bad. In twenty four hours I’m whiff. Forty-eight and I smell like a skunk. An air bath may help.”
The same reasoning caused our men to spread their used clothing on the port wing, and caused Zebadiah to pick up Hilda’s cape. “Sharpie, you can’t get fur Hollanderized in this universe. Jake, you stowed some tarps?”
After dishes were “washed” (scoured with turf, placed in the sun) we were sleepy. Zebadiah wanted us to sleep inside, doors locked. Aunt Hilda and I wanted to nap on a tarpaulin in the shade of the car. I pointed out that moving rear seats aft in refitting had made it impossible to recline them.
Zebadiah offered to give up his seat to either of us women. I snapped, “Don’t be silly, dear! You barely fit into a rear seat and it brings your knees so far forward that the seat in front can’t be reclined.”
Pop intervened. “Hold it! Daughter, I’m disappointed – snapping at your husband. But, Zeb, we’ve got to rest. If I sleep sitting up, I get swollen ankles, half crippled, not good for much.”
“I was trying to keep us safe,” Zebadiah said plaintively.
“I know, Son; you’ve been doing so – and a smart job, or we all would be dead three times over. Deety knows it, I know it, Hilda knows it -“
“I sure do, Zebbie!”
“My Captain, I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“We’ll need you later. Flesh has its limits – even yours. If necessary, we would bed you down and stand guard over you -“
“No!”
“We sure would, Zebbie!”
“We will, my Captain.”
“But I doubt that it’s necessary. When we sat on the ground to eat, did anyone get chigger bites or anything?”
My husband shook his head.
“Not me,” Aunt Hilda agreed.
I added, “I saw some little beasties but they didn’t bother me.”
“Apparently,” Pop went on, “they don’t like our taste. A ferocious-looking dingus sniffed at my ankle – but it scurried away. Zeb, Gay can hear better than we can?”
“Oh, much better!”
“Can her radar be programmed to warn us?”
Zebadiah looked thoughtful. “Uh… anti-collision alarm would wake the dead. If I pulled it in to minimum range, then – No, the display would be cluttered with ‘grass.’ We’re on the ground. False returns.”
I said, “Subtract static display, Zebadiah.”
“Eh? How, Deety?”
“Gay can do it. Shall I try?”
“Deety, if you switch on radar, we have to sleep inside. Microwaves cook your brains.”
“I know, sir. Gay has sidelookers, eyes fore and aft, belly, and umbrella – has she not?”
“Yes. That’s why -“
“Switch off her belly eye. Can sidelookers hurt us if we sleep under her?” His eyes widened. “Astrogator, you know more about my car than I do. I’d better sign her over to you.”
“My Captain, you have already endowed me with all your worldly goods. I don’t know more about Gay; I know more about programming.”

We made a bed under the car by opening Zebadiah’s sleeping bag out flat, a tarpaulin on each side. Aunt Hilda dug out sheets: “In case anyone gets chilly.”
“Unlikely,” Pop told her. “Hot now, not a cloud and no breeze.”
“Keep it by you, dearest. Here’s one for Zebbie.” She dropped two more on the sleeping bag, lay down on it. “Down flat, gentlemen” – waited for them to comply, then called to me: “Deety! Everybody’s down.”
From inside I called back, “Right with you!” – then said, “Hello, Gay.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Retrieve newest program. Execute.”
Five scopes lighted, faded to dimness; the belly eye remained blank. I told her, “You’re a good girl, Gay.”
“I like you, too, Deety. Over.”
“Roger and out, sister.” I scrunched down, got at the stowage under the instrument board, pulled out padding and removed saber and sword, each with belt. These I placed at the door by a pie tin used at breakfast. I slithered head first out the door, turned without rising, got swords and pie plate, and crawled toward the pallet, left arm cluttered with hardware.
I stopped. “Your sword, Captain.”
“Deety! Do I need a sword to nap?”
“No, sir. I shall sleep soundly knowing that my captain has his sword.”
“Hmm – ” Zebadiah withdrew it a span, returned it with a click. “Silly… but I feel comforted by it, too.”
“I see nothing silly, sir. Ten hours ago you killed a thing with it that would have killed me.”
“I stand – sprawl – corrected, my Princess. Dejah Thoris is always correct.”
“I hope my Chieftain will always think so.”
“He will. Give me a big kiss. What’s the pie pan for?”
“Radar alarm test.”
Having delivered the kiss, I crawled past Hilda and handed Pop his saber. He grinned at me. “Deety hon, you’re a one! Just the security blanket I need. How did you know?”
“Because Aunt Hilda and I need it. With our warriors armed, we will sleep soundly.” I kissed Pop, crawled out from under. “Cover your ears!”
I got to my knees, sailed that pan far and high, dropped flat and covered my ears. As the pan sailed into the zone of microwave radiation, a horrid clamor sounded inside the car, kept up until the pan struck the ground and stopped rolling – chopped off. “Somebody remind me to recover that. Good night, all!”
I crawled back, stretched out by Hilda, kissed her goodnight, set the clock in my head for six hours, went to sleep.

The sun was saying that it was fourteen instead of fourteen-fifteen and I decided that my circadian did not fit Barsoom. Would the clock in my head “slow” to match a day forty minutes longer? Would it give me trouble? Not likely – I’ve always been able to sleep anytime. I felt grand and ready for anything.
I crept off the pallet, snaked up into the car’s cabin, and stretched. Felt good!
I crawled through the bulkhead door back of the rear seats, got some scarves and my jewelry case, went forward into the space between seats and instrument board.
I tried tying a filmy green scarf as a bikini bottom, but it looked like a diaper. I took it off, folded it corner to corner, pinned it at my left hip with a jeweled brooch. Lots better! “Indecently decent” Pop would say.
I looped a rope of imitation pearls around my hips, arranged strands to drape with the cloth, fastened them at the brooch. I hung around my neck a pendant of pearls and cabochon emeralds – from my father the day I received the title doctor of philosophy.
I was adding bracelets and rings when I heard “Psst!” – looked down and saw the Hillbilly’s head and hands at the doorsill. Hilda put a finger to her lips. I nodded, gave her a hand up, whispered, “Still asleep?”
“Like babies.”
“Let’s get you dressed… ‘Princess Thuvia.'” Aunt Hilda giggled. “Thank you… ‘Princess’ Dejah Thoris.” “Want anything but jewelry?”
“Just something to anchor it. That old-gold scarf if you can spare it.”
“Course I can! Nothing’s too good for my Aunt Thuvia and that scarf is durn near nothing. Baby doll, we’re going to deck you out for the auction block. Will you do my hair?”
“And you mine. Deety – I mean ‘Dejah Thoris’ – I miss a three-way mirror.”
“We’ll be mirrors for each other,” I told her. “I don’t mind camping out. My great-great-great-grandmother had two babies in a sod house. Except” – I ducked my head, sniffed my armpit – “we’d better find a stream.” I added, “Hold still. Or shall I pin it through your skin?”
“Either way, dear. We’ll find water – all this ground cover.”
“Ground cover doesn’t prove running water. This place may be a ‘dead sea bottom of Barsoom.'”
“Doesn’t look dead,” Aunt Hilda countered. “It’s pretty.”
“Yes, but this looks like a dead sea bottom. Which gave me an idea. Hold up your hair; I want to arrange your necklaces.”
“What idea?” Aunt Hilda demanded.
“Zebadiah told me to figure a third escape program. The first two – I’ll paraphrase, Gay is awake. One tells her to take us back to a height over Snug Harbor; the other tells her to scoot back to where she was before she was last given the first order.”
“I thought that one told her to place us over the Grand Canyon?”
“It does, at present. But if she got the first order now, that would change the second order. Instead of over the Grand Canyon, we would be back here quicker’n a frog could wink its eye.”
“Okay if you say so.”
“She’s programmed that way. Hit the panic button and we are over our cabin site. Suppose we arrive there and find trouble, then use the ‘C’ order. She takes us back to wherever she last got the ‘T’ order. Dangerous or we would not have left in a rush. So we need a third escape program, to take us to a safe place. This looks safe.”
“It’s peaceful.”
“Seems so. There! – more doodads than a Christmas tree and you look nakeder than ever.”
“That’s the effect we want, isn’t it? Sit down in the copilot’s seat; I’ll do your hair.”
“Want shoes?” I asked.
“On Barsoom? Dejah Thoris, thank you for your little-girl shoes. But they pinch my toes. You’re going to wear shoes?”
“Not bleedin’ likely, Aunt Nanny Goat. I toughened my feet for karate – I can break a four-by-nine with my feet and get nary a bruise. Or run on sharp gravel. What’s a good escape phrase? I plan to store in Gay an emergency signal for every spot we visit that looks like a safe hidey-hole. So give me a phrase.”
“Your mudder chaws terbacker!”
“Nanny Goat! A code-phrase should have a built-in mnemonic.”
“‘Bug Out’?”
“A horrid expression and just what we need. ‘Bug Out’ will mean to take us to this exact spot. I’ll program it. And post it and others on the instrument board so that, if anyone forgets, she can read it.”
“And so could any outsider, if she got in.”
“Fat lot of good it would do her! Gay ignores an order not in our voices. Hello, Gay.”
“Hello, Deety!”
“Retrieve present location. Report.”
“Null program.”
“Are we lost?”
“Not at all, Aunt Hilda. I was sloppy. Gay, program check. Define ‘Home.'”
“Cancel any-all transitions translations rotations inertials. Return to zerodesignated latitude longitude two klicks above ground level hovering.”
“Search memory reversed-real-time for last order execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home.”
“Retrieved.”
“From time of retrieved order integrate to time-present all transitions translations rotations inertials.”
“Integrated.”
“Test check. Report summary of integration.”
“Origin ‘Home.’ Countermarch program executed. Complex maneuver inertials. Translation Tau axis ten minimals positive. Complex maneuver inertials. Translation Ell axis two-two-four-zero-nine-zero-eight-two-seven point zero klicks. Negative vector Ell axis twenty-four klicks per sec. Negative vector Ell axis four klicks per sec. Complex maneuver inertials. Grounded here-then oh-eight-oh-two-forty-nine. Grounded inertials continuing eight hours three minutes nineteen seconds mark! Grounded inertials continue running realtime.”
“New program. Here-now grounded inertial location real-time running to real-time new execute order equals code-phrase bug-out. Report new program.”
Gay answered: “New program code-phrase bug-out: Definition: Here-now grounded inertials running real-time to future-time execute order code-phrase bug-out.”
“Gay, I tell you three times.”
“Deety, I hear you three times.”
“New program. Execute-coded Gay Deceiver Bug Out. At execute-code move to location coded ‘bug-out.’ I tell you three times.”
“I hear you three times.”
“Gay Deceiver, you’re a smart girl.”
“Deety, why don’t you leave that big ape and live with me? Over.”
“Good night, Gay. Roger and out. Hillbilly, I didn’t give you that answer.” I tried to look fierce.
“Why, Deety, how could you say such a thing?”
“I know I didn’t. Well?”
“I ‘fess up, Deetikins. A few days ago while you and I were working, you were called away. While I waited, I stuck that in. Want it erased?”
I don’t know how to look fierce; I snickered. “No. Maybe Zebadiah will be around the next time it pops up. I wish our men would wake, I do.”
“They need rest, dear.”
“I know. But I want to check that new program.”
“It sounded complex.”
“Can be, by voice. I’d rather work on paper. A computer doesn’t accept excuses. A mistake can be anything from ‘null program’ to disaster. This one has features I’ve never tried. I don’t really understand what Pop does. Non-Euclidean n-dimensional geometry is way out in left field.”
“To me it’s not in the ball park.”
“So I’m itchy.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“Did I show you our micro walky-talkies?”
“Jacob gave me one.”
“There’s one for each. Tiny but amazingly long-ranged. Uses less power than a hand calculator and weighs less – under two hundred grams. Mass, I mean – weight here is much less. Today I thought of a new use. Gay can accept their frequency.”
“That’s nice. How do you plan to use this?”
“This car can be remote-controlled.”
“Deety, who would you want to do that?”
I admitted that I did not know. “But Gay can be preprogrammed to do almost anything. For example, we could go outside and tell Gay, via walky-talky, to carry out two programs in succession: H, O, M, E, followed by B, U, G, O, U, T. Imagine Zebadiah’s face when he wakes up from sun in his eyes – because his car has vanished – then his expression two hours later when it pops back into existence.”
“Deety, go stand in the corner for thinking such an unfunny joke!” Then Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. “Why would it take two hours? I thought Gay could go anywhere in no time.”
“Depends on your postulates, Princess Thuvia. We took a couple of hours to get here because we fiddled. Gay would have to follow that route in reverse because it’s the only one she knows. Then – ” I stopped, suddenly confused. “Or would it be four hours? No, vectors would cancel and – But that would make it instantaneous; we would never know that she had left. Or would we? Aunt Hilda, I don’t know! Oh, I wish our men would wake up, I do!” The world wobbled and I felt scared.
“I’m awake,” Pop answered, his head just showing above the doorsill. “What’s this debate?” He gave Aunt Hilda a lecherous leer. “Little girl, if you’ll come up to my room, I’ll give you some candy.”
“Get away from me, you old wolf!”
“Hilda my love, I could sell you down to Rio and retire on the proceeds. You look like expensive stuff.”
“I’m very expensive stuff, darling wolf. All I want is every cent a man has and constant pampering – then a fat estate when he dies.”
“I’ll try to die with plenty of money in the bank, dearest.”
“Instead we’re both dead and our bank accounts have gone Heaven knows where and I haven’t a rag to my back – and I’m wonderfully happy. Come inside – mind the radar! – and kiss me, you old wolf; you don’t have to buy me candy.”
“Pop,” I asked, “is Zebadiah asleep?”
“Just woke up.”
I spoke to Gay, then to Pop: “Will you tell Zebadiah radar is off? He can stand up without getting his ears fried.”
“Sure.” Pop ducked down and yelled, “Zeb, it’s safe; her husband left.”
“Coming!” Zebadiah’s voice rumbled back. “Tell Deety to put the steaks on.” My darling appeared wearing sword, carrying pie pan and sheets. “Are the steaks ready?” he asked, then kissed me.
“Not quite, sir,” I told him. “First, go shoot a thoat. Or will you settle for peanut butter sandwiches?”
“Don’t talk dirty. Did you say ‘thoat’?”
“Yes. This is Barsoom.”
“I thoat that was what you said.”
“If that’s a pun, you can eat it for supper. With peanut butter.”
Zebadiah shuddered. “I’d rather cut my thoat.”
Pop said, “Don’t do it, Zeb. A man can’t eat with his thoat cut. He can’t even talk clearly.”
Aunt Hilda said mildly, “If you three will cease those atrocities, I’ll see what I can scrape up for dinner.”
“I’ll help,” I told her, “but can we run my test first? I’m itchy.”
“Certainly, Deety. It will be a scratch meal.”
Pop looked at Aunt Hilda reproachfully. “And you told us to stop.”
“What test?” demanded my husband.
I explained the Bug-Out program. “I think I programmed it correctly. But here is a test. Road the car a hundred meters. If my program works – fine! If it tests null, no harm done but you and Pop will have to teach me more about the twister before I’ll risk new programming.”
“I don’t want to road the car, Deety; I’m stingy with every erg until I know when and where I can juice Gay. However – Jake, what’s your minimum transition?”
“Ten kilometers. Can’t use spatial quanta for transitions – too small. But the scale goes up fast – logarithmic. That’s short range. Middle range is in light-years – logarithmic again.”
“What’s long range, Jake?”
“Gravitic radiation versus time. We won’t use that one.”
“Why not, Jacob?” asked Aunt Hilda.
Pop looked sheepish. “I’m scared of it, dearest. There are three major theories concerning gravitic propagation. At the time I machined those controls, one theory seemed proved. Since then other physicists have reported not being able to reproduce the data. So I blocked off long range.” Pop smiled sourly. “I know the gun is loaded but not what it will do. So I spiked it.”
“Sensible,” agreed my husband. “Russian roulette lacks appeal. Jake, do you have any guess as to what options you shut off?”
“Better than a guess, Zeb. It reduces the number of universes accessible to us on this axis from the sixth power of six-to-the-sixth-power to a mere six to the sixth power. Forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six.”
“Gee, that’s tough!”
“I didn’t mean it as a joke, Zeb.”
“Jake, I was laughing at me. I’ve been looking forward to a lifetime exploring universes – and now I learn that I’m limited to a fiddlin’ forty-six thousand and some. Suppose I have a half century of exploration left in me. Assume that I take off no time for eating, sleeping, or teasing the cat, how much time can I spend in each universe?”
“About nine hours twenty minutes per universe,” I told him. “Nine hours, twenty-three minutes, thirty-eight point seven-two-two seconds, plus, to be more nearly accurate.”
“Deety, let’s do be accurate,” Zebadiah said solemnly. “If we stayed a minute too long in each universe, we would miss nearly a hundred universes.”
I was getting into the spirit. “Let’s hurry instead. If we work at it, we can do three universes a day for fifty years – one of us on watch, one on standby, two off duty – and still squeeze in maintenance, plus a few hours on the ground, once a year. If we hurry.”
“We haven’t a second to lose!” Zebadiah answered. “All hands! – places! Stand by to lift! Move!”
I was startled but hurried to my seat. Pop’s chin dropped but he took his place. Aunt Hilda hesitated a split second before diving for her seat, but, as she strapped herself in, wailed, “Captain? Are we really leaving Barsoom?”
“Quiet, please. Gay Deceiver, close doors! Report seat belts. Copilot, check starboard door seal.”
“Seat belt fastened,” I reported with no expression.
“Mine’s fastened. Oh, dear!”
“Copilot, by low range, ‘H’ axis upward, minimum transition.”
“Set, Captain.”
“Execute.”
Sky outside was dark, the ground far below. “Ten klicks exactly,” my husband approved. “Astrogator, take the conn, test your new program. Science Officer observe.”
“Yessir. Gay Deceiver – Bug Out!” We were parked on the ground.
“Science Officer – report,” Zebadiah ordered.
“Report what?” Aunt Hilda demanded.
“We tested a new program. Did it pass test?”
“Uh, we seem to be back where we were. We were weightless maybe ten seconds. I guess the test was okay, Except -“
“‘Except’ what?”
“Captain Zebbie, you’re the worst tease on Earth! And Barsoom! You did so put lime Jello in my pool!”
“I was in Africa.”
“Then you arranged it!”
“Hilda – please! I never said we were leaving Barsoom. I said that we haven’t a second to waste. We don’t, with so much to explore.”
“Excuses. What about my clothes? All on the starboard wing. Where are they now? Floating up in the stratosphere? Coming down where? I’ll never find them.”
“I thought you preferred to dress Barsoomian style?”
“Doesn’t mean I want to be forced to! Besides, Deety lent them to me. I’m sorry, Deety.”
I patted her hand. “‘S’all right, Aunt Hilda. I’ll lend you more. Give them, I mean.” I hesitated, then said firmly, “Zebadiah, you should apologize to Aunt Hilda.”
“Oh, for the love of – Sharpie? Sharpie darling.”
“Yes, Zebbie?”
“I’m sorry I let you think that we were leaving Barsoom. I’ll buy you clothes that fit. We’ll make a quick trip back to Earth -“
“Don’t want to go back to Earth! Aliens! They scare me.”
“They scare me, too. I started to say: ‘Earth-without-a-J.’ It’s so much like our own that I can probably use U.S. money. If not, I have gold. Or I can barter. For you, Sharpie, I’ll steal clothes. We’ll go to Phoenix-without-a-J – tomorrow – today we take a walk and see some of this planet – your planet – and we’ll stay on your planet until you get tired of it. Is that enough? Or must I confess putting Jello into your pool when I didn’t?”
“You really didn’t?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Be darned. Actually I thought it was funny. I wonder who did it? Aliens, maybe?”
“They play rougher than that. Sharpie darling, I’m not the only weirdo in your stable – not by dozens.”
“Guess maybe. Zebbie? Will you kiss Sharpie and make up?”

On the ground, under the starboard wing, we found our travel clothes, and under the port wing, those of our husbands. Zebadiah looked bemused. “Jake? I thought Hilda was right. It had slipped my mind that we had clothing on the wings.”
“Use your head, Son.”
“I’m not sure I have one.”
“I don’t understand it either, darling,” Aunt Hilda added.
“Daughter?” Pop said.
“Pop, I think I know. But – I pass!”
“Zeb, the car never moved. Instead -“
Aunt Hilda interrupted, “Jacob, are you saying that we did not go straight up? We were there – five minutes ago.”
“Yes, my darling. But we didn’t move there. Motion has a definable meaning: A duration of changing locations. But no duration was involved. We did not successively occupy loci between here-then and there-then.”
Aunt Hilda shook her head. “I don’t understand. We went whoosh! up into the sky… then whoosh! back where we started.”
“My darling, we didn’t whoosh! Deety! Don’t be reticent.”
I sighed. “Pop, I’m not sure there exists a symbol for the referent. Aunt Hilda. Zebadiah. A discontinuity. The car -“
“Got it!” said Zebadiah.
“I didn’t,” Aunt Hilda persisted.
“Like this, Sharpie,” my husband went on. “My car is here. Spung! – it vanishes. Our clothes fall to the ground. Ten seconds later – flip! – we’re back where we started. But our clothes are on the ground. Get it now?”
“I – I guess so. Yes.”
“I’m glad you do… because I don’t. To me, it’s magic.” Zebadiah shrugged. “‘Magic.'”
“‘Magic’,” I stated, “is a symbol for any process not understood.”
“That’s what I said, Deety. ‘Magic.’ Jake, would it have mattered if the car had been indoors?”
“Well… that fretted me the first time Deety and I translated to Earth-without-the-letter-J. So I moved our car outdoors. But now I think that only the destination matters. It should be empty – I think. But I’m too timid to experiment.”
“Might be interesting. Unmanned vehicle. Worthless target. A small asteroid. A baby sun?”
“I don’t know, Zeb. Nor do I have apparatus to spare. It took me three years to build this one.”
“So we wait a few years. Jake? Air has mass.”
“That worried me also. But any mass, other than degenerate mass, is mostly empty space. Air – Earth sea-level air – has about a thousandth the density of the human body. The body is mostly water and water accepts air readily. I can’t say that it has no effect – twice I’ve thought that my temperature went up a trifle at transition or translation in atmosphere but it could have been excitement. I’ve never experienced caisson disease from it. Has any of us felt discomfort?”
“Not me, Jake.”
“I’ve felt all right, Pop,” I agreed.
“I got space sick. Till Deety cured it,” Aunt Hilda added.
“So did I, my darling. But that was into vacuo and could not involve the phenomenon.”
“Pop,” I said earnestly, “we weren’t hurt; we don’t have to know why. A basic proposition of epistemology, bedrock both for the three basic statements of semantics and for information theory, is that an observed fact requires no proof. It simply is, self-demonstrating. Let philosophers worry about it; they haven’t anything better to do.”
“Suits me!” agreed Hilda. “You big brains had Sharpie panting. I thought we were going to take a walk?”
“We are, dear,” agreed my husband. “Right after those steaks.”

Chapter XVIII

” – the whole world is alive.”

Zebadiah:
Four Dagwoods later we were ready to start walkabout. Deety delayed by wanting to repeat her test by remote control. I put my foot down. “No!”
“Why not, my Captain? I’ve taught Gay a program to take her straight up ten klicks. It’s G, A, Y, B, O, U, N, C, E – a new fast-escape with no execution word necessary. Then I’ll recall her by B, U, G, O, U, T. If one works via walky-talky, so will the second. It can save our lives, it can!”
“Uh – ” I went on folding tarps and stowing my sleeping bag. The female mind is too fast for me. I often can reach the same conclusion; a woman gets there first and never by the route I have to follow. Besides that, Deety is a genius.
“You were saying, my Captain?”
“I was thinking. Deety, do it with me aboard. I won’t touch the controls. Check pilot, nothing more.”
“Then it won’t be a test.”
“Yes, it will. I promise, Cub Scout honor, to let it fall sixty seconds. Or to three klicks H-above-G, whichever comes first.”
“These walky-talkies have more range than ten kilometers even between themselves. Gay’s reception is much better.”
“Deety, you trust machinery; I don’t. If Gay doesn’t pick up your second command – sun spots, interference, open circuit, anything – I’ll keep her from crashing.”
“But if something else goes wrong and you did crash, I would have killed you!” She started to cry.
So we compromised. Her way. The exact test she had originally proposed. I wasted juice by roading Gay Deceiver a hundred meters, got out, and we all backed off. Deety said into her walky-talky, “Gay Deceiver… Bug Out!”
It’s more startling to watch than it is to be inside. There was Gay Deceiver off to our right, then she was off to our left. No noise – not even an implosion splat! Magic.
“Well, Deety? Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, Zebadiah. Thank you, darling. But it had to be a real test. You see that – don’t you?”
I agreed, while harboring a suspicion that my test had been more stringent. “Deety, could you reverse that? Go somewhere else and tell Gay to come to you?”
“Somewhere she’s never been?”
“Yes.”
Deety switched off her walky-talky and made sure that mine was off. “I don’t want her to hear this. Zebadiah, I always feel animistic about a computer. The Pathetic Fallacy – I know. But Gay is a person to me.”
Deety sighed. “I know it’s a machine. It doesn’t have ears; it can’t see; it doesn’t have a concept of space-time. What it can do is manipulate circuitry in complex ways – complexities limited by its grammar and vocabulary. But those limits are exact. If I don’t stay precisely with its grammar and vocabulary, it reports ‘Null program.’ I can tell it anything by radio that I can tell it by voice inside the cabin – and so can you. But I can’t tell it to come look for me in a meadow beyond a canyon about twelve or thirteen klicks approximately southwest of here-now. That’s a null program – five undefined terms.”
“Because you made it null. You fed ‘garbage in’ and expect me to be surprised at ‘garbage out’ – when you did it a-purpose.”
“I did not either, I didn’t!”
I kissed the end of her nose. “Deety darling, you should trust your instincts. Here’s one way to tell Gay to do that without defining even one new term into her vocabulary. Tell her to expect a three-part program. First part: bounce one minimum, ten klicks. Second part: transit twelve point five klicks true course two-two-five. Third part: drop to one klick H-over-G and hover. At that point, if what you described as your location is roughly correct, you will see her and can coach her to a landing without using Jake’s twister.”
“Uh… twelve and a half kilometers can’t be done in units of ten kilometers. Powered flight?”
“Waste juice? Hon, you just flunked high school geometry. Using Euclid’s tools, compass and straight edge, lay out that course and distance, then lay out how to get there in ten-klick units – no fractions.”
My wife stared. Then her eyes cleared. “Transit one minimum true course one-seven-three and two thirds, then transit one minimum true course two-seven-six and one third. The mirror image solution uses the same courses in reverse. Plus endless trivial solutions using more than two minima.”
“Go to the head of the class. If you don’t spot her, have her do a retreating search curve – in her perms, in an Aussie accent. Honey girl, did you actually do that Euclid style?”
“I approximated it Euclid style – but you didn’t supply compass and straight edge! Scribe circle radius twelve point five. Bisect circle horizontally by straight edge through origin; quarter it by dropping a vertical. Bisect lower left quadrant – that gives true course two-two-five or southwest. Then set compass at ten units and scribe arcs from origin and from southwest point of circle; the intersections give courses and vertices for both major roots to the accuracy of your straight edge and compass. But simply to visualize that construction – well, I got visualized angles of two-seven-five and one-seven-five. Pretty sloppy.
“So I did it accurately by Pythagorean proposition by splitting the isosceles triangle into two right triangles. Hypotenuse is ten, one side is six and a quarter – and that gives the missing side as seven point eight-zero-six-two-four-seven plus – which gives you one course and you read off the other by the scandalous Fifth Axiom. But I did check by trig. Arc sine point seven-eight-zero-six-two-four-seven – “
“Hold it! I believe you. What other ways can you program Gay to find you, using her present vocabulary?”
“Uh… burn juice?”
“If necessary.”
“I would have her bounce a minimum, then maximize my signal. Home on me.”
“Certainly. Now do the same thing without using juice. Just Jake’s twister.”
Deety looked thoughtful and about twelve years old, then suddenly said, “‘Drunkard’s Walk’!” – added at once, “But I would place a locus around the Walk just large enough to be certain that I’m inside it. Gay should plot signal level at each vertex. Such a plot would pinpoint the signal source.”
“Which way is faster? Home straight in under power? Or Drunkard’s Walk?” Deety answered, “Why, the – ” – looked startled. “Those are solid-state relays.”
“Jake sets verniers by hand – but when Gay is directing herself there are no moving parts. Solid state.”
“Zebadiah, am I thinking straight? Using power, at that distance – call it twelve kilometers – Gay should be able to home on me in three or four minutes. But – Zebadiah, this can’t be right! – using no power and relying on random numbers and pure chance in a Drunkard’s Walk, Gay should find me in less than a second. Where did I go wrong?”
“On the high side, Deety girl. Lost your nerve. The first fifty milliseconds should show the hot spot; in less than the second fifty she’ll part your hair. All over in a tenth of a second – or less. But, honey, we still haven’t talked about the best way. I said that you should trust your instincts. Gay is not an ‘it.’ She’s a person. You’ll never know how relieved I was when it turned out that you two were going to be friends. If she had been jealous of you – May the gods deliver us from a vindictive machine! But she’s not; she thinks you’re swell.”
“Zebadiah, you believe that?”
“Dejah Thoris, I know that.”
Deety looked relieved. “I know it, too – despite what I said earlier.”
“Deety, to me the whole world is alive. Some parts are sleeping and some are dozing and some are awake but yawning… and some are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and always ready to go. Gay is one of those.”
“Yes, she is. I’m sorry I called her an ‘it.’ But what is this ‘best way’?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Don’t tell her how – just tell her. Say to her, ‘Gay, come find me!’ All four words are in her vocabulary; the sentence is compatible with her grammar. She’ll find you.”
“But how? Drunkard’s Walk?”
“A tenth of a second might strike her as too long – she likes you, hon. She’ll look through her registers and pick the optimum solution. She might not be able to tell you how she did it, since she wipes anything she’s not told to remember. I think she does; I’ve never been certain.”

Jake and Hilda had wandered off while Deety and I had been talking. They had turned back, so we started toward them. Sharpie called out, “Zebbie, what happened to that hike?”
“Right away,” I agreed. “Jake, we have about three hours. We ought to be buttoned up before sundown. Check?”
“I agree. The temperature will drop rapidly at sundown.”
“Yup. We can’t do real exploring today. So let’s treat it as drill. Fully armed, patrol formation, radio discipline, and always alert, as if there were a ‘Black Hat’ behind every bush.”
“No bushes,” objected Hilda.
I pretended not to hear. “But what constitutes ‘fully armed,’ Jake? We each have rifles. You have that oldstyle Army automatic that will knock down anything if you’re close enough but – how good a shot are you?”
“Good enough.”
“How good is ‘Good enough’?” (Most people are as accurate with a baseball as with a pistol.)
“Skipper, I won’t attempt a target more than fifty meters away. But if I intend to hit, the target will be within range and I will hit it.”
I opened my mouth… closed it. Fifty meters is a long range for that weapon. But hint that my father-in-law was boasting?
Deety caught my hesitation. “Zebadiah – Pop taught me pistol in the campus R.O.T.C. range. I’ve seen him practice bobbing targets at thirty meters. I saw him miss one. Once.”
Jake harrumphed. “My daughter omitted to mention that I skip most surprise targets.”
“Father! ‘Most’ means ‘more than fifty percent.’ Not true!”
“Near enough.”
“Six occasions. Four strings, twenty-eight targets on three -“
“Hold it, honey! Jake, it’s silly to argue figures with your daughter. With my police special I won’t attempt anything over twenty meters – except covering fire. But I hand-load my ammo and pour my own dumdums; the result is almost as lethal as that howitzer of yours. But if it comes to trouble, or hunting for meat, we’ll use rifles, backed by Deety’s shotgun. Deety, can you shoot?”
“Throw your hat into the air.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. Sharpie, we have five firearms, four people – is there one that fits you?”
“Cap’n Zebbie, the one time I fired a gun, I went backwards, the bullet went that-a-way, and I had a sore shoulder. Better have me walk in front to trip land mines.”
“Zebadiah, she could carry my fléchette gun.”
“Sharpie, we’ll put you in the middle and you carry the first-aid kit; you’re medical officer – armed with Deety’s purse gun for defense. Jake, it’s time we stowed these swords and quit pretending to be Barsoomian warriors. Field boots. I’m going to wear that same sweaty pilot suit, about equivalent to jump suits you and Deety wore – which I suggest you wear now. We should carry water canteens and iron rations. I can’t think of anything that would serve as a canteen. Damn! Jake, we aren’t doing this by the book.”
“What book?” demanded Hilda.
“Those romances about interstellar exploration. There’s always a giant mother ship in orbit, loaded with everything from catheters to Coca-Cola, and scouting is by landing craft, in touch with the mother ship. Somehow, we aren’t doing it that way.”
(All the more reason to conduct drill as realistically as possible. Jake or I, one of us, is honor bound to stay alive to take care of two women and unborn children; exterminating ‘Black-Hat’ vermin holds a poor second to that.)
“Zebbie, why are you staring at me?”
I hadn’t known that I was. “Trying to figure how to dress you, dear. Sharpie, you look cute in jewelry and perfume. But it’s not enough for a sortie in the bush. Take ’em off and put ’em away. You, too, Deety. Deety, do you have another jump suit that can be pinned up or stitched up for Hilda?”
“A something, sure. But it would take hours to do a good job. My sewing kit isn’t much.”
“‘Hours’ will have to be another day. Today we’ll make do with safety pins. But take time to do a careful job of padding her feet into your stoutest shoes. Confound it, she should have field boots. Sharpie, remind me when we make that shopping trip to Earth-without-a-J.”
“To hear is to obey, Exalted One. Is it permitted to make a parliamentary inquiry?”
She startled me. “Hilda, what did I do to cause that frosty tone?”
“It was what you didn’t do.” Suddenly she smiled, reached high and patted my cheek. “You mean well, Zebbie. But you slipped. While Gay Deceiver is on the ground, we’re equal. But you’ve been giving orders right and left.”
I started to answer; Jake cut in. “Hilda my love, for a scouting expedition the situation becomes equivalent to a craft in motion. Again we require a captain.”
Sharpie turned toward her husband. “Conceded, sir. But may I point out that we are not yet on that hike? Zebbie has consulted you; he has not consulted Deety and me. He asked us for information – darned seldom! Aside from that he has simply laid down the law. What are we, Zebbie? Poor little female critters whose opinions are worthless?”
Caught with your hand in the cooky jar, throw yourself on the mercy of the court.
“Sharpie, you’re right and I’m dead wrong. But before you pass sentence I claim extenuating circumstances: Youth and inexperience, plus long and faithful service.”
“You can’t,” put in my helpful wife. “You can plead one or the other but not both. They can’t overlap.”
Sharpie stood on tiptoes and kissed my chin. “In Zebbie’s case they do overlap. Do you still want to know what to use as water canteens?”
“Certainly!”
“Then why didn’t you ask?”
“But I did!”
“No, Cap’n Zebbie; you did not ask and did not even give us time to volunteer the answer.”
“I’m sorry, Hilda. Too many things on my mind.”
“I know, dear; Sharpie does not mean to scold. But I had to get your attention.”
“That baseball bat?”
“Almost. For an ersatz canteen – A hot-water bottle?”
Again she startled me. “In the danger we were in when we left, you worried about cold feet in bed? And packed a hot-water bottle?”
“Two,” answered Deety. “Aunt Hilda fetched one. So did I.”
“Deety, you don’t have cold feet and neither do I.”
Sharpie said, “Deety, is he actually that naïve?”
“I’m afraid he is, Aunt Hilda. But he’s sweet.”
“And brave,” added Hilda. “But retarded in spots. They do overlap in Zebbie’s case. He’s unique.”
“What,” I demanded, “are you talking about?”
“Aunt Hilda means that, when you refitted Gay, you neglected to install a bidet.”
“Oh.” That was the wittiest I could manage. “It’s not a subject I give much thought to.”
“No reason you should, Zebbie. Although men use them, too.”
“Zebadiah does. Pop, too. Bidets, I mean. Not hot-water bottles.”
“I meant hot-water bottles, dear. As medical officer I may find it necessary to administer an enema to the Captain.”
“Oh, no!” I objected. “You’re not equipped.”
“But she is, Zebadiah. We fetched both sorts of nozzles.”
“But you didn’t fetch four husky orderlies to hold me down. Let’s move on. Sharpie, what was the advice you would have given if I had been bright enough to consult you?”
“Some is not advice but a statement of fact. I’m not going for a hike on a hot day swaddled in a pinned-up jump suit eight sizes too big. While you all play Cowboys-and-Indians, I’m going to curl up in my seat and read ‘The Oxford Book of English Verse.’ Thank you for fetching it, Jacob.”
“Hilda beloved, I will worry.”
“No need to worry about me, Jacob. I can always tell Gay to lock her doors. But, were I to go with you, I would be a handicap. You three are trained to fight; I’m not.” Sharpie turned toward me. “Captain, since I’m not going, that’s all I have to say.”
What was there for me to say? “Thank you, Hilda. Deety, do you have things on your mind?”
“Yes, sir. I go along with field boots and jump suits and so forth even though they’ll be beastly hot. But I wish you would change your mind about your sword and Pop’s saber. Maybe they aren’t much compared with rifles but they’re good for my morale.”
Hilda interjected, “Had I decided to go, Captain, I would have said the same. Possibly it is an emotional effect from what happened, uh – was it only yesterday? – but perhaps it is subconscious logic. Just yesterday bare blades defeated a man – a thing, an alien – armed with a firearm and ready to use it.”
Jake spoke up. “Captain, I didn’t want to take off my saber.”
“We’ll wear them.” Any excuse is a good excuse to wear a sword. “Are we through? We’ve lost an hour and the Sun is dropping. Deety?”
“One more thing, Zebadiah – and I expect to be outvoted. I say to cancel the hike.”
“So? Princess, you’ve said too much or not enough.”
“If we do this, we spend the night here – sitting up. If we chase the Sun instead – There were lights on the night side that looked like cities. There was blue on the day side that looked like a sea. I think I saw canals. But whether we find something or not, at worst we’ll catch up with sunrise and be able to sleep outdoors in daylight, just as we did today.”
“Deety! Gay can overtake the Sun. Once. You want to use all her remaining juice just to sleep outdoors?”
“Zebadiah, I wasn’t planning on using any power.”
“Huh? It sounded like it.”
“Oh, no! Do transitions of three minima or more, bearing west. Aim us out of the atmosphere; we fall back in while looking for places of interest. As we reenter, we glide, but where depends on what you want to look at. When you have stretched the glide to the limit, unless you decide to ground, you do another transition. There is great flexibility, Zebadiah. You can reach sunrise line in the next few minutes. Or you could elect to stay on the day side for weeks, never land, never use any juice, and inspect the entire planet from pole to pole.”
“Maybe Gay can stay up for weeks – but not me. I’m good for several more hours. With that limitation, it sounds good, How about it? Hilda? Jake?”
“You mean that female suffrage is permanent? I vote Yes!”
Jake said, “You have a majority; no need for a male vote.”
“Jacob!” his wife said reproachfully.
“Joking, my dear. It’s unanimous.”
I said, “Somebody just cancelled the election. Look there.” We all looked. Deety said, “What is it? A pterodactyl?”
“No, an ornithopter. A big one.”

PART TWO – The Butterfly’s Mandarin

Chapter XIX

Something is gained in translation –

Hilda:
Jacob tightened his arm around me. “Zeb,” he said softly, “I don’t believe it.” He was staring (we all were) at this mechaniwockle pteranodon coming at us over the hills in the west.
“Neither do I,” Zebbie answered. “Wrong wing loading. Impossible articulation. There’s a second one. A third! All hands! Grab your clothes! Man the ship! Prepare to lift! Move! Jake, unbuckle your saber and into your jump suit, fast!”
Cap’n Zebbie was unhooking his sword belt and grabbing his coveralls as he yelped. I was inside first as I didn’t stop to dress – grabbed Deety’s baby shoes with one hand, my dress and panties with the other.
I wiggled into panties, slid the dress over my head, slipped on Deety’s Keds.
I anticipated the order to fasten seat belts – stopped suddenly and eased my belt. I had not stopped to take off the doodads that proclaimed me a Barsoomian “princess.” Now it seemed that every item of frippery was about to imprint me for life.
Deety was cursing softly over the same problem. Deety’s jump suit was harder to reach into, even when she unbelted and opened the zipper all the way. I helped readjust the hardware but cautioned her not to remove it and to close the zipper clear to her chin. “Deety, if you get holes in your hide, you’ll get well. But if something loose catches our captain in the eye, the culprit will be broken on the wheel.”
I clucked-clucked at her answer but big ones do get in the way. Meanwhile our men were having problems. That space under the instrument board could not be seen by a full-sized male. The best position to reach it was impossible for Jacob, ridiculously impossible for Zebbie.
Zebbie’s profanity was louder than Deety’s but not as colorful. My own darling was keeping quiet which meant that he was really in trouble. I said, “Gentlemen -“
Zebbie grunted, “Shut up, Sharpie; we’ve got problems! Deety! How did you get these toadstickers into this compartment?”
“I didn’t. Aunt Hilda did.”
“Sharpie, can I apologize later? Those Martians are circling us now!”
So they were, at least a dozen flapping monstrosities. One appeared about to ground. “Captain, I’ll do it – but there is a faster way.”
“How?”
“Unhook your scabbards, put on your sword belts. Saber and sword in scabbards fit easily if you point one right, the other left. They will rattle unless you stuff clothing around them.”
“They can bloody well rattle!” In seconds, our gallants had blades and scabbards stowed. As Cap’n Zebbie resumed sword belt and started on his seat belt he called out, “Fasten belts, prepare to lift! Sharpie, have I told you today that in addition to loving you, I admire you?”
“I think not, Captain.”
“I do. Enormously. Report! Science Officer?”
“Seat belt fastened. Thank you, Zebbie.”
“Seat belt fastened,” reported Deety. “Bulkhead door dogged.”
“Seat belt fastened, starboard door seal checked, copilot ready, sir!”
“Port door seal checked, pilot strapped down; we’re ready – and none too soon! One has grounded and somebody is getting out. Hey! They’re human!”
“Or disguised aliens,” said my darling.
“Well… yes, there’s that. I may lift any second. Deety – that new program: Just G, A, Y, B, O, U, N, C, E? No ‘do-it’ word?”
“Check.”
“Good. I won’t use it unless forced to. This may be that ‘first contact’ the world has been expecting.”
“Cap’n Zebbie, why would aliens disguise themselves when they outnumber us? I think they are human.”
“I hope you’re right. Copilot, should I open the door? Advice, please.”
“Captain, you can open the door anytime. But if it is open, it takes a few seconds to close it and the ship won’t lift with a door open.”
“Too right. Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Boss. Where did you pick up the tarts?”
“Gay, check and report.”
“All circuits checked, all systems go, juice point seven-eight – and I’m in the mood.”
“Cast loose L-gun. Prepare to burn.”
“Done!”
“Captain,” my husband said worriedly, “are you planning to blast them?”
“I hope not. I’d rather run than fight. I’d rather stay and get help than either. But they grounded where I can burn them – using offset.”
“Captain, don’t do it!”
“Copilot, I don’t plan to. Now drop it!”
The grounded flappy bird was about two hundred meters and a few degrees left of dead ahead. Two men – they looked like men – had disembarked and headed toward us. They were dressed alike – uniforms? They seemed vaguely familiar – but all uniforms seem vaguely familiar, do they not?
They were less than a hundred meters from us. Cap’n Zebbie did something at his instrument board and suddenly their voices were inside, blastingly loud. He adjusted the setting and we could hear clearly. Zebbie said, “That’s Russian! Isn’t it, Jake?”
“Captain, I think so. A Slavic language, in any case.” Jacob added, “Do you understand it?”
“Me? Jake, I said that I can swear in Russian; I didn’t say I could speak it. I can say ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ and ‘da’ and ‘nyet’ – maybe six more. How about you?”
“I can puzzle out a paper about mathematics with the aid of a dictionary. But speak it? Understand it? No.”
I tried to remember whether or not I had ever told Zebbie that I know Russian. My husband and Deety I had not told. Well, if Zebbie knew, he would call on me. It is not something I mention as it does not fit my persona. I started it out of curiosity; I wanted to read those great Russian novelists – Dostoievsky, Tolstoy, and so forth – in the original in order to find out why they were so celebrated. Why I had never been able to read one of those classic novels all the way through? (They had cured me of sleeping pills.)
So I set out to learn Russian. Soon I was wearing earphones to bed, listening to Russian in my sleep, working with a tutor in the daytime. I never mastered a good accent; those six-consonants-in-a-row words tie knots in my tongue. But one cannot read a language easily unless one can “hear” the words. So I learned the spoken language along with the written.
(Oh, yes, those “classic novels”: Having invested so much effort I carried out my purpose: War and Peace, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, and so forth. Would you believe it? Something is gained in translation; the originals are even more depressing and soporific than translations. I’m not sure what purpose Russian fiction has, but it can’t be entertainment.)
I decided to wait. I was not eager to be interpreter and it would not be necessary if it turned out that Zebbie or Jacob had a language in common with our visitors – and I rationalized my decision by telling myself that it might turn out to be an advantage if the strangers thought that no one of us understood Russian.
(At that point I realized that I had been thinking in Russian. It’s a wonderful language for paranoid thoughts.)
When Zebbie switched on the outside mikes, the older was telling the Younger: ” – not let Fyodor Ivanovitch get wind of such thoughts, Yevgeny. He does not believe that (no good? stupid?) Britishers can excel us in anything. So don’t refer to that curious craft as ‘advanced engineering.’ A ‘weird assemblage of poorly organized experiments’ would be better.”
“I will remember. Shall I loosen my holster and take off the safety? To guard you, sir?”
The older man laughed. “You haven’t dealt with the damned British as long as I have. Never let them suspect that you are even mildly nervous. And always be sure to insult him first. Bear in mind that the lowliest serf in Ykraina is better than their so-called King-Emperor. That serf -“when Zebbie interrupted: “Arrêtez-là!”
The younger hesitated but the older never broke stride. Instead he answered in French: “You are telling me to halt, you British swine? An officer of the Tsar on Russian soil! I spit on your mother. And your father if your mother can remember who he was. Why are you speaking French, you soiled British spy? You fool no one. Speak Russian – or, if you are uncultured, speak English.”
Zebbie thumbed a button. “What about it, Jake? Switch to English when he’s so hipped on the subject of Englishmen? Or bull it through in French? My accent is better than his.”
“Maybe you can get away with it, Captain. I can’t.”
Zebbie nodded and opened the mike, spoke in English: “We are not British, not spies. We are American tourists and -“
“‘American’? What nonsense is this?” (He had shifted to English.) “A British colonial is still British – and a spy.”
My husband reached over, shut off the microphone. “Captain, I advise lifting. He won’t listen to reason.”
“Copilot, not till I must. We don’t even have enough water. I must try to parley.” Zebbie thumbed the switch. “I am not a British colonial. I am Zeb Carter of California, a citizen of the United States of America; I have my passport. If we have trespassed, we regret it and apologize.”
“Spy, that is the most bold-faced bluff I have ever heard. There is no such country as the United States of America. I am placing you under arrest. In the name of His Imperial Majesty the Tsar of All the Russias, by authority delegated to me by His Viceroy for New Russia Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovitch Romanov, I arrest you and your party for the crime of espionage. Open up!”
By now they had reached Gay Deceiver and were at the portside door.
Zebbie answered, “You haven’t told me your name, much less identified yourself as a Russian officer. Or shown any authority over what is clearly unoccupied land.”
“What? Preposterous! I am Colonel the Count Morinosky of Novy Kiev, of the Viceroy’s Imperial Guard. As for my authority, look at the sky around you!” The self-proclaimed colonel drew his pistol, reversed it, and used the butt to pound on the door. “‘Open up!’ I said.”
Zebbie has good temper and calm judgment. Both are likely to slip if anyone abuses Gay Deceiver.
He said softly, “Colonel, your craft on the ground ahead – is there anyone in it?”
“Eh? Of course not. It’s a two-seater, as anyone can see. My private scoutabout. Never mind that. Keep quiet and open up.”
Zebbie again switched off his microphone. “Gay Deceiver, at command ‘Execute’ burn one tenth of a second at point of aim, intensity four.”
“Gotcha, Boss.”
“Colonel, how can you take four prisoners in a two-seater?”
“Simple. You and I will ride in your vehicle. The other members of your party will be hostage for your good behavior and will ride where assigned. You won’t see which craft lest you get foolish ideas. My pilot will fly my craft.”
“Execute.”
The grounded ornithopter began to burn fiercely – but the colonel did not see it. We saw it – but he was looking at Zebbie. Zebbie said, “Colonel, please stand clear of the door so that I can open it.”
“Oh. Very well.”
“Colonel! Look!” The younger officer, in stepping back, caught sight of the fire – and I have rarely heard such anguish.
Or, an instant later in the colonel’s face, such astonishment switching to rage. He attempted to shoot Zebbie – with his hand still gripping the barrel of his pistol. In a moment he realized what he was doing and flipped it to catch it by the grip.
I never saw whether or not he made the catch; Cap’n Zebbie commanded, “Gay Bounce!” and the scene blacked out while the colonel’s hand was open for the catch.
Zebbie was saying, “Jake, I lost my temper. I should not have done it; it ruined our last chance to deal with those Russians. But I hope it taught the ruddy snarf not to go around hammering dents into other people’s cars.”
“Captain, you did not ruin our ‘last chance’; we never had one. You ran into classic Russian xenophobia. The Commies didn’t invent that attitude; it goes back at least a thousand years. Read your history.” Jacob added, “I’m not sorry you burned his kite. I wish he had to walk home. Regrettably one of his craft will pick him up.”
“Jake, if I could afford to – in juice, in time – I would go back and keep him from being picked up. Harry them, not let them land. I won’t. Hmm – Shall we fall a bit farther and see what they are doing? Before we get on with our interrupted schedule?”
“Uh… Captain, may I have a Bonine pill?”
I squealed, “Me, too!”
“Deety, take care of ’em. I’ll put her in dive and we’ll look.”
“Captain, why not use the B, U, G, program?”
“Deety, somebody might be on that spot. Wups! I’m biting air.” Cap’n Zebbie leaned us over, placed Barsoom – I mean “Mars” – Mars-10 or whatever-dead ahead. “Should spot flappy birds in few minutes. Jake, how about binoculars?”
Zebbie didn’t want them himself while piloting. We passed them around and I spotted an ornithopter, then two more, and passed the glasses to Deety.
“Zebadiah, there is no one where we were parked.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yessir. The colonel’s scoutabout is stifl burning; there are people near it, nowhere else. That’s why I’m certain there is no one where we were. B, U, G, O, U, T is safe.”
Zebbie was slow to answer. “How about it, folks? It would be an unnecessary risk. Just one squawk and I’ll skip it.”
I kept quiet and hoped the others would, too. I don’t worry; I’m going to live as long as Atropos permits – meanwhile I intend to enjoy every minute. Zebbie waited, then said, “Here we go. Gay – Bug Out!”

Chapter XX

• right theory, wrong universe.

Zeb:
Deety is going to force me to look like a hero because I don’t have the guts to let her down. I thought my copilot would veto going back to the scene of the crime; Jake is level-headed about safety precautions. I didn’t count on Sharpie; she’s unpredictable. But I thought Jake would object.
He didn’t. I waited until I was certain that no one was going to get me off the spot… then waited some more… then said sadly, “Here we go,” and told Gay to “BUG OUT!”
I expected to be a mushroom cloud. Instead we were parked where we had been and the colonel’s craft was burning briskly. (Someday I am going to run that experiment: a transition to attempt to cause two masses to occupy the same space. But I won’t be part of the experiment. The Bug-Out program scared me, and I liked the Take-Us-Home program a lot better after we made it two klicks H-above-G instead of parked. Could the Bug-Out program be modified so that Gay sneaked up on her target, checked it by radar, before accepting it? Take it up with Deety, Zeb – stick to what you know!)
The Russians appeared to be slow to notice our return. One ornithopter had grounded not far from the fire; there were several bystanders. I could not see whether or not my erstwhile arresting officer, Colonel Somethingsky, was in the group. I assumed that he was.
Then I was sure: A figure broke loose and headed toward us, waving a pistol. I said briskly, “Shipmates, is there any reason to hang around?”
I waited a short beat. “Hearing no objection – Gay Bounce!”
That black sky looked good. I wondered how Bumpsky was going to explain to the Grand Duke. Brass Hats are notoriously reluctant to believe unlikely stories.
“Did I bounce too quickly? Have you all seen what you wanted to see?”
Only Deety answered. “I was checking that program. I think I see a way to avoid two masses conflicting.”
“Keep talking.”
“Gay could sneak up on the target, inspect it by radar, accept it and ground, or refuse it and bounce – with no loss of time and with the same execute code. That spot could be knee-deep in Russians and Gay would simply whoosh us to where we are now.”
(I said to leave it to Deety. You heard me.) “Good idea. Do it. Can’t have too many fail-safes.”
“I’ll reprogram when we stop.”
“Correction. I want that fail-safe programmed now. I might need your revised program any moment.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“‘Captain darling,’ if you please. If you must call me ‘Captain.’ Then review all preprograms and debug them, if necessary, with analogous fail-safes. And any new ones in the future. Now – Just put her into glide, headed west, and transit three minima?”
“Or more. Or less. I thought that a spot check every thirty kilometers would be about right for a rapid survey.”
“What altitude will we wind up? Assuming I simply aim her at the horizon and transit tangent to the curve.”
“Oh. What altitude do you want, Captain – Captain darling? A tangent does little in three minima, just a touch over a hundred meters. Is ten kilometers about right?”
“Ten klicks is fine. I could aim at the horizon, make transition, then at once give the B, O, U, N, C, E order.”
“So you could, Zebadiah, but if you will use the horizon as reference and aim eighteen and a half degrees above it – Will your gunsight depress that far?”
“No, but I’ll tell Gay. No problem.”
“Three minima on that upward slant will place you ten klicks H-above-G and a couple of klicks short of three minima on the curve.”
“Plus my present altitude.”
“No, no! Visualize the triangle, Zebadiah. It makes no real difference whether you do this from ten klicks H-above-G, or parked on the ground. Do you want exact figures?”
“You visualize triangles, Deety; that’s your department. I’ve got air bite now; I’m going to head west; I want to see where those ornithopters came from. Meantime work out that new fail-safe.” Did it really make no difference whether I started from ten thousand meters or right on deck? Didn’t I have to add in – No, of course not … but one way was sine and the other way was tan. But which one? Hell, it didn’t matter; Deety was right. She always is, on figures – but someday I’m going to work it carefully, on paper, with diagrams and tables. “Copilot.”
“Captain.”
“L axis, transit, three minima.”
“Transition, L axis, thirty kilometers – set!”
“Gay Deceiver.”
“I’m not at home but you may record a message.”
“Change attitude to climb eighteen point five degrees and report.”
“Roger Wilco. Climbing. Ten. Twelve. Fourteen. Sixteen. Eighteen. Mark!”
“Execute!”
We were somewhere else with black sky. “Gay, vertical dive. Execute.”
“No trouble, Clyde; enjoy the ride.”
“Zebadiah, may I talk with Gay while you look over the terrain? To reprogram that fail-safe.”
“Sure, go ahead. Jake, want to scan with binox while I eyeball it? I’ll warn before transition.”
“Zebadiah, I could give her a scouting program, automatic. Skip the vernliers, skip the climb order; just an ‘execute’ code word. Place her on course… or I could include course.”
“I’ll head her manually; the rest is swell – after that fail-safe. What’s the code word?”
“‘Scout’?”
“Good. Include the ‘execute’ idea in the code word. Deety, I’ve decided that I love you for your brain. Not those irrelevant physical attributes.”
“Zebadiah, once I’ve had a bath you may change your mind. I’ve had a sudden attack of brain fever. You had better program her yourself.”
“Mutiny again. I retract and apologize. You smell yummy and should marinate another week. It’s not your cortex or your character I love but your carcass – delectable! If it weren’t for these seat belts, it would be rape, rape, rape, all the way to the ground. Actually you’re sort o’ stupid-but what a chassis!”
“That’s better. Although I’m not stupid.”
“You married me. Res ipsa loquitur! Jake, are you spotting anything?”
“Dry hills, Captain. Might as well move on.”
“Zebadiah, will you place her in glide and hold a few minutes?”
“Sure. See something you want to check?”
“No, sir, But when we emerged here, we had seventy-three seconds to impact. We’ve used twenty-one seconds. I’d like a few moments to insert those preprograms.”
I overrode manually and started Gay into a stretched glide while I extended her wings. Then I let Deety and Gay talk to each other. Deety had both changes fully worked out; not once did Gay answer, “Null program.”
I was about to warn Deety that Gay was not a sailplane when she reported, “All done, Captain. For the ‘S’ program I added in an alarm for two klicks H-above-G.”
“Good idea. So now I head west again and give her that ‘S’ code word – no ‘Execute’?”
“Yessir. ‘Cept I’d like to try the revised B, U, G, O, U, T program. It has been less than four minutes since we left. Someone may be in that exact spot.”
“Deety, I share your curiosity. But it’s like testing a parachute the hard way. Can’t we save it until we need it? Then, if there is a glitch, we’ll be dead so fast we’ll hardly notice it.”
Deety said nothing. I waited, then said, “Comment, please.”
“No comment, Captain.” Deety’s answer was toneless. “Hmm – Science Officer… comment, please.”
“I have no comment to offer, Captain.” (A slight chill?)
“Copilot, I require your advice.”
“Uh, if the Captain please. Am I privileged to ask for written orders?”
“Well, I’ll be dipped in – Gay Bounce! Is there such a thing as a ‘space lawyer’? Like ‘sea lawyer’? Jake, in general, anyone, save in the face of the enemy, may demand written orders… if he’ll risk his career to ‘perpetuate evidence for the court-martial he knows will follow. Did it myself once and saved my neck and cost my temporary boss fifty numbers – and I wound up senior to him and he resigned.
“But a second-in-command is in a special position; it is his duty to advise his C.O., even if the C.O. doesn’t ask for advice. So I don’t see how you can demand written orders on a point already one of your duties. But I won’t make an issue of it. I’ll direct the Astrogator to log your request, then I can dictate my reply into the log. Then I am going to ground this go-buggy and turn command over to you. Maybe you’ll have more luck chairing this debating society than I have had. I wish you luck – you’ll need it!”
“But, Captain, I did not ask for written orders.”
“Eh?” I thought back. He hadn’t, quite. “It sounded as if you were about to.”
“I was stalling. I must advise you to follow the prudent course. Unofficially, I prefer to risk the test. But I should not have stalled. I’m sorry that my intransigence caused you to consider relinquishing command.”
“I didn’t just consider it; I have. Resignation effective the first time we ground. You’ve bought it, Jake.”
“Captain -“
“Yes, Deety?”
“You are correct; the test I suggested is useless, and could be fatal. I should not have asked for it. I’m sorry… sir.”
“Me, too! I felt you were being too strict with Deety. But you weren’t; you were taking care of us, as you always do, Zebbie. Captain Zebbie. Of course you shouldn’t make a risky test we don’t need.”
I said, “Anyone anything to add?” No one spoke up, so I added, “I’m heading west,” and did so. “Gay Deceiver – Bug Out!”
Black sky above us; that “dead sea bottom” far below… I remarked, “Looks as if a Russian, or one of their flappy craft, is in our parking spot. Deety, your revised program worked perfectly.”
“But, Zebadiah – why did you risk it?” She sounded terribly distressed.
“Because all of you wanted to, despite what you said later. Because it’s my last chance to make such a decision.” I added, “Jake, I’m going to tilt her over. Grab the binox and see if you can identify where we were parked. If that fire is smoking, you can use it for reference.”
“But, Captain, I’m not taking command. I won’t accept it.”
“Pipe down and carry out your orders! It’s this damned yack-yack and endless argument that’s giving me ulcers. If you won’t accept command, then it’s up for grabs. But not me! Oh, I’ll pilot as the new C.O. orders. But I won’t command. Deety, how long did Gay pause to make that radar check? At what height?”
“H-above-G was half a klick. Duration I don’t know but I can retrieve it. Darling – Captain! You’re not really going to quit commanding us?”
“Deety, I don’t make threats. Pipe down and retrieve that duration. Jake, what do you see?”
“I’ve located the fire. Several ornithopters are on the ground. My guess places one of them about where we were parked. Captain, I advise not dropping lower.”
“Advice noted. Deety, how about that duration?” I didn’t know how to ask for it myself, not having written the program.
Deety retrieved it smoothly: 0.071 seconds – call it a fifteenth of a second. Radar is not instantaneous; Gay had to stop and sweep that spot long enough for a “picture” to form in her gizzards, to tell her whether or not she could park there. A fifteenth of a second is loads of time for the human eye. I hoped that Colonel Frimpsky had been watching when Gay popped up and blinked out.
“Five klicks H-above-G, Captain.”
“Thanks, Jake.” The board showed dive rate – straight down! – of over seven hundred kilometers per hour, and increasing so fast that the units figure was an unreadable blur, and the tens place next to it was blinking one higher almost by the second.
Most carefully I eased her out of dive, and gently, slowly opened her wings part way for more lift as she slowed, while making a wide clockwise sweep to the east – slowed her dive, that is, not her speed through the air. When I had completed that sweep, and straightened out headed for that column of smoke on course west, I was making over eight hundred kilometers per hour in unpowered glide and still had almost a klick H-above-G I could turn into greater speed.
Not that I needed it – I had satisfied myself by eye of what I had been certain of by theory: an ornithopter is slow.
Jake said worriedly, “May I ask the Captain his plans?”
“I’m going to give Colonel Pistolsky something to remember us by! Gay Deceiver.”
“Still aboard, Boss.”
I kept my eye on the flappy birds still in the air while I let Gay fly herself. Those silly contraptions could not catch us but there was always a chance that a pilot might dodge the wrong way.
Most of them seemed anxious to be elsewhere: they were lumbering aside right and left. I looked at the smoke – dead ahead – and saw what I had not noticed before: an ornithopter beyond the smoke.
Jake gasped but said nothing. We were on collision course closing at about 900 kms/hr, most of it ours. Suicide pilot? Idiot? Panicked and frozen?
I let him get within one klick of us, which brought us almost to the smoke and near the deck, about 200 meters H-above-G-and I yelped, “Scout!”
Yes, Deety is a careful programmer; the sky was black, we were ten klicks H-above-G, and so far as I could tell, the same barren hills under us that we had left five minutes earlier – and I was feeling cocky. My sole regret was that I would not hear Colonel Snarfsky try to explain to the Grand Duke the “ghost” craft now used by “British spies.”
Did Russian nobility practice “honorable hara-kiri”? Perhaps the loaded-pistol symbol? You know that one: The officer in disgrace returns to his quarters and finds that someone has thoughtfully loaded his pistol and placed it on his desk… thereby saving the regiment the scandal of a court.
I didn’t want the bliffy dead but busted to buck private. With time to reflect on politeness and international protocol while he cleaned stables.
I checked our heading, found that we were still pointed west. “Gay Deceiver, Scout!”
Black sky again, the same depressing landscape – “Copilot, is it worthwhile to tilt down for a better look? That either takes juice – not much but some – or it takes time to drop far enough to bite air and do it with elevons. We can’t afford to waste either time or juice.”
“Captain, I don’t think this area is worth scouting.”
“Careful of that participle; better say ‘exploring.'”
“Captain, may I say something?”
“Deety, if you are speaking as Astrogator, you not only may but must.”
“I could reprogram to put us lower if I knew what altitude was just high enough to let you use elevons. Conserve both time and juice, I mean.”
“It seems to be about eight klicks H-above-G, usually. Hard to say since we don’t have a sea-level.”
“Shall I change angle to arrive at eight klicks H-above-G?”
“How long does it take us to fall two klicks when we arrive?”
She barely hesitated. “Thirty-two and a half seconds.”
“Only half a minute? Seems longer.”
“Three-two point six seconds, Captain, if this planet has the same surface gravity as Mars in our own universe – three-seven-six centimeters per second squared. I’ve been using it and haven’t run into discrepancies. But I don’t see how this planet holds so much atmosphere when Mars – our Mars – has so little.”
“This universe may not have the same laws as ours. Ask your father. He’s in charge of universes.”
“Yes, sir. Shall I revise the program?”
“Deety, never monkey with a system that is working well enough – First Corollary of Murphy’s Law. If it is an area as unattractive as this, we’ll simply get out. If it has possibilities, half a minute isn’t too long to wait, and the additional height will give us a better idea of the whole area. Gay Deceiver, Scout!”
We all gasped. Thirty kilometers and those barren hills were gone; the ground was green and fairly level – and a river was in sight. Or a canal.
“Oh, boy! Copilot, don’t let me waste juice – be firm with me. Deety, count seconds. Everybody eyeball his sector, report anything interesting.”
Deety started chanting “… thirteen… . fourteen… . fifteen – ” and each second felt like ten. I took my hands off the controls to keep from temptation. That was either a canal or a stream that had been straightened, revetted, and maintained for years, maybe eons. Professor Lowell had been right – right theory, wrong universe.
“Deety, how far is the horizon?”
” – seventeen – about two hundred fifty klicks – twenty -“
I placed my hands gently on the controls. “Hon, that’s the first time you’ve ever used the word ‘about’ with reference to a number.”
” – twenty-four – insufficient data! – twenty-six -“
“You can stop counting; I felt a quiver.” I put a soft nose-down pressure on the elevons and decided to leave her wings spread; we might want to stretch this one. “Insufficient data?”
“Zebadiah, it was changing steadily and you had me counting seconds. Horizon distance at ten klicks height above ground should be within one percent of two hundred and seventy kilometers. That assumes that this planet is a perfect sphere and that it is exactly like Mars in our universe – neither is true. It ignores refraction effects, tricky even at home – and unknown to me here. I treated it as geometry, length of tangent for an angle of four degrees thirty-seven minutes.”
“Four and half degrees? Where in the world did you get that figure?”
“Oh! Sorry, dear, I skipped about six steps. On Earth one nautical mile is one minute of arc – check?”
“Yes. Subject to minor reservations. With a sextant, or in dead reckoning, or on a chart, a mile is a minute, a minute is a mile. Makes it simple. Otherwise we would be saying a minute is one thousand eight hundred fifty-three meters and the arithmetic would get hairy.”
“One-eight-five-three point one-eight-seven-seven-oh-five plus,” she corrected me. “Very hairy. Best not convert to MKS until the last step. But, Zebadiah, there is a simpler relation here. One minute of arc equals one kilometer, near enough not to matter. So I treated H-above-G, ten klicks, as a versine, applied the haversine rule and got four degrees thirty-seven minutes or two hundred seventy-seven kilometers to the theoretical horizon. You see?”
“I see everything but how you hide haversine tables in a jump suit. Me, I hide ’em in Gay… and make her do the work.” Yes, I could nose her over now – easy does it, boy.
“Well, I didn’t, exactly. I calculated it, but I did it the easy way: Naperian logarithms and angles in radians, then converted back to degrees to show the relationship to kilometers on the ground.”
“That’s ‘the easy way’?”
“It is for me, sir!”
“If you’re quivering your chin, stop it. I told you it was your luscious body, not your brain. Most idiots-savants are homely and can’t do anything but their one trick. But you’re an adequate cook, as well.”
That got me a stony silence. I kept easing her nose down. “Time for binox, Jake.”
“Aye aye, sir. Captain, I am required to advise you. With that last remark to the Astrogator you risked your life.”
“Are you implying that Deety is an inadequate cook? Why, Jake!”
Hilda interrupted. “She’s a gourmet cook!”
“I know she is, Sharpie… but I don’t like to say it where Gay can hear – Gay can’t cook. Nor has she Deety’s other talent which ’tis death to hide. Jake, that’s a settlement below.”
“Of sorts. A one-church village.”
“Do you see ornithopters? Anything that could give us trouble?”
“Depends. Are you interested in church architecture?”
“Jake, this is no time for a cultural chat.”
“I’m required to advise you, sir, This church has towers, something like minarets topped off with onion-shaped structures.”
“Russian Orthodox!”
Hilda said that. I said nothing. I eased Gay’s nose up to level flight, lined her up with what I thought was downstream, and snapped, “Gay, Scout!”
The canal was still in sight, almost under us and stretching over the horizon. I was almost lined up with it. Gay, Scout!
“Anybody see that settlement that was almost ahead before this last transition? Report.”
“Captain Zebbie, it’s much closer now but on this side.”
“I see. Or don’t. Jake isn’t transparent.”
“Captain, the city – quite large – is about a forty-five-degree slant down to starboard, not in sight from your seat.”
“If forty-five degrees is a close guess, a minimum transition on that bearing should place us over the city.”
“Captain, I advise against it,” Jake told me.
“Reasons, please.”
“This is a large city that might be well defended. Their ornithopters look odd and ineffective but we must assume they have spaceships as good or better than ours or the Tsar could not have a colony here. This causes me to suspect that they may have smart missiles. Or weapons utterly strange. I would rather check for onion towers from a distance. And not stay long in one place – I think we’ve been here too long. I’m jumpy.”
“I’m not” – my sixth sense was not jabbing me – “but set verniers for a minimum transition along L axis, then execute at will. No need to be a slow fat target.”
“One minimum, L axis – set!”
Suddenly my guardian angel goosed me. “Execute!”
I noticed the transition principally because Gay was now live under my hand – air bite. Perhaps she had not been quite level. I turned her nose down to gather maneuvering speed unpowered, then did a skew turn – and yelped, “Gay Bounce!” having seen all that I wanted to see: an expanding cloud. Atomic? I think not. Lethal? You test it; I’m satisfied.
I told Gay to bounce three more times, placing us a bit less than fifty klicks above ground. Then I spent a trifle of power to nose her over. “Jake, use the binox to see how far this valley runs, whether it is all cultivated, whether it has more settlements. We are not going to get close enough to look for onion spires; that last shot was unfriendly. Rude. Impetuous. Or am I prejudiced? Science Officer? Le mot juste, s’il vous plait.”
“Nye kultoorni.”
“I remember that one! Makes Russians turn green. What does it mean? How did you happen to know it, Sharpie?”
“Means what it sounds like: ‘uncultured.’ I didn’t just ‘happen,’ Cap’n Zebbie; I know Russian.”
I was flabbergasted. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“Sharpie, if you handled the negotiations, we might not have had trouble.”
“Zebbie, if you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything. He was calling you a spy and insulting you while the palaver was still in French. I thought it might be advantageous if they thought none of us knew Russian. They might spill something.”
“Did they?”
“No. The colonel was coaching his pilot in how to be arrogant. Then you told them to halt, in French, and no more Russian was spoken save for meaningless side remarks. Zebbie, when they tried to shoot us down just now, would they have refrained had they known that I had studied Russian?”
“Mmm – Sharpie, I should know better than to argue with you. I’m going to vote for you for captain.”
“Oh, No!”
“Oh, Yes. Copilot, I’m going to assume that everything this side of the hills and involved with this watercourse – courses – twin canals – is New Russia and that honorary Englishmen – us! – aren’t safe here. So I’m going to look for the British colony. It may turn out that they won’t like us, either. But the British are strong on protocol; we’ll have a chance to speak our piece. They may hang us but they’ll give us a trial, with wigs and robes and rules of evidence and counsel who will fight for us.” I hesitated. “One hitch. Colonel Snotsky said there was no such country as the United States of America and I had the impression that he believed it.”
Sharpie said, “He did believe it, Cap’n Zebbie. I caught some side chatter. I think we must assume that, in this universe, there was no American Revolution.”
“So I concluded. Should we all be from the East Coast? I have a hunch that the West Coast may be part Russian, part Spanish – but not British. Where are we from? Baltimore, maybe? Philadelphia? Suggestions?”
Sharpie said, “I have a suggestion, Cap’n Zebbie.”
“Science Officer, I like your suggestions.”
“You won’t like this one. When all else fails, tell the truth.”

Chapter XXI

• three seconds is a long time –

Deety:
Zebadiah is convinced that I can program anything. Usually I can, given a large and flexible computer – but my husband expects me to manage it with Gay Deceiver and Gay is not big. She started life as an autopilot and is one, mostly.
But Gay is sweet-tempered and we both want to please him.
While he and my father were looking over the area that we thought of as “Russian Valley” or “New Russia,” he asked me to work up a program to locate the British colony in minimum time, if it were in daylight. If not, then we would sleep near the sunrise line, and find it on the new daylight side.
I thought of bouncing out about a thousand kilometers and searching for probable areas by color. Then I realized that I didn’t know that much about this planet. “Dead sea bottoms” from space looked like farm land.
At last I recalled something Zebadiah had suggested yesterday – no, today! less than two hours ago. (So much had happened that my sense of time played tricks. It was still accurate – but I had to think instead of just knowing.)
Random numbers – Gay had plenty of them. Random numbers are to a computer what free will is to a human being.
I defined a locus for Gay: nothing east of where we were, nothing in “Russian Valley,” nothing on the dark side, nothing north of 45°, nothing south of 45° south. Yesterday I could not have told her the latter; but Mars has a good spin, one a gyrocompass can read. While we slept, Gay had noted that her gyrocompass did not have its axis parallel to that of this strange planet and had precessed it until it did.
Inside that locus I told Gay to take a Drunkard’s Walk, any jumps that suited her, a three-second pause at each vertex, and, if one of us yelled “Bingo!” display latitude, longitude, and Greenwich, and log all three, so we could find it again.
Oh, yes – she was to pause that three seconds exactly one minimum H-above-G at each vertex.
I told her to run the program for one hour … but that any of us could yell “Stop!” and then say “Continue” and that would be time-out, not part of the hour. But I warned my shipmates that yelling “Stop!” not only slowed things but also gave Russians (or British or anybody) a chance to shoot at us. I emphasized that three seconds is a long time (most people don’t know it).
One hour –
Three seconds for each check –
Twelve hundred random spot checks – This is not a “space-filling” curve. But it should locate where the British were most thickly settled. If one hour did not do it, ten hours certainly would.
Without Gay, without her ability to do a Drunkard’s Walk, we could have searched that planet for a lifetime, and never found either colony. It took the entire human race (of our universe) thirty centuries to search Terra… and many spots were missing until they could be photographed from space.
My husband said, “Let’s get this straight.” He bounced us four minima. “These subprograms – Gay, are you listening?”
“Of course. Are you?”
“Gay, go to sleep.”
“Roger and out, Boss.”
“Deety, I want to make sure of these subprograms but couldn’t use code words while she was awake. I -“
“Excuse me, Zebadiah, but you can. She will ignore code words for subprograms except while the general program is running. The code for the general program is unusual and requires the execution command, so it can’t be started by accident. You can wake Gay. We need her on some points.”
“You’re a smart girl, Deety.”
“I’ll bet you tell that to all adequate cooks, Boss.”
“Ouch!”
“Captain, it is not difficult to program a computer to supervise cooking machines. The software sold under the trademark ‘Cordon Bicu’ is reputed to be excellent. Before you wake Gay, would you answer a hypothetical question concerning computers and cooking?”
“Captain!”
“Copilot?”
“I advise against permitting the Astrogator to discuss side issues – such as cooking – while we have this problem facing us.”
“Thank you, Copilot. Astrogator, what was your hypothetical question?”
Pop had been careful not to interfere between Zebadiah and me, But his advice from copilot to captain was intended for my ears – he was telling me to shut up, and I suddenly heard Jane saying, “Deety, anytime a wife thinks she has won an argument, she has lost it.”
I’m not Jane, I’m Deety. I get my temper from my father. I’m not as quick to flare up as he is, but I do have his tendency to nurse a grievance. Zebadiah is sometimes a tease and knows how to get my goat.
But Pop was telling me: “Drop it, Deety!”
Maybe Zebadiah was right – too much argument, too much discussion, too much “sewing circle & debating society.” We were all intensely interested as we were all in the same peril… but how much tougher is it to be captain rather than one of the crew? Twice? Ten times?
I didn’t know, Was my husband cracking under the pressure? “Getting ulcers”?
Was I adding to his burden?
I didn’t have to stop to think this through; it was preprogrammed below the conscious level; Pop pushed the “execute” button and the answers spilled out. I answered my husband at once,
“What hypocritical question, sir?”
“You said, ‘hypothetical.’ Something about computers and cooking.”
“Captain, my mind has gone blank. Perhaps we had better get on with the job before I forget how it works.”
“Deety, you wouldn’t fib to your pool’ old broken-down husband?”
“Sir, when my husband is poor and old and broken-down, I will not fib to him.”
“Hmm – If I hadn’t already promised my support to Hilda, I would vote for you for captain.”
Aunt Hilda cut in: “Zebbie, I release you! I’m not a candidate.”
“No, Sharpie, once having promised political support an honorable man never welches. So it’s all right for Gay to listen in?”
“Certainly, sir. For display I must have her. Hello, Gay.”
“Hi, Deety.”
“Display dayside, globe.” At once Gay’s largest screen showed the western hemisphere of Earth, our Earth in our universe – Terra. Early afternoon at Snug Harbor? Yes, the clock in my head said so and GMT on the instrument board read 20:23:07. Good heavens, it had been only twenty hours since my husband and my father had killed the fake “ranger.” How can a lifetime be crowded into less than a day? Despite the clock in my head it seemed years since I had walked down to our pool, a touch tiddly and hanging onto my bridegroom for support.
“Display meridians parallels. Subtract geographical features,” Gay did so. “From program coded ‘A Tramp Abroad’ display locus.”
Gay used orthographic projection, so the 45th parallels were straight lines. Since I had told her to display dayside, these two bright lines ran to the left edge of the display, that being the sunrise line. But the right edge of the locus was an irregular line running southwest. “Add display Russian Valley.”
To the right of the locus and touching it, Gay displayed as solid brightness a very long and quite wide blotch. “Subtract Russian Valley.” The area we had sketchily explored disappeared.
“Deety,” my husband asked, “how is Gay doing this? Her perms have no reference points for Mars – not even Mars of our own universe.”
“Oh. Gay, display ‘Touchdown.'”
“Null program.”
“Mmm, yes, that’s right; the Sun has just set where we were parked. Zebadiah, shall I have her rotate the globe enough to show it? All she would show would be a bright spot almost on the equator. I have defined the spot where we grounded as zero meridian – Greenwich for Mars. This Mars.”
“And zero parallel? An arbitrary equator?”
“Oh, no, no! While we slept Gay adjusted her gyrocompass to match this planet. Which gave her true north and latitude. She already knows the radius and curvature of Mars – I started to tell her and found she had retrieved it from her perms. Aerospace Almanac?”
“I suppose so. But we discussed Mars’ diameter last night while Gay was awake. Both you and Hilda knew it; Jake and I did not.”
As I remembered it, Aunt Hilda spoke up – then Pop kept quiet. If Pop wanted to sit back and be proud of Aunt Hilda’s encyclopedic memory that was all right with me. If my husband has a flaw, it is that he has trouble believing that females have brains… probably because he is so intensely interested in the other end. I went on with my lecture:
“Once I start Gay, she will say and record nothing unless ordered. She will make random transitions inside that locus until someone yells ‘Bingo!’ She won’t slow down even then. She will place a bright point on the map at that latitude and longitude, record both latitude and longitude, and the exact time. She will display the Bingo time, too, for one second. If you want to retrieve that Bingo, you had better jot down that time – to the second. Because she’ll be doing twenty jumps each minute. Don’t worry about the hour, just the minute and the second. Oh, you could still retrieve it if you had the minute right, as I can ask her to run through all Bingoes in a given minute. Can’t be more than twenty and your Bingo might be the only one.
“When we’ve done one hour of this, that map could, at most, have twelve hundred dots on it – but may have only a few – or none. If they are clustered, I’ll reduce the locus and we’ll run it again. If not, we can sleep and eat and do it for the other day side, the one twelve hours away. Either way, Gay will find the British – and we’ll be safe.”
“I hope you’re right. Ever heard of the Opium Wars, Deety?”
“Yes, Captain. Sir, every nation is capable of atrocities, including our own. But the British have a tradition of decent behavior no matter what blemishes there are.”
“Sorry. Why a one-hour program?”
“We may have to shorten it. A decision every three seconds for sixty minutes may be too tiring. If we start showing a marked hot spot sooner than that, we can shorten the first run and reduce the locus. We’ll have to try it and see. But I feel certain that a one-hour run, a short rest, then another one-hour run, will locate the British if they are now on the day side.”
“Deety, what do you define as ‘Bingo’?”
“Anything that suggests human settlement. Buildings. Roads. Cultivated fields. Walls, fences, dams, aircraft, vehicles – But it is not ‘Bingo’just because it looks interesting. Although it might be ‘Stop!”
“What’s the difference?”
“‘Stop’ does not tell Gay to record or to display. For that you must add ‘Bingo.’ ‘Stop’ is for anything you want to look at more than three seconds. Maybe it looks promising and a few seconds more will let you decide. But please, everyone! There should not be more than a dozen calls for ‘Stop!’ in the hour. Any more questions?”
We started. Hilda gave the first Bingo. I saw it, too – farm buildings. Aunt Hilda is faster than I. I almost broke my own injunction; I had to bite down on “Stop!” The temptation to take a longer look was almost overpowering.
All of us made mistakes – but none serious. Hilda racked up the most Bingoes and Zebadiah the fewest – but I’m fairly certain that my husband was “cheating” by waiting to give Pop or me first crack at it. (He would not be competing with Aunt Hilda; port-forward and starboard-after seats have little overlapping coverage.)
I thought it would be tedious; instead it was exciting – but dreadfully tiring. Slowly, less than one a minute, bright dots appeared on the display. I saw with disappointment that most Bingoes were clustered adjacent to the irregular margin marking Russian territory. It seemed probable that these marked Russian territory, so very probable that it hardly seemed worthwhile to check for onion spires.
Once my husband called “Stop” and then “Bingo” at a point north and far west, at least fifteen hundred kilometers from the nearest Bingo light. I noted the time – Greenwich 21:16:51 – then tried to figure out why Zebadiah had stopped us. It was pretty country, green hills and lightly wooded and I spotted a wild stream, not a canal. But I saw no buildings or anything suggesting settlement.
Zebadiah wrote something on his knee pad, then said, “Continue.” I was itching to ask why he had stopped, but when a decision must be made every three seconds there is no time to chat.
When the hour was nearly up, a single Bingo light in the far west that had been shining since the first five minutes was joined by another when Hilda scored another Bingo and two minutes later Pop said “Bingo!” and we had an equilateral triangle twenty kilometers on a side. I noted the time most carefully – then told myself not to be disappointed if inspection showed onion towers; we still had a hemisphere to go.
I decided to believe in that British colony the way one has to believe hard in fairies to save Tinker Bell’s life. If there were no British colony, we might have to risk Earth-without-a-J. Gay Deceiver was a lovely car but as a spaceship she had shortcomings. No plumbing. Air for about four hours and no way to recycle. No plumbing. Limited food storage. No plumbing. No comfortable way to sleep in her. No plumbing.
But she had talents no other spaceship had. Her shortcomings (according to my father and husband) could be corrected at any modern machine shop. But in the meantime we did not have even an outhouse behind the barn.
At last Gay stopped, continued to display, and announced, “One hour of ‘A Tramp Abroad’ completed. Instructions, please.”
“Gay, Bounce,” said Zebadiah. “Deety, I don’t think we’ve nailed down the piece The Sun Never Sets On. But this dense cluster here to the right – Too close to the Little Father’s little children. Eh?”
“Yes. Zebadiah, I should tell Gay to trim the locus on the east to eliminate the clustered lights, and now we can add almost nine hundred kilometers on the west, to the present sunrise line. Gay can rotate the display to show the added area. I suspect that one more hour will fill in the picture sufficiently.”
“Maybe even less. You were right; three seconds is not only a long time; it is excessively long. Isn’t two seconds enough? Can you change that without starting from scratch?”
“Yes to both, Captain.”
“Good. You can add thirty degrees on the west instead of fifteen. Because we are going to kill an hour – stretch our legs, eat a snack… and I for one want to find a bush. How do I tell Gay to return to a particular Bingo? Or will that mess up your program?”
“Not a bit. Tell her to return to Bingo such-and-such, stating the time.”
I was unsurprised when he said, “Gay, return to Bingo Greenwich twenty-one sixteen fifty-one.”
It was indeed a pretty stream. Zebadiah said happily, “That beats burning juice. Who sees a clearing close to that creek, big enough for Gay? Hover and squat, I mean; I don’t dare make a glide landing, dead stick – the old girl is loaded.”
“Zebbie, I’m sober as you are!”
“Don’t boast about it, Sharpie. I think I see a spot. Close your eyes; I’m going to.”
I almost wish I had.
Zebadiah came in on a long glide, everything set for maximum lift – but no power. I kept waiting for that vibration that meant that Gay was alive and roaring… and waited… and waited –
He said, “Gay – ” and I thought that he was going to tell her to turn herself on. No. We actually dropped below the level of that bank.
Then he suddenly switched on power by hand but in reverse – flipped us up on that bank; we stalled, and dropped perhaps a meter – we just barely missed that bank.
I didn’t say anything. Aunt Hilda was whispering, “Hail Mary Mother of God Om Mani Padme Hum There is No God but God and Mahomet is His Prophet – ” then some language I did not know but it sounded very sincere.
Pop said, “Son, do you always cut it that fine?”
“I saw a man do it that way when he had to; I’ve always wondered if I could. But what you didn’t know was – Gay, are you listening?”
“Sure thing, Boss. You alerted me. Where’s the riot?”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Then why am I pushing this baby carriage?”
“Gay, go to sleep.”
“Sleepy time. Roger and out, Boss.”
“Jake, what you didn’t know was that I had my cheeks puffed to say B, O, U, N, C, E, explosively. Your gadget has made Gay’s reflexes so fast that I knew I could come within a split second of disaster and she would get us out. I wasn’t cutting didoes. Look at that meter. Seventy-four percent of capacity. I don’t know how many landings I’m going to have to make on that much juice.”
“Captain, it was brilliant. Even though it almost scared it out of me.”
“Wrong honorific, Captain. I’m the pilot going off duty. We’re landed; my resignation is effective; you’re holding the sack.”
“Zeb, I told you that I would not be captain.”
“You can’t help it; you are. The second-in-command takes command when the captain dies, or goes over the hill – or quits. Jake, you can cut your throat, or desert, or go on the binnacle list, or take other actions – but you can’t say you are not captain, when you are – Captain!”
“If you can resign, I can resign!”
“Obviously. To the Astrogator, she being next in line of command.”
“Deety, I resign! Captain Deety, I mean.”
“Pop, you can’t do this to me! I’ll – I’ll – ” I shut up because I didn’t know what to do. Then I did. “I resign… Captain Hilda.”
“What? Why, that’s silly, Deety. A medical officer is not in line of command. But if ‘medical officer’ is a joke and ‘science officer,’ too, then I’m a passenger and still not in line of command.”
My husband said, “Sharpie, you have the qualifications the rest of us have. You can drive a duo -“
“Suddenly I’ve forgotten how.”
” – but that’s not necessary. Mature judgment and the support of your crew are the only requirements, as we are millions of miles and several universes from licenses and such. You have my support; I think you have it from the rest. Jake?”
“Me? Of course!”
“Deety?”
“Captain Hilda knows she has my support,” I agreed. “I was first to call her ‘Captain.'”
Aunt Hilda said, “Deety, I’ve just resigned.”
“Oh, no, you haven’t anybody to resign to!” I’m afraid I was shrill.
“I resign to the Great Spirit Manitou. Or to you, Zebbie, and it comes around in a circle and you are captain again… as you should be.”
“Oh, no, Sharpie. I’ve stood my watch; it’s somebody else’s turn. Now that you have resigned, we have no organization. If you think you’ve stuck me with it, think again. You have simply picked an unusual way to homestead on this spot. In the meantime, while nobody is in charge, I hope that you all are getting both ears and a belly full of what got me disgusted. Yack yack yack, argue, fuss, and jabber – a cross between a Hyde Park open forum and a high school debating society.”
Aunt Hilda said, in sober surprise, “Why, Zebbie, you almost sound vindictive.”
“Mrs. Burroughs, it is possible that you have hit upon the right word. I have taken a lot of guff… and quite a bit of it has been from you.”
I haven’t seen Aunt Hilda look so distressed since Mama Jane died. “I am very sorry, Zebbie. I had not realized that my conduct had displeased you so. I did not intend it so, ever. I am aware – constantly! – that you have saved our – my – life five distinct times… as well as continuously by your leadership. I’m as grateful as my nature permits – a giant amount, even though you consider me a shallow person. But one can’t show deepest gratitude every instant, just as one cannot remain in orgasm continuously; some emotions are too strong to stay always at peak.”
She sighed, and tears rolled down her face. “Zebbie, will you let me try again? I’ll quit being a Smart Aleck. It will be a hard habit to break; I’ve been one for years – my defense mechanism. But I will break it.”
“Don’t be so tragic, Hilda,” Zebadiah said gently. “You know I love you… despite your little ways.”
“Oh, I know you do! – you big ugly giant. Will you come back to us? Be our captain again?”
“Hilda, I’ve never left. I’ll go right on doing the things I know how to do or can learn. And as I’m told. But I won’t be captain.”
“Oh, dear!”
“It’s not tragic. We simply elect a new C.O.”
My father picked this moment to get hairy. “Zeb, you’re being pretty damned stiff-necked and self-righteous with Hilda. I don’t think she has misbehaved.”
“Jake, you are in no position to judge. First, because she’s your bride. Second, because you haven’t been sitting in the worry seat; I have. And you have supplied some of the worst guff yourself.”
“I was not aware of it… Captain.”
“You’re doing it now… by calling me ‘Captain’ when I’m not. But do you recall a couple of hours ago when I asked my second-in-command for advice – and got some back chat about ‘written orders’?”
“Mmm… I was out of line. Yes, sir.”
“Do you want other examples?”
“No. No, I stipulate that there are others. I understand your point, sir.” Pop gave a wry smile. “Well, I’m glad Deety hasn’t given you trouble.”
“On the contrary, she has given me the most.”
I had been upset – iI had never really believed that Zebadiah would resign. But now I was shocked and bewildered and hurt. “Zebadiah, what have I done?”
“The same sort of nonsense as the other two… but harder for me because I’m married to you.”
“But – But what?”
“I’ll tell you in private.”
“It’s all right for Pop and Aunt Hilda to hear.”
“Not with me. We can share our joys with others but difficulties between us we settle in private.”
My nose was stuffy and I was blinking back tears. “But I must know.”
“Dejah Thoris, you can list the incidents if you choose to be honest with yourself. You have perfect memory and it all took place in the last twenty-four hours.”
He turned his face away from me. “One thing I must urge before we choose a captain. I let myself be wheedled and bullied into surrendering authority on the ground. That was a bad mistake. A sea captain is still captain when his ship is anchored. Whoever becomes captain should profit by my mistake and not relinquish any authority merely because Gay is grounded. She can relax the rules according to the situation. But the captain must decide. The situation can be more dangerous on the ground than in air or in space. As it was today when the Russians showed up. Simply grounding must not be: ‘School’s out! Now we can play!'”
“I’m sorry, Zebbie.”
“Hilda, I was more at fault than you. I wanted to be free of responsibility. I let myself be talked into it, then my brain went on vacation. Take that ‘practice hike.’ I don’t recall who suggested it -“
“I did,” said my father.
“Maybe you did, Jake; but we all climbed on the bandwagon. We were about to run off like a bunch of Scouts with no Scoutmaster. If we had started as quickly as we had expected to, where would we be now? In a Russian jail? Or dead? Oh, I’m not giving myself high marks; one reason I’ve resigned is that I haven’t handled it well. Planning to leave Gay Deceiver and everything we own unguarded while we made walkabout – good God! If I had felt the weight of command I would never have considered it.”
Zebadiah made a sour face, then looked at my father. “Jake, you’re eldest. Why don’t you take the gavel while we pick a new C.O.? I so move.”
“Second!”
“Question!”
“White ballot!”
“What gavel? I’ll bet there isn’t a gavel on this planet.” In a moment Father quit stalling. We all voted, using a page from Zebadiah’s notebook torn in four. They were folded and handed to me and I was required to declare the vote. So I did:

Zeb
Zebadiah
Zebbie
Sharpie

Zebadiah reached back, got the ballots from me, handed back the one that meant “Aunt Hilda,” took the other three and tore them into small pieces.
“Apparently you did not understand me. I’ve stood my watch; someone else must take it – or we’ll park on this bank until we die of old age. Sharpie seems to have an overwhelming lead – is she elected? Or do we ballot again?”
We balloted again:

Sharpie
Jacob
Jacob
Hilda

“A tie,” Father said. “Shall we invite Gay to vote?”
“Shut up and deal the cards.”

Sharpie
Deety
Deety
Hilda

“Hey!” I protested. “Who switched?” (I certainly didn’t vote for me.)

Sharpie
Hilda
Zebbie
Hilda

“One spoiled ballot,” said my husband. “A non-candidate. Will you confirm that, Mr. Chairman?”
“Yes,” Pop agreed. “My dear … Captain Hilda. You are elected without a dissenting vote.”
Aunt Hilda looked as if she might cry again. “You’re a bunch of stinkers!”
“So we are,” agreed my husband, “But we are your stinkers, Captain Hilda.” That got him a wan smile. “Guess maybe. Well, I’ll try.”
“We’ll all try,” said Pop.
“And we’ll all help,” said my husband.
“Sure we will!” I said, and meant it.
Pop said, “If you will excuse me? I’ve been anxious to find a handy bush since before this started.” He started to get out.
“Just a moment!”
“Eh? Yes, my dear? Captain.”
“No one is to seek out a bush without an armed guard. Not more – and not less – than two people are to leave the car’s vicinity at one time. Jacob, if your need is urgent, you must ask Zebbie to hurry – I want the guard to carry both rifle and pistol.”
I think it worked out that Pop got the use of a bush last – and must have been about to burst his bladder. Later I overheard Pop say, “Son, you’ve read Aesop’s Fables?”
“Certainly.”
“Does anything remind you of King Log and King Stork?”

Chapter XXII

“‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.'”

Hilda:
I could tell from the first ballot that Zebbie was determined to make me take a turn as captain. Once I realized that, I decided to be captain – let them get sick of me and anxious to have Zebbie back.
Then suddenly I was captain – and it’s different. I did not ever again think of trying to make them sick of me; I just started to worry. And try.
First my husband wanted to find a bush for the obvious reason – and I suddenly realized that a banth might get him. Not a Barsoomian banth but whatever this planet held in dangerous carnivores.
So I ordered armed guards. With rules about not getting separated. It was a nuisance but I was firm… and knew at last what a crushing load there had been on Zebbie.
But one thing I could improve: Arrange for us to sleep inside the car.
The space back of the bulkhead behind the rear seats was not organized. We had about six hours till sundown (having gained on the Sun in going west), so I had everything in that space pulled out.
Space enough for Zebbie and Deety, on his sleeping bag opened out, blankets over them. Jacob and I? The piloting chairs we moved forward all the set screws would allow, laid them back almost fh~t and padded the cracks with pillows, and, to support our legs, the cushions from the rear seats were placed on boxes we would otherwise discard once I had the car organized. It wasn’t the best bed but low gravity and my cuddlesome husband made it a most attractive one.
Baths – In the stream and cold! Same rules as for bushes: armed guards. Soap thoroughly on the bank, get in and rinse fast, bounce out and towel till you glowed. Primitive? Luxurious!
This did not go smoothly. Take the “handy bush” problem. I did not have to be told that a latrine should be downstream or that our shovel should be carried every time without fail – rules for a clean camp are as old as the Old Testment.
But my first order called for no more than two and no less than two to leave the car at any time, and one must be armed – the other rifle and pistol must guard Gay.
I blurted out that order when the truth landed on me like a load of bricks that I, the runt who had never grown up, was now responsible for the lives of four people. At the time my orders seemed not only logical but necessary and feasible: Jacob would guard me, Zebbie would guard Deety, our men would guard each other.
There was a flaw. I did not realize that my edict required: a) one rifleman always to be at the car; b) both men to be away from the car from time to time.
Since this is not possible I amended it: When the men had to answer calls of nature, we women would lock ourselves in. I didn’t know that this planet had anything more dangerous than Alice’s Bread-and-Butter Fly. But that was the point: I didn’t know and until I did, I must assume that something as dangerous as a tiger lurked behind every bush.
Heavens! the bush might be carnivorous.
I was learning, with breath-snatching speed, something that most people never learn: A commanding officer’s “unlimited” authority isn’t freedom; it’s a straitjacket. She can’t do as she pleases; she never can – because every minute, awake and asleep, she must protect those under her command.
She can’t take any avoidable risk herself; her life does not belong to her; it belongs to her command.
When the captaincy was thrust on me, I decided that we would stay where we were until Gay Deceiver was reorganized so that all four of us could sleep comfortably and safely – no swollen ankles.
Sharpie hadn’t thought of this; Captain Hilda Burroughs thought of it at once. Captain Zebbie had thought of it when we first grounded, then had let himself be overruled.
I knew that I could rearrange the car to let us all sleep behind locked doors. But it would take time, sweat, and muscles, and I had just proclaimed an order that would take one or both sets of big muscles off the job for… how many times a day? Four people? Such needs can’t be hurried. I had a horrid suspicion that having someone standing over you with a rifle, even your nearest and dearest, might cause a healthy reflex to fail.
What to do?
Cancel the order?
No!
Cancel if a better scheme turned up. But don’t cancel without finding something better. This was a pretty spot, but there still might be that “banth.” Or bandersnatch. Or boojum. Especially a boojum. What if Zebbie should wander off that distance dictated by modesty and/or relaxation of nerves… and “softly and silently vanish away”?
And it was Zebbie I was having trouble with – Zebbie, who wasn’t going to give the new captain any back talk whatsoever. “Cap’n Hilda honey, I don’t need a chaperon, honest. I’ll carry my rifle and guard myself. No problem. Safety off and a cartridge under the firing pin. Promise.”
“Zebbie, I am not asking you, I am telling you.”
“But I don’t like to leave you girls unguarded!”
“Chief Pilot.”
“Ma’am. Captain.”
“I am not a girl. I am eleven years your senior.”
“I simply meant -“
“Pipe down!”
The poor dear’s ears turned red but he shut up. I said, “Astrogator!”
“Huh? Yes, Captain Auntie.”
“Can you use a rifle?”
“Oh, sure, Pop made me learn. But I don’t like a rifle; I like my shotgun.”
“Take the Chief Pilot’s rifle and guard the camp -“
“Look, I can do it better with my shotgun.”
“Pipe down and carry out your orders.”
Deety looked startled, trotted over to Zebbie, who surrendered his rifle without comment, face frozen.
“Copilot,” I said to my husband, “arm yourself with rifle and pistol, go with the Chief Pilot, guard him while he does what he has to do.”
Zebbie swallowed. “Sharpie – I mean ‘Captain Sharpie.’ It won’t be necessary. The golden moment has passed. All this talk.”
“Chief Pilot, please refrain from using my nickname while I am your commanding officer. Copilot, carry out your orders. Remain with the Chief Pilot and guard him continuously as long as necessary to accomplish the purpose of the trip.” (If Zebbie meant “constipation” – an emotional to-do can have that effect – I would act later in my capacity as “medical officer” – and it would not take four husky orderlies to make Zebbie hold still. The authority of a commanding officer almost never requires force. Odd but true – I wondered how I knew that.)
Once our men were out of earshot, I said, “Deety, could I learn to shoot that rifle?”
“I’m not sure I’m speaking to you. You humiliated my husband… when we all owe him so much.”
“Astrogator!”
Deety’s eyes got wide. “Good God – it’s gone to your head!”
“Astrogator.”
“Uh… yes, Captain.”
“You will refrain from personal remarks to me or about me during my tenure as commanding officer. Acknowledge that order, then log it.”
Deety’s face assumed the expression that means that she has shut out the world. “Aye aye, Captain. Gay Deceiver!”
“Hello, Deety!”
“Log mode. The Captain has ordered the Astrogator to refrain from personal remarks to her or about her during her tenure as commanding officer. I acknowledge receipt of order and will comply. Log date, time, and Bingo code. I tell you three times.”
“Deety, I hear you three times.”
“Back to sleep, Gay.”
“Roger and out.”
Deety turned to me, face and voice normal again. “Captain, I can teach you to shoot in such a way that you won’t get a sore shoulder or be knocked down. But to become a good shot with a rifle takes a long time. My shotgun doesn’t kick as hard… and you won’t need skill.”
“I thought a shotgun was more difficult.”
“Depends. A shotgun is usually for surprise targets in the air. That takes skill. But for a stationary target – within range – it’s about like a garden hose. The shot spreads in a cone. So easy that it’s not sporting.”
“‘Not sporting’ suits me. Will you show me how? What kind of target do we need?”
“It ought to be a large sheet of paper to show how the shot spreads. But, Captain, you know what will happen if I fire a gun?”
“What?”
“We will have two men back here at a dead run – one of them trying to dress as he runs. I don’t think he’ll be pleased.”
“Meaning I shouldn’t get Zebbie angry twice in ten minutes.”
“It might be your husband. Stands to reason that they’ll both take care of needs before returning. If I fire a shot, I’d better have a dead body to show for it, or one or the other will blow his top. Or both.”
“Both! Thanks, Deety – I didn’t think it through.”
“But also, the Captain will recall that she ordered me to guard camp. I can’t teach shooting at the same time.”
(Sharpie, can’t you do anything right?) “No, of course you can’t! Deety, I’m off to a bad start. All of you annoyed at me and one, maybe two, really angry.”
“Does the Captain expect me to comment?”
“Deety, can’t you call me ‘Aunt Hilda’?” I wasn’t crying – I’ve trained myself not to. But I needed to. “Yes, I want your comment.”
“Captain Aunt Hilda, I need to call you by your title to keep myself reminded that you are captain. Since you ordered me to refrain from personal remarks to you or about you, I needed a second order before I could comment.”
“As bad as that? Don’t spare me but make it quick.”
“The Captain hasn’t done badly.”
“I haven’t? Deety, don’t fib to Hilda; you never used to.”
“And I’m not going to now. Captain, I think you are off to a good start.”
“But you said it had gone to my head!”
“I was wrong. I realized how wrong when I was logging your order to me. What I said was worse than anything I said to Zebadiah while he was captain – he required me to review in my mind all the things I’ve said… and at least twice he should have given me a fat lip” – Deety smiled grimly – “‘cept that Zebadiah couldn’t bring himself to strike a woman even if she weren’t pregnant. Captain – Captain Aunt Hilda honey – Zebadiah didn’t crack down on us when he should have. He turned over to you a gang of rugged individualists, not one with any concept of discipline. I certainly had none. But I do now.”
“I’m not sure that I do,” I said miserably.
“It means obeying orders you don’t like and strongly disagree with – with no back talk. ‘Into the jaws of death rode the six hundred.’ Zebadiah would not do that to us… but he did let us annoy him into testing my new Bug-Out program. He had told me that the test was a useless risk; I should have agreed because it was useless. Instead I gave him a snooty ‘No comment,’ and you were as bad and Pop was worse. Mmm… I don’t think Zebadiah has had much experience as a commanding officer.”
“Why so, Deety? He is a captain.”
“That doesn’t mean that he has ever been a commanding officer. He has soloed quite a lot, in fighters. He has logged control time in larger craft or he wouldn’t hold a command pilot rating. But has he ever actually commanded? Nothing he has said to me indicated it… but he did tell me that before the last war a major was often captain of an air-and-space craft but now it almost always took a lieutenant colonel while majors wound up as copilots. He was explaining why he liked one-man fighters so well. Aunt Hilda – Captain – I think commanding was as new to Zebadiah as it is to you. Like sex, or having a baby, you can’t understand it till you’ve tried it.” She suddenly grinned. “So don’t hold Zebadiah’s mistakes against him.”
“What mistakes? He’s saved our lives again and again. I don’t blame him – now – for wanting a rest from commanding. Deety, it’s the hardest work possible even if you don’t lift a finger. I never suspected it. I don’t expect to sleep a wink tonight.”
“We’ll guard you!”
“No.”
“Yes, we will!”
“Pipe down.”
“Sorry, Ma’am.”
“What mistakes did Zebbie make?”
“Well… he didn’t crack down. You wasted no time in letting us know who is boss. You didn’t let us argue; you slapped us down at once. I hate to say this but I think you have more talent for command than Zebadiah has.”
“Deety, that’s silly!”
“Is it? Napoleon wasn’t tall.”
“So I have a Napoleonic complex. Humph!”
“Captain, I’m going to ignore that because, under that order you made me log, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”
“Well… I know how not to get a Napoleonic complex. Deety, you’re my second-in-command.”
“But Pop is second-in-command.”
“Wrong tense. ‘Was’ – he is no longer. As astrogator you may have inherited it anyhow; you can ask Zebbie – but in private; my decision is not subject to debate. Simply acknowledge it.”
“I – Aye aye, Captain.”
“You are now required to advise me whenever you think that I am about to make a serious mistake. You are also required to advise me on request.”
“My advice isn’t worth much. Look how I goofed a few minutes ago.”
“That was before you were appointed second-in-command. Deety, actually holding an office makes a big difference.”
Deety blinked and looked solemn, then said soberly, “Yes, I think it does. Yes, it does. I feel it, I do! Weird.”
“Wait till you’re captain. Eight times as weird.”
“Never. Pop wouldn’t go for it, Zebadiah wouldn’t, I won’t – that’s three votes.”
“I said No right up to the point where I could not avoid it. Don’t worry about it now. I’ll boss and you’ll advise me.”
“In that case, Captain, I advise you to reconsider letting us guard you. After we eat and start scouting again, I advise that, even if we find the British quickly, instead of making contact, we should find a spot as deserted as this at the sunrise line and get a long day’s sleep. We crew can get eight hours – I’ll take the middle watch; the men can get eight hours solid each… and the Captain can get anything up to twelve.”
“Advice noted. It’s good advice. But that’s not the program; we’re going to sleep here.” I told Deety what I had in mind. “When the car is restowed, we’ll eat. If there is daylight left, we’ll bathe before we eat. Otherwise in the morning.”
“I’d rather hurry through eating and get a bath… since you tell me I’m going to be able to sleep with my husband. When I’m frightened I stink worse… and I’ve been much more scared than I’ve tried to let on.”
“Into cold water after eating? Deety, you know better.”
“Oh. I’ll skip eating, if necessary, to bathe.”
“Astrogator, we’ll do it my way.”
“Yes, Captain. But I stink, I do.”
“We’ll all stink by the time we restow this car and may wind up eating sandwiches in the dark because everything that we don’t throw away is going to be inside with us and Gay locked and not a light showing by sundown.” I cocked my head. “Hear something, Deety?”

Our men came back looking cheerful, with Zebbie carrying Jacob’s rifle and wearing Jacob’s pistol. Zebbie gave me a big grin. “Cap’n, there wasn’t a durn thing wrong with me that Carter’s Little Liver Pills couldn’t have fixed. Now I’m right.”
“Good.”
“But just barely,” agreed my husband. “Hilda – Captain Hilda my beloved – your complex schedule almost caused me to have a childish accident.”
“I think that unnecessary discussion wasted more time than did my schedule. As may be, Jacob, I would rather have to clean up a ‘childish accident’ than have to bury you.”
“But -“
“Drop the matter!”
“Pop, you had better believe it!” sang out Deety.
Jacob looked startled (and hurt, and I felt the hurt). Zebbie looked sharply at me, no longer grinning. He said nothing, went to Deety, reached for his rifle. “I’ll take that, hon.”
Deety held it away from him. “The Captain has not relieved me.”
“Oh. Okay, we’ll do it by the book.” Zebbie looked at me. “Captain, I thoroughly approve of your doctrine of a continuous guard; I was too slack. It was my intention to relieve the watch. I volunteer to stand guard while you three eat -“
” – then I’ll guard while Zeb eats,” added Jacob. “We already worked it out. When do we eat? I could eat an ostrich with the feathers left on.” He added, “Hilda my love, you’re captain… but you’re still cook, aren’t you? Or is Deety the cook?”
(Decisions! How does the captain of a big ship cope?) “I’ve made changes. Deety remains astrogator but is now second-in-command and my executive officer. In my absence she commands. When I’m present, Deety’s orders are my orders; she will be giving them to implement what I want done. Neither she nor I will cook. Uh, medical officer – ” (Damn it, Sharpie, all those hours in the emergency room make you the only candidate. Or does it? Mmm – ) “Zebbie, does ‘command pilot’ include paramedical training?”
“Yes. Pretty sketchy. What to do to keep the bloke alive until the surgeon sees him.”
“You’re medical officer. I am assistant medical officer when you need me – if I don’t have something else that must be done.”
“Captain, may I put in a word?”
“Please do, Chief Pilot.”
“Sometimes you have to let the bloke die because there is something else that has to be done.” Zebbie looked bleak. “Saw it happen. Does no good to worry ahead of time or grieve about it afterwards. You do what you must.”
“So I am learning, Zebbie. Cook – Gentlemen, I’ve never eaten your cooking. You must assess yourselves. Which one of you is ‘adequate’ -“
“Ouch.”
“Your wording, Zebbie. – and which one is inadequate?”
They backed and filled and deferred to each other, so I put a stop to it. “You will alternate as first and second cook until evidence shows that one is chief cook and the other assistant. Jacob, today you are first cook -“
“Good! I’ll get busy at once!”
“No, Jacob.” I explained what we were going to do. “While you two get everything out of the car, Deety will teach me the rudiments of shotgun. Then I will take over guard duty and she can help unload. But keep your rifles loaded and handy, ’cause if I shoot, I’ll need help in a hurry. Then, when we restow, I’ll do it because I’m smallest and can stand up, mostly, behind the bulkhead. While Zebbie stands guard, and Deety and Jacob pass things in to me.”
Jacob wasn’t smiling – and I suddenly recognized his expression. I once had a dog who (theoretically) was never fed at the table. He would sit near my knee and look at me with that same expression. Why, my poor darling was hungry! Gut-rumble hungry. I had such a galloping case of nerves from becoming captain that I had no appetite.
“Deety, in the pantry back at Snug Harbor I noticed a carton of Milky Way bars. Did that get packed?”
“Certainly did! Those are Pop’s – his vice and eventual downfall.”
“Really? I don’t recall seeing him eat one.”
My husband said, “I haven’t been eating them lately. All things considered, my dear – my dear Captain – I prefer you to candy bars.”
“Why, thank you, Jacob! Will you share those candy bars? We understand that they are your personal property.”
“They are not my personal property; they belong to all of us. Share and share alike.”
“Yup,” agreed Zebbie. “A perfect communism. ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ With the usual communist dictator on top.”
“Zebbie, I’ve been called everything from a black reactionary to a promiscuous old whore – but never before a communist dictator. Very well, you may address me as ‘Comrade Captain.’ When we come across those candy bars, everybody grab one for quick energy – unless somebody remembers where they were packed?”
“Gay knows!” said Deety, and backed toward the car’s open door while still keeping her eyes swinging the arc away from the river-perfect sentry and looking cute at it. “Gay Deceiver!”
“Hi, Deety! Getting any?”
“Inventory. Food supplies. Candy. Milky Way bars. Report location.”
“Frame twenty. Starboard. Closed storage seven-Ess-high. Bottom shelf.”

Five hours later everything was back inside except a heap of wrapping, packaging, and such – yet the increase in space was far greater than that pile. This was because storage did not have to be logical. Just tell Gay. A left shoe could fill an odd space in with the swords while the right shoe from the same pair was a space filler in a tool storage far to the rear – yet the only inconvenience lay in having to go to two places to get them.
I did the stowing; Deety stayed in the cabin, received items handed from outside, described the item to Gay, then described to Gay where the item was stowed, as I reported it. Gay was under instruction to hear only Deety’s voice – and what Deety told Gay was so logical that no one need remember it. Like this: “Gay Deceiver.”
“Boss, when will you learn to say ‘Please’?”
“Clothing. Zeb. Shoes. Field boots.”
“Right boot. Abaft bulkhead. Starboard. Frame forty. Under deckplate. Outboard compartment. Left boot. Abaft bulkhead. Portside. Frame sixty. Under deckplate, middle compartment. Warning: Both boots filled with rifle ammo padded with socks.”
You see? If you got categories in the wrong order, Gay would restring them. Give her the basic category and the identification, leaving out the other steps, and Gay would search the “tree” (Deety’s words) and get the “twig” you identified. You could even fail to give category and she would search until she found it.
But hardest was to build up the decking of the rear compartment about twenty centimeters with chattels or stores that would not crush, fasten it down to keep it from floating in free fall, and make it smooth enough that it would not be unbearably lumpy as a bed – while making some effort neither to build into this platform nor to store in compartments under it things needed frequently or quickly.
I had to lower my standards. It is impossible to store so many things in such limited space and have all readily at hand.
I studied things outside, admitted that I could not do it, then asked for advice. Zebbie solved it: “Captain, do a dry run.”
“Uh… go on, Zebbie.”
“Take my sleeping bag inside, open it out. It is too wide for the space, especially at the rear. So keep it as far forward as you can and still miss Jake’s twister and the bulkhead door. Mark the amount you have to lap it. Mark on the deck the foot of the opened-out bag. You’ll find space abaft that, frustum of a cone, sort of. Drag the sleeping bag outside, mark the tuck-in, build your platform on it. Then fill that rear space and build a bulkhead. Better get Jake; he’s a born mechanic.”
“Zebbie, would you prefer to build this bed yourself?”
“Nope.”
“Why not? I’m not speaking as captain; I’m inquiring as your old friend Sharpie.”
“Because I’m twice as big as you, which makes that space half as big for me. Tell you what, Cap’n Sharpie – excuse me! – Captain Hilda – do the measuring. Meanwhile we’ll pick out plunder that might be bricks in that platform. Then drag the sleeping bag outside. If you’ll let Jake relieve me, Deety and I can piece together the platform in jig time.”
It changed “impossible” to “possible.” The cubbyhole was filled, contents held in place with opened-out cartons tied with wire to hold-downs – “padeyes” Jacob called them. The platform was built, chinked with this and that, covered with more flattened-out cartons, and topped off with sleeping bag and blankets.
It was still light. Deety assured me that there was one hour and forty-three minutes till sundown. “Time enough if we hurry. Jacob, first bath. Deety, guard him. Both come back so Jacob can start dinner – then Zebbie and Deety go down – goodness, this sounds like the farmer and the rowboat with the fox and the geese – and bathe, taking turns guarding. Both come back; Deety relieves me; Zebbie takes me down to bathe while he guards. But please hurry; I want a bath, too. Forty minutes before sundown bathing stops and we eat – at sundown we are inside, dirty dishes and all, locked in till sunrise. If that does me out of a bath, we still hold to it. Jacob, how far is this ‘easy way’ down? I mean, ‘How many minutes?'”
“Maybe five. Hilda my love, if you weren’t insisting on always-two-together there would be no hurry. All go down together; I hurry through my bath, grab my rifle and trot back. The rest needn’t hurry. You’ve got us going down and up, down and up, four times – forty minutes. Which squeezes four baths into twenty minutes, five minutes to undress, soap, squat down and rinse off, towel dry, and dress. Hardly worth the trip.”
“Jacob, who guards you while you’re getting supper? No. I can bathe in the morning.” (Damn! I wanted that bath. I’m used to a shower in the morning, a tub at night, a bidet at any excuse. Decadent – that’s me.)
“Beloved, this place is safe. While we were out earlier, Zeb and I scouted for sign. None. That’s when we found this way down to the creek. It would be a natural watering place. No sign. I don’t think there are any large fauna here.”
I was wavering when Deety spoke up. “Pop, that’s three down-and-ups, not four, as Zebadiah and I get baths on one. But, Captain Hilda, if we all go down and come back together, there can’t be danger. Put that stuff back inside and lock up, of course.” She pointed at Jacob’s preparations. While Jacob had been handing stuff to Deety, he had set aside a hot plate, cooking and eating utensils, a tarpaulin, comestibles for supper and breakfast, and had passed word for me please to store food so that it could be reached easily.
Jacob said hastily, “Deety, I’ve got it planned for minimum therbligs. Dried apricots soaking in that pan, soup mix in that one. There’s no level deck space left inside.”
Deety started to say, “But, Pop, if we – ” when I cut in with, “Quiet, please” – not shouted.
They kept quiet – “Captain Bligh” was being listened to. “Gay Deceiver will not be left unguarded. My orders will not be discussed further. One modification: Supper is cut from forty minutes to twenty-five. Astrogator adjust schedule accordingly. Sound a blast on the siren five minutes before suppertime. We lock up on the dot. I placed the honey bucket just beyond the swing of the bulkhead door as the car will not be unlocked for any reason until sunrise. Questions?”
“Yes, Captain. Where are the towels?”

An hour later I was squatting in the stream, rinsing off and hurrying – covered with goose bumps. As I stepped out, Zebbie put down his rifle and had a big, fluffy towel, long as I am tall, waiting to wrap me. I should have required him to behave as a guard should.
But I told myself that he was still wearing his revolver and, anyhow, he has this sixth sense about danger – lying in my teeth. Nothing makes a woman feel more cherished than to have a man wrap her in a big towel the instant she’s out of the water. I lack character, that’s all. Every woman has her price, and a big, fluffy towel at the right time comes close to being mine.
Zebbie was rubbing firmly, getting me not only dry but warm. “Feels good, Captain?”
“‘Captain Hilda’ never came down the bank, Zebbie. Feels swell!”
“Remember the first time I gave you a rubdown?”
“Sure do! Dressing room at my pool.”
“Yup. I tried to lay you. I’ve never been turned down so smoothly.”
“You tried to lay me, Zebbie? Truly?” I looked up at him, my best innocent look.
“Sharpie darling, you lie as easily as I do. A man does this” – and he did – “even with a towel, a woman is certain what he means. But you refused to notice it, turned me down, without hurting my pride.”
“I’m refusing to notice it now and find it just as difficult as I did that afternoon. Stop it, please!” He did. “Thanks, dear. You got me all shaky. Zebbie, do you think Deety thinks I rigged this to get you alone? I would not willingly upset her.”
“On the contrary. She gave me a hunting license concerning you – you, not females in general – ten days back. In writing.”
“Really?”
“In writing so that she could limit it. I am required not to run any risk of hurting Jake.”
“You haven’t tried to use that license.”
“I took it as a compliment to you and to me, kissed Deety and thanked her. You settled this four years ago. But I’ve sometimes wondered why. I’m young, healthy, take care of my teeth, and keep my nails clean – mostly – and you seemed to like me. What made me ineligible? Not complaining, dear, just asking.”
I tried to explain the difference between a male friend and a bedmate – the scarcity of the first, the boring plethora of applicants for the other.
He listened, then shook his head. “Masochism.”
“Hasn’t it worked out better this way? I do love you, Zebbie.”
“I know you do, Sharpie.” Zebbie turned me around and looked down into my eyes. “And I love you and you know that, too” – and he kissed me.
That kiss went on and neither of us seemed inclined to stop. My towel slipped to the ground. I noticed because it felt better to be closer and ever so much nicer to have his hands on me. Zebbie hadn’t given me a sexy kiss since the day I hadinvited a pass and then ignored it.
I began to wonder why I had decided to ignore it. Then I was wondering how much time we had left in our schedule. Then I knew the exact time… for that infernal, earsplitting siren sounded. God watches over Hilda Mae and that’s why I keep Him on my payroll. But sometimes He is rough about it.
We let go. I put on Deety’s Keds, slid my borrowed dress over my head, hung the towel over my arm – elapsed time: nine seconds. Zebbie was again carrying his rifle at the ready (is that correct? – both hands, I mean).
“Captain, shall we go?”
“Yes, Chief Pilot. Zebbie, when did I become ‘captain’ again? Just from putting on clothes? You’ve seen this old hide before.”
“Skin has nothing to do with it, Captain. Quoting Deety quoting the Japanese: ‘Nakedness is often seen but never noticed.’ Except that sometimes I do notice, hot diggity dog and other comments. You have superior skin, Captain. You went back to being Captain when I picked up my rifle. But I was never off duty. Did you notice, when I dried you, that I picked you up and swung you around, so that I faced the bank? I kept alert even while I was nuzzling you… and you make fine nuzzle, Captain Step-Mother-in-Law Hilda.”
“So do you, Zebbie. I’m still Sharpie till we get to your car.” We reached the top of the bank. “Ten seconds to catch my breath. Zebbie -“
“Yes, Sharpie?”
“Four years ago – I’m sorry I turned away your pass.”
He patted my bottom. “So am I, dear. But it has worked out quite well. And” – he grinned that irresistible, ugly grin – “who knows? – we aren’t dead yet.”
When we arrived, Jacob was slurping soup. “You’re late,” he stated. “So we waited.”
“So I see.”
“Don’t listen to Pop, Captain Auntie; you are two minutes seventeen seconds ahead of time. Are you sure you stayed in long enough to get clean?”
“I stayed in long enough to get freezing cold. Aren’t you chilly?” Deety had worn skin most of the day and so had I; we had been doing sweaty work. But she had been dressed when I last saw her. “Jacob, is there no soup for Zebbie and me?”
“A smidgen. You get this pan as soon as I’m through – now! – and that means one less dish to wash.”
“And Zebadiah gets mine – also now – and I took that jump suit off because it’s dirty and I’m clean. I still haven’t figured out how to do a laundry. Nothing for a tub, no way to heat water. What’s that other way? Pound them on a rock the way it shows in National Geographic? I don’t believe it!”
We were in bed by sundown, Gay’s doors locked – pitch dark in minutes. According to Deety and Gay sunrise was ten hours and forty-three minutes away. “Deety, please tell Gay to wake us at sunrise.”
“Aye aye, Captain Auntie.”
“Zebbie, you told us that the air in the car was good for about four hours.”
“In space; The scoops are open now.”
“But do you get air back there? Should the bulkhead door be open?”
“Oh. Top scoop serves this space. The cabin is ventilated by the chin scoop. Scoops stay open unless internal pressure closes them.”
“Can anything get in through them? Snakes or such?”
“Hilda my dear, you worry too much.”
“My very own darling Copilot, will you please pipe down while I’m speaking to the Chief Pilot? There are many things about this car that I do not know – yet I am responsible.”
Zebbie answered, “Each scoop has a grid inside and a fine screen at the inner end; nothing can get in. Have to clean ’em occasionally. Remind me, Deety.”
“I’ll tell Gay.” She did – and almost at once there was a crash of metal. I sat up abruptly. “What’s that?”
“Hilda, I am afraid that I have kicked over the supper dishes.” My husband added, “Zeb, how do I find the cabin light?”
“No, no! Jacob, don’t try to find it. No light at all until sunrise. Don’t fret about dishes. But what happened? I thought they were under the instrument board.”
“I couldn’t quite reach with this bed made up. But the carton that supports my feet sticks out beyond the seat cushion on it. So I stacked them there.”
“No harm done. We can expect bobbles as we shake down.”
“I suppose so.”
“We can cope. Jacob, that was an excellent dinner.”
Deety called out, “Good night, chatterboxes! We want to sleep.” She closed the bulkhead door, dogged it.

Chapter XXIII

“The farce is over.”

Jake:
For me, the best soporific is to hold Hilda in my arms. I slept ten hours.
I might have slept longer had I not been blasted by a bugle call: Reveille.
I thought I was back in basic, tried to rouse out fast – banged my head. That slowed me; I reoriented, saw my lovely bride beside me, yawning prettily – realized that we were on Mars.
Mars! Not even our own Mars but another universe.
That hateful tune started to repeat, louder.
I banged on the bulkhead. “How do you shut this thing off?”
Shortly I saw dogs of the bulkhead door turning, then the door swung – as the call went into its third time around still louder. Zeb showed, blinking.
“Do you have a problem?”
I couldn’t hear but I could piece out what he meant.
“HOW DO YOU SHUT OFF THIS RACKET?”
“No problem.” (I think that’s what he said.) “Good morning, Gay.”
The bugle faded into the distance. “Good morning, Boss.”
“I’m awake.”
“Ah, but will you stay awake?”
“I won’t go back to bed. Promise.”
“I’ve dealt with your sort before, me bucko. If you aren’t out of here before my landlady wakes up, I’ll lose this room. Then another hassle with the cops. It’s not worth it… you cheapskate!”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“So smart I’m looking for another job.”
“Back to sleep, Gay. Over.”
“Roger and out, Boss” – and blessed silence.
I said to my daughter, “Deety, how could you do this to us?”
Her husband answered. “Deety didn’t, Jake. She was told to place a call for sunrise. But didn’t know what a morning call means to Gay.”
I grumped, and opened the starboard door. Hilda’s rearrangements had given me the best rest I had had in days. But two double beds in a sports car left no room on arising to do anything but get out.
So I slid out the door, groped for the step, paused to ask Hilda for shoes and coverall – caught sight of something and said quietly, “Hilda. My rifle. Quickly!”
My little treasure is always reliable in emergency; her clowning is simply persona. (A most pleasant one; the worst aspect of the jest of making her “captain” was that she lost her smile – I hoped that Zeb would soon resume command. We had needed the lesson – but no need to go on.)
I digress – I asked for my rifle; she whispered, “Roger,” and had it in my hand at once with the quiet report: “Locked, one in the chamber. Wait – I’m getting Zeb.”
That made sense. By staying on the step in the corner formed by door and car, my rear was safe and I need cover only a small sector. I prefer a bolt action – correction: I have a bolt-action rifle I inherited from my father’s eldest brother, who had “liberated” it on leaving the Marine Corps.
I unlocked it, opened the bolt slightly, saw that a cartridge was in the chamber, closed the bolt, left the piece unlocked.
Zeb said at my ear, softly, “What’s the excitement?”
“Over there.” I pulled my head out of the way, saw Hilda and Deety almost on top of Zeb – Hilda with Deety’s shotgun, Deety with her husband’s police special.
Zeb said, “Pixies. They may still be around; let’s check. Cover me from here?”
“No, Zeb. You to the right, me to the left, we check the port side, meet back at the dump. Make it fast.”
“Say the word.” Zeb said over his shoulder, “You girls stay in the car. Jake?”
“Now!” We came bursting out like greyhounds, guns at high port. The reason for my disquiet was simple: The dump of wrappings and cartons was no longer a heap. Something had spread it over many meters, and the litter was not nearly enough to account for the pile. Wind? Zeb had left the wings extended; the slightest wind would wake him, warn him of change in weather. The car had not rocked in the night; ergo, no wind. Ergo, nocturnal visitors. Nor were they small.
I rounded the car to the left, seeing nothing until I spotted Zeb – waved at him, started back around to join him at the dump.
He arrived before I did. “I told you girls to stay in the car!” He was quite angry, and the cause, both of them, were also at the dump.
My darling answered, “Chief Pilot.”
Zeb said, “Huh? Sharpie, there’s no time for that; there’s something dangerous around! You girls get inside before I -“
“Pipe DOWN!”
One would not believe that so small a body could produce such a blast. It caught Zeb mouth open and jammed his words down his throat.
Hilda did not give him opportunity to answer. She continued, forcefully: “Chief Pilot, there are no ‘girls’ here; there are four adult humans. One of them is my second-in-command and executive officer. My executive officer; I am in command.” Hilda looked at my daughter. “Astrogator, did you tell anyone to remain in the car?”
“No, Captain.” Deety was wearing her “Name, rank, and serial number” face.
“Nor did I.” Hilda looked at Zeb. “There is no need to discuss it.” She stirred litter with a toe. “I had hoped that we could find salvage. But three fourths of it has been eaten. By large animals from those tooth marks. I would have trouble visualizing a large animal that eats cellulose but is nevertheless carnivorous – save that I know one. So we will get as much done as possible while keeping a tight guard. I have the program planned but I’m open to advice.”
“Hilda!” I let my tone get a bit sharp.
My wife looked around with features as impassive as those of my daughter. “Copilot, are you addressing me officially or socially?”
“Uh… as your husband! I must put my foot down! Hilda, you don’t realize the situation. We’ll lift as soon as possible – and Zeb will be in command. The farce is over.”
I hated to speak to my beloved that way but sometimes one must. I braced myself for a blast.
None came. Hilda turned to Zeb and said quietly, “Chief Pilot, was my election a farce?”
“No, Captain.”
“Astrogator, did you think of it as farce?”
“Me? Heavens, no, Captain Auntie!”
Hilda looked at me. “Jacob, from the balloting you voted for me at least once, possibly three times. Were you joking?”
I could not remember how I had felt when it dawned on me that Zeb really did intend to resign – panic, I think, that I was about to be stuck with the job. That was now irrelevant as I knew that I was not more than one micron from again being a bachelor… so I resorted to Higher Truth.
“No, no, my darling – my darling Captain! I was dead serious!”
“Did you find some malfeasance?”
“What? No! I – I made a mistake. Jumped to conclusions. I assumed that we would be leaving at once… and that Zeb would command once we lifted. After all, it’s his car.”
Hilda gave me the briefest smile. “There is something to that last argument. Zebbie, did you intend – “
“Wait a half! Cap’n, that car belongs to all of us just like Jake’s Milky Way bars; we pooled resources.”
“So I have heard you all say. Since I had nothing to pool but a fur cape, I took it with a grain of salt. Zebbie, do you intend to resume command when we lift?”
“Captain, the only way you can quit is by resigning… whereupon Deety would be captain.”
“No, sirree!” (My daughter is not often that shrill.)
“Then Jake would wind up holding the sack. Captain, I’ll pilot when ordered, chop wood and carry water between times. But I didn’t sign up to boss a madhouse. I think you’re finding out what I mean.”
“I think so, too, Zebbie. You thought there was an emergency and started giving orders. I would not want that to happen in a real emergency -“
“It won’t! Captain.”
“And I find to my chagrin that my husband considers me to be a play captain. I think I must ask for a vote of confidence. Will you please find something to use as white and black balls?”
“Captain Auntie!”
“Yes, dear?”
“I am required to advise you. A commanding officer commands; she doesn’t ask for votes. You can resign – or – die – or lose to a mutiny and get hanged from your own yardarm. But if you take a vote, you’re not a captain; you’re a politician.”
“Deety’s right, Captain,” Zeb told my wife. “Had a case-law case in R.O.T.C. Naval vessel. Department told the skipper to pick one of two ports for ho1idays. He let his crew vote on it. Word got back to Washington and he was relieved at sea by his second-in-command and never again ordered to sea. C.O.’s don’t ask; they tell ’em. However, if it matters to you, I’m sorry I goofed, and you do enjoy my confidence.”
“Mine, too!”
“And mine, Hilda my dear Captain!” (In truth I wanted Zeb and only Zeb to command when the car was off the ground. But I made myself a solemn vow never again to say or do anything that might cause Hilda to suspect it. We would crash and die together rather than let her suspect that I thought her other than the ideal commanding officer.)
Hilda said, “The incident is closed. Who can’t wait? Speak up.”
I hesitated – my bladder is not used to bedtime right after dinner. When no one else spoke, I said, “Perhaps I had better be first; I have breakfast to prepare.”
“Dear, you are not First Cook today; Zebbie is. Deety, grab a rifle and take your father to his ‘handy bush’ – and do make it handy; that giant termite might be lurking. Then hand Jacob the rifle and it’s your turn. Don’t dally.”

It was a busy day. Water tanks had to be topped off. Zeb and I used two collapsible buckets, taking turns (that hill got steeper every trip, even at 0.38 gee), while Deety guarded us. Endless trips –
That afternoon I was a ladies’ tailor. Hilda had something for Deety to do.
Zeb had a job to complete. The space behind the bulkhead has padeyes every 30 cms or so. No one wants the center of gravity to shift when one is in the air. Zeb’s arrangements were Samson cord in many lengths with snap hooks. Zeb told Hilda he wanted to secure the bed aft for air or space, and to store items used in rigging the forward bed so that they would be secure but available – and where were his Samson ties? – Gay didn’t know. He had to explain to Hilda what they looked like – whereupon Hilda said, “Oh! Thingammies! Gay Deceiver. Inventory. Incidentals. Small. Thingammies.” Zeb spent the afternoon making certain that the “bed” could not slide, then built a net of Samson cord to hold the items for turning seats into a bed, then, finding that he had Samson ties left, Zeb removed the wires with which I had secured the aftermost storage, and replaced them with ties. When he was through, he relieved me as guard, and I wound up as seamstress.
Our wives had decided that one of Deety’s jump suits should be altered for Hilda until we reached some place where clothes could be purchased. Hilda had vetoed Earth-without-a-J. “Jacob, as captain I look at things from another perspective. It is better to be a lively frump than a stylish corpse. Wups! You pinned Sharpie.”
“Thorry,” I said, around a mouthful of pins. Hilda was wearing the suit inside out; I was pinning excess material. Once this caused it to fit, lines held by pins would be tacked, pins removed, tacked lines sewed in short stitches (by hand; Deety’s sewing machine was ashes in another universe), and excess cloth trimmed away.
Such was theory.
I tackled reducing the waist line by pinning darts on both sides. Then I folded up the trousers so that the crease came at the instep – but had to pin them up 17 cms!
Seventeen centimeters! I had taken in the waist first, knowing that doing so would, in effect, shorten the trousers. It did – one centimeter.
The appearance was as if I were trying to fit her with a chimpanzee suit for a masquerade. Lift it at the shoulders? I tried, almost cutting off circulation. Still a horrid case of droopy drawers –
Take a tuck all the way around the waist? That suit closed with one zipper. Have you ever tried to take a tuck in a zipper?
I stepped back and looked at my creative artistry.
Ghastly.
“Hilda my love, Deety was better at this by the age of ten. Shall I fetch her?”
“No, no!”
“Yes, yes. If at first you don’t succeed, find the mistake. I’m the mistake. You need Deety.”
“No, Jacob. It would be better for me to get along without clothes than to interrupt the work I have assigned to the Astrogator. With you at the verniers and Zebbie at the controls, Gay can do almost anything and quickly. Yes?”
“I wouldn’t phrase it that way. But I understand you.”
“If she’s been preprogrammed, she can do it even faster?”
“Certainly. Why the quiz, dear?”
“How much faster?”
“Without preprogramming, it takes a few seconds to acknowledge and set it, about as long to check what I’ve done, then I report ‘Set!’ Zeb says ‘Execute!’ I punch the button. Five to fifteen seconds. With a preprogram – is it debugged in all ways, no conflicts, no ambiguities, no sounds easy to confuse?”
“Darling, that is why I won’t let Deety be disturbed. Yes.”
“So. Maximum time would be with Gay asleep. Wake her, she acknowledges, you state the preprogram in the exact words in her memory, then say ‘Execute!’ Call it three seconds. Minimum – That would be an emergency preprogram with ‘Execute’ included in the code word. My dear, we saw minimum time yesterday. When that Russian tried to shoot Zeb.”
“Jacob, that is what caused me to put Deety to work. I saw his pistol in the air. His fingers were curled to catch it. Then we were in the sky. How long?”
“I saw him start to reverse his weapon, and bent over my verniers to bounce us by switch… then stopped. Not needed. Mmm – A tenth of a second? A fifth?”
“Whichever, it is the fastest we can manage. While you dears were carrying water, I was preparing a list of preprograms. Some are to save juice or time or to carry out something we do frequently; those require ‘Execute!’ Some are intended to save our lives and don’t require ‘Execute.’ Like ‘Bounce’ and ‘Bug Out’ and ‘Take us home!’ But more. Jacob, I did not tell Deety how to phrase these; that’s her specialty. I wrote out what I thought we ought to be able to do and told her to add any she wished.”
“Did you consult Zeb?”
“Copilot, the Captain did not consult the Chief Pilot.”
“Whew! I beg your pardon – Captain.”
“Only if I get a kiss – mind the pins! Deety will post a copy on the instrument board. After you and Zebbie read them, I want your advice and his.”

I gave up on that jump suit. I took out eighty-five or a thousand pins. Hilda was covered with sweat so I invited her to order me to take her down to bathe. She hesitated.
I said, “Does the Captain have duties of which I am unaware?”
“No. But everyone else is working, Jacob.”
“Captain, Rank Hath Its Privileges. You are on duty twenty-four hours a day – twenty-four and a half here – “
“Twenty-four hours, thirty-nine minutes, thirty-five seconds – local day, not sidereal.”
“Did you measure it? Or remember what some professor said?”
“Neither, Jacob. It’s the figure Gay uses. I suppose she got it from the Aerospace Almanac.”
“Are you going to believe an almanac? Or your husband?”
“Excuse me, Jacob, while I tell Gay the correct figure.”
“Hand back my leg, beloved. Captain, since you are on duty all the time, you are entitled to bathe, rest, or relax, at any time.”
“Well… two seconds while I grab a towel – and tell Zebbie that I will start dinner while he is down bathing.”
“Captain, I am number-two cook today. You said so.”
“You will guard, Jacob, which you do better than I. While the Carters are guarding each other.”
Hilda came trotting back with a towel. I said, “Cap’n, I’ve figured out clothes for you.”
“Goody. Yes, dear?” We headed for the path down.
“Were my Hawaiian shirts packed?” I had her fall in behind me.
“Inventory. Clothing. Jacob. Shirts. Aloha.”
“Do you recall a blue one with white flowers?”
“Yes.”
“I take ‘medium’ but can get into a ‘small’ and Andrade’s didn’t have this in ‘medium.’ But this one is so small I haven’t been wearing it. Hilda, you’ll like it – and it will be easy to cut down.” (A steep pitch – no place to lose your footing while carrying a gun.)
“I won’t cut it down. Jacob, your shirt is my first maternity smock.”
“A happy thought! Did Deety fetch sailor pants? White.”
“I recall white duck slacks.” Hilda kicked off her Keds, stepped into the water.
“That’s the pair. She wore them one summer while maturing. The following summer they were too tight. She was always about to alter them but never did.”
“Jacob, if Deety likes those pants so well that she saved them and fetched them along, I won’t ask her to give them to me.”
“I will ask her. Hilda, you worry about the wrong things. We pooled resources. I chucked in my candy bars, Zeb chucked in his car, Deety chucks in her sailor pants.”
“And what did I chuck in? Nothing!”
“Your mink cape. If you offered it to Deety in exchange for a pair of old white -“
“It’s a deal!”
“It is like hell, Mistress Mine. That cape is valuta. Only days ago each of us was wealthy. Now we are unpersons who can’t go home. What happens to our bank accounts I do not know but it seems certain that we will never realize anything from them, or from stocks, bonds, and other securities. Any paper money we have is worthless. As you know, I have bullion and gold coins and Jake has, also; we each like money that clinks and we don’t trust governments. Gay must be juiced from time to time; that calls for valuta. Such as gold. Such as mink coats. Come out of there before you freeze! I would rub you dry but that giant termite worries me.”
“Last night Zebbie rubbed me dry.”
(Why do women have this compulsion to confess? It is not a typical male vice.) “He did? I should speak to him.”
“Jacob, you are angry.”
“Only somewhat, as yesterday we didn’t know about the giant termite, and Zeb and I considered your guard rules silly. Nevertheless Zeb neglected his duty.”
“I meant ‘angry with me’!”
“For what? Did you force it on him?”
“No. He offered it – towel open and ready, just as you do. I went straight into it, let him wrap me and rub me down.”
“Feel good?”
“Golly, yes! I’m a bad girl, Jacob – but I loved it.”
“Don’t give yourself airs, my darling; you are not a bad girl. Yesterday was not the first time Zeb has rubbed you dry.”
“Well… no.” (They have to confess, they have to be shrived.)
“Do you any harm, then or now?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m sure it didn’t. Listen, beloved – you are twenty-nine going on forty-two. You’ve had three term contracts and now have a traditional marriage. In college you were a scandal to the jaybirds. Zeb has been your chum for years. Both of you horny as goats. My darling, I assumed what is called ‘the worst’ and is often the best.”
“But, Jacob, we didn’t, we didn’t! And we haven’t!”
“So? People who pass up temptations have only themselves to blame. Just one thing, my only love, if you and Zeb ever pick up the matter, try not to look guilty.”
“But we aren’t going to, ever!”
“Should it come to pass, warn Zeb not to hurt Deety. She loves him deeply. Not surprising as Zeb is a lovable man. Get your shoes on, dearest one, and we’ll let someone else have the community bathtub.”
“Jacob? You still think we have. Zebbie and I.”
“Hilda, I married you convinced that Zeb was, at that time and for some years, your lover. Or one of them. Today you have convinced me that the matter is unproven… assuming that one or both of you have rocks in your head. But I can’t see that it makes a tinker’s dam either way. Jane taught me that the only important rule is not to hurt people… which very often – Jane’s words! – consists in not talking unnecessarily.”
“Jane told me that, too. Jacob? Will you kiss me?”
“Madame – what did you say your name was? – that is the toll I charge before a client starts up this bank.”
As we climbed, I asked Hilda, “Darling, what is the animal that eats cellulose but is carnivorous?”
“Oh. Two. H. sapiens and Rattus.”
“Men? Cellulose?”
“Sawdust is often processed as food. Have you ever eaten in a fast food joint?”

My daughter had done a wonderful job on preprograms; we all were eager to learn them. We placed guards, Zeb and me, at the doors, while Deety took Zeb’s seat and talked, and Hilda sat in mine.
“Captain Auntie had two ideas,” Deety told us. “To optimize emergency escapes and to work out ways to use as near to no juice as possible. The latter involves figuring ways to ground us in strange places without the skill Zebadiah has in dead-stick grounding.”
“I don’t depend on skill,” put in my son-in-law. “I won’t risk a dead-stick grounding other than on a hard-surfaced strip. You’ve seen me avoid it twice – by power-on just before grounding. Yesterday I cut it a bit fine.”
I shuddered.
My daughter continued, “We have this new program. Set it, by voice, for bearing and as many minima as you please. Our Smart Girl goes there and attempts to ground. She uses radar twice, once in range-finder mode, second time in precautionary mode as in ‘Bug Out.’ If her target is not clear, she does a Drunkard’s Walk in locus ten klicks radius, sampling spots two per second. When she finds a good spot, she grounds. Unless we don’t like it and order her to try again.
“Study that and you will see that you can cruise all over this or any planet, land anywhere, and not use juice.
“Escape programs – We must be most careful in saying G, A, Y. Refer to her as ‘smart girl’ or ‘the car’ or anything not starting with that syllable. That syllable will now wake her. If it is followed by her last name, she goes into ‘awaiting orders’ mode. But if G, A, Y, alone is followed by any of eight code words, she executes that escape instantly. I have tried to select monosyllables that ordinarily do not follow her first name. Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Dictionary. G, A, Y. Read.”
“Gayety, gayfeather, Gayle, Gaylord, Gay-Pay-Oo, gaywings -“

Chapter XXIV

Captains aren’t supposed to cry.

Hilda:
I ordered an early dinner by starting it when Zebbie and Deety went down to bathe. I had ready a public reason but my motive was personal: I didn’t want a pillow talk with Jacob.
Annoyed at him? At me! I had had a perfect chance to keep my lip zipped – and muffed it! Was I boasting? Or confessing? Or trying to hurt Jacob? (Oh, no! – can the id be that idiotic!)
Don’t rationalize it, Sharpie! Had not your husband been kind, tolerant, and far more sophisticated than you ever dreamed, you would be in trouble.
When dinner was over, Zebbie said lazily, “I’ll do the dishes in the morning.”
I said, “I prefer that they be done tonight, please.”
Zebbie sat up and looked at me. His thoughts were coming through so strongly that I was getting them as words. I never allow myself to be close with a person whose thoughts I can’t sense at all; I distrust a blank wall. But now I could “hear” such names as “Queeg” and “Bligh” and “Vanderdecken” and “Ahab” – and suddenly Captain Ahab was harpooning the White Whale and I was the whale!
Zebbie bounced to his feet with a grin that made me uneasy. “Sure thing, Cap’n! Deety, grab a rifle and hold it on me to make sure I get ’em clean.”
I cut in quickly, “I’m sorry, Chief Pilot, but I need the Astrogator. Jacob is your assistant.”
When they were gone, Deety said, “Will my shotgun do? I don’t think the cardboard eater comes out in daylight.”
“Bring the guns inside; we’re going to close the doors.”
I waited until we were settled. “Deety, will you make me a copy of your new programs before our men come back?”
“If they take time to wash them properly. Men and dishes – you know.”
“I hope they stall -“
” – and get over their mad,” Deety finished.
“That, too. But I intend to write a sequential program and I want you to check me. After you make that copy.”

They did stay down – “man talk,” no doubt. Men need us but can just barely stand us; every now and then they have to discuss our faults. I think that is why they shut us out.
Deety made a copy while I wrote what I planned to do. Deety looked it over, corrected some wording. Looked it over again – and said nothing pointedly.
“Deety, can you handle your father’s lab camera?”
“Certainly.”
“Will you check its load and shoot when I ask for it?”
“Of course.”
“If I goof on an order, correct me at once.”
“You don’t intend to hand this to Zebadiah to carry out?”
“No. I prefer that you not mention that I prepared it ahead of time. Deety, the Chief Pilot assured me that any of us could command in aerospace. I am about to make a test run. The Chief Pilot is in a position to override. If he does, I shan’t fight it; I have said all along that he should be captain.”
We had time to dig out that shirt with the white flowers. Deety’s sailor pants were long; we turned up cuffs. The lacing at the back made them small enough in the waist. She gave me a blue belt to pull in the shirt, which I wore outside – then she added a blue hair ribbon.
“Captain Auntie, you look good. Better than I will in this jump suit I am reluctantly pulling on. Gosh, I’m glad Zebadiah isn’t square about skin!”
“He was when I adopted him. Fetched swim briefs the first time I invited him over to swim. But I was firm. There they come! Open the doors.”
They appeared to be over their mad. Zebbie looked at me and said, “How fancy! Are we going to church?” – and my husband added, “You look pretty, my dear.”
“Thank you, sir. All hands, prepare for space. Secure loose gear. Lock firearms. Anyone requiring a bush stop say so. Dress for space. Before manning car, take a turn around the car, searching for gear on the ground.”
“What is this?” demanded Zebbie.
“Prepare for space. Move!”
He hesitated a split second. “Aye aye, Captain.”

In two minutes and thirteen seconds (I checked Gay’s clock) I was squeezing past my husband into the starboard rear seat. I said, “In reporting, include status of firearms. Astrogator.”
“Belted down. Bulkhead door dogged. Shotgun loaded and locked. I slid it under the sleeping bag.”
“Fléchette gun?”
“Wups! In my purse. Loaded and locked. Purse clipped to my seat, outboard.”
“Copilot.”
“Belt fastened. Door locked, seal checked. Continua device ready. Rifle loaded and locked, secure under sleeping bag. I’m wearing my pistol loaded and locked.”
“Chief Pilot.”
“Belt fastened, door locked, seal checked. Rifle loaded, locked, under sleeping bag. Wearing revolver, loaded and locked. No loose gear. Water tanks topped off. Load trimmed. Two reserve power packs, two zeroed. Juice zero point seven-two capacity. Wings spread full. Wheels down, unlocked to retract. All systems go. Ready.”
“Chief Pilot, after first maneuver, execute vertical dive fastest without power and without retracting wheels. Relock wheel-retracting gear. Leave wings spread max.”
“Wheel retractors locked. After first maneuver fastest, no-power vertical dive, wings full subsonic, wheels down.”
I glanced at Deety; she held up the camera and mouthed, “Ready.”
“Gay Home!”
In Arizona it was shortly before sunset, as Deety had predicted. My husband repressed a gasp. I snapped, “Copilot, report H-above-G.”
“Uh… two klicks minus, falling.” Zebbie had bite now; the horizon ahead tilted slowly up, then faster. As we leaned over, Deety stretched high, catlike, to shoot between our pilots. We steadied with Snug Harbor dead ahead – a crater! I felt a burst of anger, a wish to kill!
“Picture!”
“Gay B’gout!”
Instead of being stationary at “Touchdown” we were in free fall on the night side of some planet. I could see stars, with blackness below the “horizon” – if horizon it were. Deety said, “Looks like the Russians left something on our parking space.”
“Perhaps. Jacob, H-above-G, please.”
“Under ten klicks, decreasing slowly.”
“So far, so good. But we aren’t sure that we have the right planet and universe.”
“Captain, that’s Antares ahead.”
“Thanks, Zebbie. I assume that at least we are in one of the analogs, of our native universe. Deety, can you get from Gay the acceleration and check it against Mars-ten?”
“‘Bout four ways, Cap’n.”
“Go ahead.”
“Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Hi, Gay. H-above-G, closing rate running, solve first differential, report answer.”
Instantly Gay answered, “Three-seven-six centimeters per second squared.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
So it was either Mars-ten or an unreasonable facsimile. “Gay B’gout!”
We were stationary, with what we had come to feel as “proper weight.” Deety said, “Maybe an animal wandered across our spot. How about lights, Captain? This snapshot ought to be colors by now.”
“Not yet. Chief Pilot, when I alert the autopilot by G, A, Y, please switch on forward landing lights.”
“Roger Wilco.”
“Gay -“
Blinding light – men in its path were blinded, not us. “Bounce! Kill the light, Zebbie. The Little Father left sentries in case we came back – and we did.”
“Captain Auntie, may I have cabin light now?”
“Please be patient, dear. I saw two men. Jacob?”
“Three men, dear… dear Captain. Russian soldiers in uniform. Weapons, but no details.”
“Deety?”
“Looked like bazookas.”
“Chief Pilot?”
“Bazookas. A good thing you were on the bounce with Bounce, Skipper. Gay can take a lot… but a bazooka would make her unhappy.” He added, “Speed saved me yesterday. Deety, let that be a lesson: Never lose your temper.”
“Look who’s talking!”
“I quit being C.O., didn’t I? Cap’n Sharpie doesn’t do foolish stunts. If I were skipper, we would chase ’em all over that sea bottom. Never be in one place long enough for them to aim and they would think there were thirty of us. If Colonel Snotsky is there – I think he’s afraid to go home -“
We were over Arizona. I snapped, “Gay Termite!” and were parked by our stream. Zebbie said, “What the devil? Who did that?”
“You did, Zebadiah,” Deety answered.
“Me? I did no such thing. I was -“
“Silence!” (That was I, Captain Bligh.)
I went on, “Gay Deceiver, go to sleep. Over.”
“Sleepy time, Hilda. Roger and out.”
“Chief Pilot, is there a way to shut off the autopilot so completely that she cannot possibly be activated by voice?”
“Oh, certainly.” Zebbie reached up, threw a switch.
“Thanks, Zebbie. Deety, your new escape programs are swell… but I missed how that happened. But first – Did anyone else see our giant termite?”
“Huh?” – “I did.” – “Where?”
I said, “I was looking out to starboard as we transited. The creature was feeding on packing debris – and took off uphill at high speed. Looked like a very big, fat, white dog with too many legs. Six, I think.”
“‘Six,'” agreed my husband. “Put me in mind of a polar bear. Hilda, I think it is carnivorous.”
“We are not going to find out. Deety, tell Zebbie – all of us – what happened.”
Deety shrugged. “Zebadiah said ‘bounce’ twice when he should not have, but Gay wasn’t triggered. Then he said ‘Gay can take a lot – ‘ and she was triggered. More chitchat and Zebadiah said ‘ – I think he’s afraid to go home – ‘ That did it. Our smart girl hears what she has been taught. She heard: ‘Gay Home’ and that is the short form that used to be: ‘Gay Deceiver Take Us Home.”
Zebbie shook his head. “A gun should never be that hair-trigger.”
“Chief Pilot, yesterday you used the first of these clipped programs to avoid a bullet in your face. First ‘Gay’ – then after more words – ‘bounce!’ It saved you.”
“But -“
“I’m not through. Astrogator, study the escape programs. Search for possibility of danger if triggered accidentally. Zebbie, escape programs can’t be compared to a hair trigger on a gun; they are to escape, not to kill.”
“Captain Auntie, I’ve spent all day making certain that programs can’t put us out of the frying pan into the fire. That’s why I killed ‘countermarch.’ The nearest thing to danger is the ‘Home’ program because our home planet is unfriendly.” Deety sounded sad. “I hate to cut our last link with home.”
“It needn’t be cut,” I said. “Just stretched. Put it back into long form and add ‘Execute.'”
Deety answered, “Captain, I will do as you say. But we might be a billion klicks from nowhere and hit by a meteor. If anyone can gasp, ‘GayHome,’ then we are two klicks over our cabin site in air, not vacuum. Even if we’ve passed out, Gay won’t crash us; she’s built not to. If I’m gasping my last, I don’t want to have to say, ‘Gay Deceiver, take us home. Execute.’ That’s ten syllables against two… with air whooshing out.”
I said, “That settles it. The ‘Gay Home’ program stands unless my successor changes it.”
“You’re not talking to me, Captain Sharpie darling – I mean, Captain Hilda – because I’m not your successor. But Deety convinced me. I will not admit that those vermin have run me permanently off my own planet. At least I can return to it to die.”
“Son, let’s not speak of dying. We are going to stay alive and raise kids and enjoy it.”
“That’s my Pop! Say, doesn’t anybody want to see this picture?”

We made it a rest stop, worrying more about giant termites than about bushes… and Jacob found a can opener. The can opener. I put a stop to an attempt to fix the blame. Advice to all explorers: Do not roam the universes without a spare can opener.
Then it was “Prepare for lift!” and a new program. “Chief Pilot, switch on autopilot. Gay Deceiver. Explore. True bearing two-six-five. Unit jump five minima. Use bingo stop continue. End program short of sunrise line. Ground. Acknowledge by paraphrase.”
“Explore west five degrees south fifty-klick units. Two-second check each jump. Ground myself no power Greenwich time oh-three-seventeen.”
“Deety, is that time right?”
“For that program.”
“Gay Deceiver. Program revision. Cancel grounding. From program coded ‘A Tramp Abroad’ display locus. Display Bingoes.”
She displayed Mars at once, but gibbous. I scrawled a note to Deety: “How do I rotate to show day side only?”
Dear Deety! She wrote her answer. Passed it over – I doubt that our men saw it: “Program revision. Display locus real-time day side.”
Gay accommodated. It took several steps to define new locus as sunset line (right edge – east) to sunrise line (left edge – west), and between 50°N and 50°S (some Russian area had been close to 45°S, so I widened the search)-then let the locus move with the terminators. (Gay can “see” in the dark but I can’t.) I told her to end “Explore” at Greenwich oh-three-seventeen and start “A Tramp Abroad,” continue until directed otherwise, and had Gay repeat back in her phrasing.
I touched Zebbie’s shoulder, pointed to the switch that cut out Gay’s ears, drew a finger across my throat. He nodded and shut her out. I said, “Questions, gentlemen? Deety?”
“I do, Captain,” said our Chief Pilot. “Do you plan on sleeping tonight?”
“Certainly, Zebbie. An ideal sleeping spot would be one far from the Russians but close to the present sunset line. Or did you want to work all night?”
“If you wish. I noticed that you gave Gay a program that could keep her going for days or weeks – and that you had reduced H-above-G to six klicks. Breathable air. By rotating duties, with one or two always stretched out aft, we can stay up a week, easily, and still give Jake’s ankles a break.”
“I can skip a night’s sleep,” said Deety. “Captain Auntie honey, with enough random samples and a defined locus, sampling soon approaches a grid a fly couldn’t get through. Do you want the formula?”
“Heavens, no! As long as it works.”
“It works. Let’s make a long run, get a big sampling. But I’d like to add something. Let’s parallel the display onto a sidelooker screen, and light every vertex – while the main display shows Bingoes. You’ll see how tight a screen you’re building.”
“Sharpie, don’t let her do it!” Zebbie added, “‘Scuse, please! Captain, the Astrogator is correct on software but I know more about this hardware. You can crowd a computer into a nervous breakdown. I have safeguards around Smart Girl; if I give her too much to do, she tells me to go to hell. But she likes Deety. Like a willing horse, she’ll try hard for Deety even when it’s too much.”
Deety said soberly, “Captain, I gave you bad advice.”
Her husband said, “Don’t be so humble, Deety. You’re smarter than I am and we all know it. But we are dependent on Smart Girl and can’t let her break down. Captain, I don’t know how much strain the time-space twister puts on her but she has unnecessary programs. At the Captain’s convenience, I would like to review everything in her perms and wipe those we can do without.”
“My very early convenience, sir. Is the schedule okay?”
“Oh, sure. Just don’t add that side display.”
“Thank you, Chief Pilot. Anyone else? Copilot?”
“My dear… my dear Captain, is there some reason to find a spot near the sunset line? If you intend to work all night?”
“Oh! But, Jacob, I do not plan to work all night. It is now about twenty hundred by our personal circadians, as established by when we got up. I think we can search for three to four hours. I hope that we can find a spot to sleep near the sunset line, scout it in daylight, let Gay land herself on it for her perms – then return to it in the dark when we get tired”
“I see, in part. My dear, unless I misunderstood you, you are heading west. But you said that you wanted to find us a place to sleep near the presert sunset line. East. Or did I misunderstood you?”
“It’s very simply explained, Jacob.”
“Yes, dear Captain?”
“I made a horrible mistake in navigation.”
“Oh.”
“Chief Pilot, did you spot it?”
“Yup. Yes, Captain.”
“Why didn’t you speak up?”
“Not my business, Ma’am. Nothing you planned to do was any danger.”
“Zebbie, I’m not sure whether to thank you for keeping quiet, or to complain because you did. Deety, you spotted the mistake, I am certain. You are supposed to advise me.”
“Captain, I’m supposed to speak up to stop a bad mistake. This was not. I wasn’t certain that it was a mistake until you told on yourself. But you spotted the mistake when Gay predicted the time to end the ‘Explore’ program, then you corrected it by telling her to shift to ‘A Tramp Abroad.’ So there was never a reason to advise you.”
I let out a sigh. “You’re covering for me and I love you all and I’m no good as captain. I’ve served as many hours as Zebbie and we are on the ground, so now it’s time to elect someone who can do it right. You, Zebbie.”
“Not me. Jake and Deety must each do a stint before I’d admit that it might be my turn.”
“Captain -“
“Deety, I’m not captain; I resigned!”
“No, Aunt Hilda, you didn’t actually do it. It is my duty to advise you when you seem about to make a bad mistake. You made a minor mistake and corrected it. In my business we call that ‘debugging’-and spend more time on it than we do on writing programs. Because everybody makes mistakes.”
Jane’s little girl managed to sound the way Jane used to. I resolved to listen – because all too often I hadn’t listened to Jane. “Captain Auntie, if you were resigning because of the way your crew treated you – as Zebadiah did – I wouldn’t say a word. But that’s not your reason. Or is it?”
“What? Oh, no! You’ve all helped – you’ve been angels. Uh, well, mostly.”
“‘Angels’ – hummph! I can’t use the correct words; I’d shock our men. Aunt Hilda, I gave you far worse lip than I ever gave Zebadiah. You slapped me down hard – and I’ve been your strongest supporter ever since. Zebadiah, what you did was worse -“
“I know.”
” – but you admitted that you were wrong. Nevertheless you’ve been chewing the bit. Demanding explanations. Zebadiah, the captain of a ship doesn’t have to explain why she gives an order. Or does she?”
“Of course not. Oh, a captain sometimes does explain. But she shouldn’t do it often or the crew will start thinking they are entitled to explanations. In a crunch this can kill you. Waste that split second.” Zebbie brooded. “Captain says ‘Frog,’ you hop. Couple of times I failed to hop. Captain, I’m sorry.”
“Zebbie, we get along all right.”
He reached back and patted my knee. “Pretty well in the past. Better from now on.”
My darling Jacob said worriedly, “I’m afraid I have been remiss, too.”
I was about to reassure him when Deety cut in: “‘Remiss’! Pop, you’re the worst of all! If I had been your wife, I would have tossed you back and rebaited my hook. ‘Farce’ is worse than mutinous; it’s insulting. Be glad Jane didn’t hear you!”
“I know, I know!”
I touched Deety’s arm and whispered, “That’s enough, dear.”
Zebbie said soberly, “Captain, as I analyze it, you made a mistake in sign. Every navigator makes mistakes – and has some routine by which to check his work. If you’re going to get upset because recheck shows that you wrote down ‘plus’ when the declination is ‘south,’ you’re going to have ulcers. You’re just under strain from being C.O. We’ve all made the strain worse. But we want to do better. I’d hate to have you resign over a minor error… when we caused your upset. I hope you’ll give us another chance.”
Captains aren’t supposed to cry. I blinked ’em back, got my voice under control, and said, “All hands! Still ready for lift? Report.”
“Aye, Captain!” – “Affirmative!” – “Yes, my dear Hilda.”
“Zebbie, switch on Gay’s ears.” He did.
“Execute!” – Termite Creek was gone and we were fifty klicks west and a touch south. Pretty and green but no Bingo. It would take us about seven minutes to overtake the Sun and approach sunrise line, plus any holds we made. Then I would go east to the sunset line in nothing flat (have Zebbie and Jacob do it); then bounce & glide, bounce & glide, while looking for a place to sleep in a spot suitable for Gay to try her new unpowered autogrounding program – in daylight with the hottest pilot in two worlds ready to override any error.
If Gay could do this, we would be almost independent of juice – and have a new “bug-out” sanctuary each time she landed herself. Power packs – Zebbie had a hand-cranked D.C. generator – but heavy work for husky men for endless hours. (40 hrs from zero to full charge; you see why Zebbie would rather buy fresh charges.)
We had been skipping along nearly three minutes, over four thousand klicks, before spotting a Bingo (by Zebbie). I called a “Hold” and added, “Where, Zebbie?”
He nosed us down. Farm buildings and cultivated fields – a happy contrast to the terrain – barren, green, flat, rugged – all lacking any sign of humans, in the stops we had made. “Astrogator, record time. Continue.”
Then over three minutes with no Bingoes – At elapsed time 6m4s Jacob called out, “Bingo! A town.”
“Hold! Onion towers?”
“I think not, dear. I see a flag – dare we go nearer?”
“Yes! But anyone use a scram at will. Jacob, may I have the binoculars, please?”
The Stars and Stripes are engraved on my heart, but in the next moments the Cross of Saint Andrew and the Cross of Saint George were added. It was an ensign with a blue field and some white shapes – three half moons in three sizes.
“Gay Deceiver.”
“I’m all ears, Hilda.”
“Move current program to standby.”
“Roger Wilco Done.”
“Gay Bounce. Zebbie, let’s sweep this area for a bigger settlement.”
Zebbie placed a locus around the town, radius five hundred klicks, and started “A Tramp Abroad” with vertex time cut to one second. Thirty-one minutes later we had a city. I guessed it at a hundred thousand plus.
“Captain,” Zebbie said, “may I suggest that we bounce and try to raise them by radio? This place is big enough for A.A. guns or missiles -“
“Gay Bounce!”
” – and we know that their Slavic neighbors have aircraft.”
“Is your guardian angel warning you?”
“Well… ’tain’t polite to ground without clearance; such rudeness can make one suddenly dead.”
“Gay Bounce, Gay Bounce. Are we out of reach of missiles?”
“Captain, British and Russians of this universe are ahead of us in spaceships or they wouldn’t be here. That requires us to assume that their missiles and lasers and X-weapons are better than ours.”
“What’s an ‘X-weapon’? And what do you advise?”
“I advise evasive tactics. An X-weapon is a ‘Nobody-Knows.'”
“Evasive tactics, your choice. I assume you won’t waste juice.”
“No juice. Jake, gallop in all directions. Up, down, and sideways. Don’t wait for ‘Execute’; jump as fast as you can. That’s it! Keep moving!”
“Captain Auntie, may I suggest an easier way?”
“Speak up, Deety.”
“Zebadiah, how big is that city? Kilometers.”
“That’s indefinite. Oh, call it eight klicks in diameter.”
“You’ve got that one-second ‘Tramp’ program on hold. Change locus. Center on that biggest building, make the radius six klicks. Then start program and Pop can rest.”
“Uh… Deety, I’m stupid. Six klicks radius, ten klicks is a minimum – A bit tight?”
“Meant to be. Shall I draw a picture?”
“Maybe you’d better.”
(Deety had defined an annulus two kilometers wide, outer radius six, inner radius four. We would “circle” the city six klicks above ground, random jumps, sixty per minute. I doubted that even robot weapons could find us, range us, hit us, in one second.)
Deety loosened her belt, slithered forward, and sketched. Suddenly Zebbie said, “Gotcha! Deety, you’re a smart girl.”
“‘Boss, I’ll bet you tell that to all the girls.'”
“Nope, just smart ones. Gay Deceiver!”
“Less noise, please.”
“Program revision. A Tramp Abroad. Locus a circle radius six klicks. Center defined by next Bingo. Acknowledge paraphrase.”
“Revised program A Tramp Abroad. Circle twelve klicks diameter center next real-time Bingo.”
“Jake, put us over that big building downtown. If necessary, make several tries but don’t hang around. Once I like the position I’ll say the magic word, then scram.”
“Aye aye, Chief.”
Jacob made a dozen jumps before Zebbie said, “Bingo Gay Bounce” and a light appeared on the display. He started the program and told Gay to increase scale; the light spread out into a circle with a lighted dot in the center. “Captain, watch this. I’ve told Gay that every stop is a Bingo. You may be surprised.”
“Thanks, Zebbie.” The circle was becoming freckled inside its perimeter. With no feeling of motion, the scene flicked every second. It was mid-morning; each scene was sharp. That big building would be dead ahead – blink your eye and you’re staring at fields – then again at the city but with that building off to starboard. It put me in mind of holovideo tape spliced to create confusion.
Zebbie had on his phones and was ignoring everything else. Jacob was watching the flickering scenery, as was I, as was Deety – when Jacob suddenly turned his head, said, “Deety-please-the-Bo – ” and clapped his hand over his mouth.
I said, “Two Bonines, Deety – quickly!”
Deety was reaching for them. “You, too, Auntie Cap’n?”
“It’s this flickering.” I gave one to Jacob, made certain that he saw me take one. I had not been motion-sick since I had been made Captain. But any time my husband must take one, I will keep him company.
Today I should have taken one as soon as I spotted that British flag; Bonine tranquilizes the nerves as well as the tummy… and soon I must act as – ambassador? Something of the sort; I intended to go straight to the top. Dealing with underlings is frustrating. In college I would not have lasted almost four years had it been up to the dean of women. But I always managed to take it over her head to the president; the top boss can bend the rules.
(But my senior year the president was female and as tough a bitch as I am. She listened to my best Clarence-Darrow defense, congratulated me, told me I should have studied law, then said, “Go pack. I want you off campus by noon.”)
Zebbie pushed the phone off his right ear. “Captain, I’ve got this loud enough to put on the horn. Want to talk to them?”
“No. I’ve never grounded outside the States. You know how, you do it. But, Chief Pilot -“
“Yes, Ma’am?”
“And Copilot and Astrogator. Stick to the truth at all times. But do not unnecessarily give information. Answer questions uninformatively – but truthfully. If pressed, tell them, ‘See the Captain.”
“My dear,” Jacob said worriedly, “I’ve been meaning to speak about this. Zeb has had diplomatic experience. Wouldn’t it be wise for us to place him in charge on the ground? Please understand, I’m not criticizing your performance as captain. But with his experience and in view of the fact that our principal purpose is to obtain certain things for his car -“
“Gay Bounce Gay Bounce Gay Bounce! Astrogator.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Place us in a parking orbit. Soonest.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am! Copilot, don’t touch the verniers. Chief Pilot, check that the car is level. Gay Deceiver.”
“On deck, Deety.”
“Program. L axis add speed vector three point six klicks per second. Paraphrase acknowledge.”
“Increase forward speed three and six tenths kilometers per second.”
“Chief Pilot?”
“Level.”
“Execute.” Deety glanced at the board. “Gay Deceiver, H-above-G will soon stop decreasing, then increase very slowly. In about fifty minutes it will maximize. Program. When H-above-G is maximum, alert me.”
“Roger Wilco.”
“If-when one hundred klicks H-above-G, alert me.”
“Roger Wilco.”
“If-when air drag exceeds zero, alert me.”
“Roger Wilco.”
“Remain in piloting mode. Ignore voices including program code words until you are called by your full name. Acknowledge by reporting your full name.”
“‘Gay Deceiver,'” answered Gay Deceiver.
“Is that okay, Captain? Smart Girl can’t hear the short-form programs now, until she hears her full name first. Then you would still have to say ‘Gay’ to alert her, and ‘Home’ or whatever to scram. But there should be loads of time, as she’ll tell me if anything starts to go wrong. You heard her.”
“That’s fine, Astrogator.”
“I turned her ears off because there may be discussion in which you might not want to have to be careful to use code words… but still be able to put her ears back fast if you need them. Faster than the switch and besides the switch can be reached only from the left front seat.”
Deety had a touch of nervous chattering; I understood the reasons for each step. And I understood why she was chattering.
“Well done. Thank you. Remain at the conn. Chief Pilot, Copilot, the Second-in-Command has the conn. I am going aft and do not wish to be disturbed.” I lowered my voice, spoke directly to Deety. “You are free to call me. You only.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Deety acknowledged quietly. “I must remind you: air for four hours only.”
“If I fall asleep, call me in three hours.” I kissed her quickly, floated out of my chair and started to undog the bulkhead door – got nowhere; Deety had to help me. Deety flipped a light switch for me. She closed me in and dogged one dog.
I got a blanket out of the cradle, took off my clothes, tried to wrap myself in the blanket. It kept slithering away.
No seat belts – But the web straps used to make a bedroll of Zebbie’s sleeping bag were attached through loops and tucked under thingammies. Soon I had a belt across my waist and the blanket around me.
Being a runt, the only way I can fight is with words. But best for me is to walk away. Fight with Jacob? I was so angry I wanted to slap him! But I never slap anyone; a woman who takes advantage of her size and sex to slap a man is herself no gentleman. So I walked away – got out of there before I said something that would tear it – lose me my lovable, cuddly, thoughtful – and sometimes unbearable! – husband.
I wept in my pillow – no pillow and no Kleenex. After a while I slept.

Chapter XXV

” – leave bad enough alone!”

Deety:
After I helped Aunt Hilda with the bulkhead door, I got back into my seat- and said nothing. If I opened my mouth, I would say too much. I love Pop a heap, and respect him as a mathematician.
Pop is also one of the most selfish people I’ve ever known.
Doesn’t mean he’s tight with money; he isn’t. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t share his last crust of bread – he would. With a stranger.
But if he doesn’t want to do something, he won’t. When Jane died, I had to take over money management at once. At seventeen. Because Pop ignored it. It was all I could do to get him to sign his name. –
I was bucking for my doctorate. Pop seemed to think that I should cook, clean house, shop, keep financial records, manage our businesses, cope with taxes – and earn my doctorate simultaneously.
Once I let dishes stack to see how long it would take him to notice. About two weeks later he said, “Deety, aren’t you ever going to do the dishes?”
I answered, “No, sir.”
“Eh? Why not?”
“I don’t have time.”
He looked puzzled. “Jane didn’t seem to find keeping house difficult. Is something wrong, dear?”
“Pop, Mama wasn’t bucking for a doctorate against a committee of dunderheads. My research subject was approved two years ago… but I’ve got men judging me – four out of seven – who can’t tell Fortran from Serutan, hate computers, and have dark fears that computer scientists are going to take their jobs away from them. They make me do work over because they don’t understand it. And besides – Well, Mama Jane always had help, mine, and a housekeeper toward the end.”
Pop is okay. He hired a housekeeper who stuck with us till I got my Ph.D. He investigated, discovered that thehead of the department had put men on my committee who knew nothing about computers – not on purpose; the department head did not know computers. I wound up with an even tougher committee but they knew computers. Fair enough.
Pop means to be good to me and he adores Aunt Hilda and means to pamper her. Pop is one of those men who sincerely believe in Women’s Lib, always support it – but so deep down that they aren’t aware of it, their emotions tell them that women never get over being children.
A mistake easy to make with Aunt Hilda – There are twelve-year-old girls bigger than she is and with more curves.
For a horrid time, we three said nothing. Zebadiah watched his instruments; Pop stared straight ahead.
At last my husband gave my father the chewing out that Pop would never have taken from me, “Jake. Tell me how you do it.”
“Eh?”
“You’re a genius. You aren’t the absent-minded sort who needs a boy to lead him around. You can hammer a nail with the best of them and can use power tools without chopping your fingers. You’re good company and you managed to attract one of the three finest women I’ve ever known so much that she married you. Yet you have publicly insulted her twice in one day. Twice. Tell me: Do you have to study to be that stupid? Or is it a gift, like your genius for mathematics?”
Pop covered his face with his hands. Zebadiah shut up.
I could see Pop’s shoulders shake. Presently his sobbing stopped. He wiped his eyes, unfastened his seat belt. When I realized he was heading for the bulkhead door, I unstrapped fast and placed myself in his way. He said, “Please move out of my way, Deety.”
“Copilot, return to your seat.”
“But, Daughter, you can’t come between husband and wife!”
“Address me as ‘Astrogator.’ The Captain does not wish to be disturbed. Gay Deceiver!”
“Here, Deety!”
“Log mode. Copilot, I will not permit you to disobey the Captain’s orders. Return to your seat, strap down – and stay there!”
“Or would you rather be placed in it?” Zebadiah growled. “With your arms strapped under the belts, and the buckles where you can’t reach them.”
“Chief Pilot, do not intervene unless I call on you. Copilot, move!”
Pop turned in the air, almost kicking me in the face and unaware of it. He was speaking through sobs. “But I must apologize to Hilda! Can’t you understand that?” But he was getting back into his seat.
“Jake, you’ll be a worse damn’ fool if you do.”
“What? Zeb, you can’t mean that.”
“I do mean it. You apologized once today. Hypocrisy, as Sharpie realizes. Jake, your only chance of staying married is to shut up and soldier; your word is no longer worth a fiat dollar. But if you behave yourself for four or five years, she might forget it. Correction: forgive it. She’ll never forget it. Establish a long record of good behavior and she might allow you some minor faults. But don’t ever hint that she is not as competent as any man. Sure, she’d be picked last for a tug-o’-war team, and she has to stand on a stool to reach a high shelf – does that affect her brain? Hell’s bells, if size mattered, I would be the supergenius around here – not you. Or perhaps you think being able to grow a beard confers wisdom? Jake, leave bad enough alone! Mess with it, you’ll make it worse.”
Time for a diversion: Pop must not be given a chance to answer. If Pop started defending himself, he would wind up self-righteous. The ability of the male mind to rationalize its deeds – and misdeeds – cannot be measured.
(And some female minds. But we females have more wild animal in us; mostly we don’t feel any need to justify ourselves. We just do it, whatever it is, because we want to. Is there ever any other reason?)
“Gentlemen,” I added, close on Zebadiah’s last remark before Pop could attempt rebuttal, “speaking of beards, you each have a three-day growth. If we are about to ask sanctuary, shouldn’t we be neat? I’m going to comb my hair and dig the dirt out from under my nails, and – Glory be! – I’ve got one spandy-clean jump suit. In light green, Zebadiah; matches your pilot suits. Got a clean one, dear?”
“I believe so.”
“I know so; I packed it when Aunt Hilda and I rearranged inventory. Pop, your light green jump suit is clean. That one you are wearing has wrinkles in the wrinkles and a big soup spot. We three will look as if we were in uniform. Aunt Hilda won’t but the captain-and-owner of a yacht doesn’t dress like her crew.”
“‘Owner’?” said Pop.
“‘”Owner,”‘” Zebadiah said firmly. “We pooled our resources. Sharpie is captain; she’ll stand as owner for all of us. Simpler.”
“She cautioned us not to tell lies, Zeb.” (Pop sounded normal – his usual argumentative self.)
“No lie. But if she finds it necessary to lie for us, we back her up. Come on, Jake, let’s put on our squeakin’ shoes; the Captain might decide to land any orbit. How long are these orbits, Deety?”
“One hundred minutes, plus a bit. But Gay could ground us from the far side in five minutes if the Captain asked for it.”
“So let’s get shipshape and Bristol style. Deety, will you keep an eye on the board while Jake and I shave?”
Pop said, “I’m sorry but I can’t shave until the Captain joins us. My gear is aft.”
“Jake, use mine. Glove compartment. Remington okay?” My husband added, “You first; I want to read the news.”
“The ‘news’?”
“Smart Girl has been sampling all frequencies, AM and FM, twice a second. If there is pattern, she copies.”
“But Deet – The Astrogator switched off the autopilot’s ears.”
“Jake, you just flunked Physics One-Oh-One. Deety told S.G. to shut off audio. I had in mind the electromagnetic spectrum. You’ve heard of it?”
Pop chuckled. “Touché! That makes us even for the one you pulled while we were calibrating.”
(I heaved a sigh of relief. I had not been trying to save Pop’s marriage – that’s his problem. Even my own marriage was secondary; I was trying to save the team, and so was Zebadiah. We were two marriages and that is important – but most important we were a survival team and either we worked together smoothly or none would live through it.)
While Pop shaved and Zebadiah read the news, I cleaned my nails. If I clean them before each meal and again at bedtime, they are dirty only in between – dirt likes me. Mama Jane told me that centuries ago, while ouching my hair for school – not a criticism; a statement of fact.
The men swapped headset for shaver and I combed my hair and pinned it into place – no longer an “ouch” job as I keep it short, ringlets rather than curls. Men like it long – but caring for long hair is a career in itself, and I’ve been pushed for time since I was twelve.
Zebadiah stopped to feel his chin – so I deduced as the buzzing stopped. I asked, “What did Smart Girl have to say?”
“Not much. Le’me finish this. BBC Third Program mostly.”
“From London?” He had resumed shaving and couldn’t hear me.
Zebadiah finished shaving and passed his shaver to Pop, who stowed it, then took off the headset and handed it back. Zebadiah racked and secured it. I was about to ask for it, when I heard Aunt Hilda’s sweet voice:
“Hello, everyone! What did I miss?”
“Halley’s Comet.”
“Halley’s – Zebbie, you’re a tease. Jacob – Oh! You shaved! How very nice! Hold still, my darling; you’re going to be kissed, ready or not.”
A kiss in free fall is interesting to watch when one participant is safety-belted and the other half is floating free. Hilda held Pop’s cheeks, he had her head in his hands, and Aunt Hilda drifted like a flag in a breeze. She was dressed but barefooted; I was intrigued when she curled her toes, hard. Was Pop that good? – my cubical father, so I had thought until recently. Did Jane teach him? Or – Shut up, Deety, you’re a voyeuse with a nasty curiosity.
They broke and Hilda floated between the pilot seats, a hand on each, and looked at the board. My husband said – to her, not to me – “Don’t I get a kiss? It was my razor.”
Aunt Hilda hesitated. Pop said, “Kiss him, beloved, or he’ll sulk.” So she did. It occurs to me that Aunt Hilda may have taught Zebadiah and that Mama Jane and Aunt Hilda may have been trained by the same coach before Pop came along – if so, who was my Unknown Benefactor?
“Not a whole lot,” Zebadiah was saying. “Mostly tapes from BBC. Five minutes of news from Windsor City – which may be the city we bingoed – as exciting as local news from any town you’ve never been in. Chatter in Russian. The Smart Girl saved that for you.”
“I’ll listen to it. But I must learn something. I was tempery a while ago, but a nap fixed me up and now I am filled with sweetness and light. I must have a report from each of you. We all have had cumulative fatigue. It is now bedtime at Termite Terrace but about lunchtime in Windsor City if that is its name. We can go back to our stream or we can tackle the British. I am not taking a vote; I shall decide and I have a way to take care of anyone who is tired. But I insist on honest data. Deety?”
“Captain Auntie, sleep is never my problem.”
“Zebbie?”
“I was a zombie. Until you recharged me. Now I’m rarin’ to go!”
She mussed his hair. “Zebbie, quit teasing.”
“Captain, on an earlier occasion I told you the facts: My alert time exceeds twenty-four hours. Forty-eight if I must. If that kiss did not stimulate you as much as it did me, let’s try it again and find out what went wrong.”
Aunt Hilda turned away abruptly. “Jacob dear, how do you feel? With the time difference this may be equivalent to staying up all night, possibly under great tension.”
“Hilda my love, were we to return to our streamside, I would not sleep, knowing that this contact was coming. A night without sleep does not strain me.”
“Pop’s not exaggerating, Captain Auntie. I get my night-owl capacity from Pop.”
“Very well. But I have a method of taking care of anyone who may have exaggerated. I can leave one person aboard as guard.”
“Captain, this wagon does not need a guard.”
“Chief Pilot, I was offering sleep – under pretext of guarding. Car locked and sleep where I just napped – outsiders would not know. Anyone? Speak up.”
(I wouldn’t have missed it for a Persian kitten! Did Hilda expect anyone to stay behind? I don’t think so.)
“Very well. No firearms. Gentlemen, please hide your pistols and belts with the guns, aft. Zebbie, is there a way to lock that door in addition to dogging it?”
“Sure. Tell Gay. May I ask why? No one can break into the cabin without damaging the old girl so much that she won’t lift.”
“Conceded, Zebbie. But I will be bringing visitors into this space. If anyone is brash enough to ask to be shown beyond the bulkhead door, I shall tell him that is my private compartment.” Aunt Hilda grinned wickedly. “If he persists, I’ll freeze his ears. What’s the program for locking and unlocking it?”
“Very complicated. Tell her, ‘Lock the bulkhead door,’ or ‘Unlock the bulkhead door.’ Concealed solenoids. If the car is cold, the bolts drop back.”
“Goodness, you were thorough.”
“No, Ma’am. The Aussies were. But it turns out to be convenient for things we wouldn’t like to lose. Cap’n, I don’t trust banks any more than I trust governments, so I carry my safety deposit vault with me.”
“If you cut the trickle charge, it unlocks?” Pop asked.
“Jake, I knew you would spot that. An accumulator across the solenoids, floating. Shut down the car and the solenoids work for another month… unless you open a switch in an odd location. Anyone want to know where it is? – what you don’t know, you can’t tell.”
He got no takers. Instead I said, “Captain, is a fléchette gun a ‘firearm’?”
“Hmm – Will it fit into a zippered compartment in your purse?”
“It fits into a concealed zipper compartment.”
“Keep it with you. No swords, gentlemen, as well as no firearms; we are a civilian party. One thing we should carry: those miniature walky-talkies, Deety and I in our purses, you gentlemen in your pockets. If they are noticed, tell the truth: a means of keeping our party in touch.”
Aunt Hilda suddenly looked stern. “This next order should be in writing. Please understand that there are no exceptions, no special circumstances, no variations left to individual judgment. I require Roger-Wilcoes from each of you or we do not ground. This party does not separate. Not for thirty seconds. Not for ten seconds. Not at all.”
“Will the Captain entertain a question?”
“Certainly, Zebbie.”
“Washrooms. Restrooms. Bathrooms. If these British behave like their analogs, such facilities are segregated.”
“Zebbie, all I can say to that is that I will look for a way to cope. But we stay together until I – until I, the Captain – decide that it is safe to ease the rule. In the meantime – We should use that unpopular honey bucket before we ground… then, if necessary, return to the car, together, to use it later. That’s not subject to discussion. Once we are on the ground, you three, acting unanimously, can hold a bloodless mutiny over this order or any” – Aunt Hilda looked directly at her husband – “and I will let myself be kicked out without a word… out of office as captain, out of the car, out of the party. Remain here, on Mars-ten, with the British if they will have me. No more questions. No further discussion by me or among yourselves. Astrogator.”
“Roger Wilco!”
“Thank you. Please state it in the long form.”
“I understand the Captain’s order and will comply exactly with no mental reservations.”
“Chief Pilot.”
“I understand -“
“Short form. Deety defined it.”
“Roger Wilco, Captain!”
Aunt Hilda turned in the air toward Pop – and I held my breath, three endless seconds. “Jacob?”
“Roger Wilco, Captain.”
“Very well. We will ground as soon as we get clearance but will not ask for clearance until I’ve heard the news and translated that Russian.” Whereupon I told her that we all intended to put on our best bib and tucker; the time should come out about right – and could we be relieved one by one? As I intended to use that darned thunder mug – when you must, you must.
Aunt Hilda frowned slightly. “I do wish that I had a jump suit in my size. This outfit -“
“Aunt Hilda! Your crew is in uniform but you are wearing the latest Hollywood style. That model was created by Ferrara himself and he charged you more than you paid for that mink cape. You are the Captain and dress to please yourself. I tell you three times!”
Aunt Hilda smiled. “Should I acknowledge in paraphrase?”
“By all means.”
“Deety, I require my crew to wear uniforms. But I dress to suit myself, and when I saw what the world-famous couturier Mario Ferrara was doing to change the trend in women’s sports clothes, I sent for him and worked him silly until he got just what I wanted. Including repeated washings of the trousers to give them that not-quite-new look so favored by the smart set for yachting. When you come back will you fetch your little shoes – my Keds – and the hair ribbon you gave me? They are part of Signor Ferrara’s creation.”
“Aunt Hilda honey, you make it sound true!”
“It is true. You told me three times. I don’t even regret the thousand newdollar bonus I gave him. That man is a genius! Get along dear – git. Chief Pilot, you have the conn; I want the earphones.”
I was back in ten minutes with jump suits for self and Pop and clean pilot suit for my husband.
I sailed their clothes toward Pop and Zebadiah. Aunt Hilda was handing phones back to Zebadiah; his suit caught both of them. “Wups, sorry but not very. What do the Russians say?”
“We’re baddies,” said my husband.
“We are? The suit I took off is loose back aft. Wrap it around your pistol and belt and shove them under the sleeping bag – pretty please?”
“With sugar on it?”
“At today’s prices? Yes. Beat it. Cap’n, what sort of baddies?”
“Spies and agents-saboteurs and other things and indemnity is demanded in the name of the Tsar and the surrender of our persons, all twelve of us -“
“Twelve?”
“So they claim. – for trial before they hang us. Or else. The ‘or-else’ amounts to a threat of war.”
“Heavens! Are we going to ground?”
“Yes. The British comment was that a source close to the Governor reports that the Russians have made another of their periodic claims of territorial violation and espionage and the note was routinely rejected. I intend to be cautious. We won’t leave the car unless I am convinced that we will receive decent treatment.”

Shortly we were again doing one-second jumps in a circle around Windsor City. Had Pop not pulled another blunder in handling Aunt Hilda we would have been on the ground two hours ago. “Blunder,” rather than “insult” – but I’m not Hilda, I’m Deety. My ego is not easily bruised. Before I married, if a man patronized me and it mattered, I used to invite him to go skeet shooting. Even if he beat me (happened once), he never patronized me again.
If it’s an unsocial encounter – I’m big, I’m strong, I fight dirty. A male has to be bigger, stronger, and just as well trained or I can take him. Haven’t had to use the fléchette gun yet. But twice I’ve broken arms and once I kicked a mugger in the crotch and said he fainted.
Zebadiah was having trouble with traffic control. ” – request permission to ground. This is private yacht Gay Deceiver, U.S. registry, Chief Pilot Carter speaking. All we want is clearance to ground. You’re behaving like those youknow-what-I-mean Russians. I didn’t expect this from Englishmen.”
“Now, now! Where are you? You sound close by… but we can’t get a fix on you.”
“We are circling your city at a height above ground of five kilometers.”
“How much is that in feet? Or miles?”
I touched my husband’s shoulder. “Tell him sixteen thousand feet.”
“Sixteen thousand feet.”
“What bearing?”
“We’re circling.”
“Yes, but – See Imperial House at City Center? What bearing?”
“We are much too fast for you to take a bearing. While you speak one sentence, we’ve gone around twice.”
“Oh, tell that to the Jollies; old sailors will never believe it.”
Aunt Hilda tapped Zebadiah; he passed the microphone to her. Aunt Hilda said crisply, “This is Captain Burroughs, commanding. State your name, rating, and organization number.”
I heard a groan, then silence. Twenty-three seconds later another voice came on. “This is the officer of the watch, Leftenant Bean. Is there a spot of trouble?”
“No, Lieutenant, merely stupidity. My chief pilot has been trying for fifteen minutes for clearance to ground. Is this a closed port? We were not told so by your embassy on Earth. We were warned that the Russians discouraged visitors, and indeed, they tried to shoot us out of the sky. What is your full name and your regiment, Lieutenant; I intend to make a formal report when I return home,”
“Please, Madam! This is Leftenant Brian Bean, Devonshire Royal Fusiliers. May I ask to whom I am speaking?”
“Very well. I will speak slowly; please record. I am Captain Hilda Burroughs, commanding space yacht Gay Deceiver, out of Snug Harbor in the Americas.”
“Captain, let me get this clear. Are you commanding both a spaceship in orbit and a landing craft from your ship? Either way, please let me have the elements of your ship’s orbit for my log, and tell me the present position of your landing craft. Then I can assign you a berth to ground.”
“Do I have your word as a British officer and gentleman that you will not shoot us out of the sky as those Russian vandals attempted to do?”
“Madam – Captain – you have my word.”
“Gay Bounce. We are now approximately forty-nine thousand feet above your city.”
“But – We understood you to say ‘Sixteen thousand’?”
“That was five minutes ago; this craft is fast.” Aunt Hilda released the button. “Deety, get rid of the special ‘Tramp’ program.”
I told Gay to return “Tramp” to her perms and to wipe the temporary mods. “Done.”
Aunt Hilda pressed the mike button. “Do you see us now?” She released the button. “Deety, I want us over that big building – ‘Imperial House,’ probably – in one transition. Can you tell Zebbie and Jacob what it takes?”
I looked it over. We should be at the edge of the city – but were we? Get a range and triangulate? No time! Guess at the answer, double it and divide by two. Arc tan four tenths. “Pop, can you transit twenty-one degrees from vertical toward city hail?”
“Twenty-one degrees. Sixty-nine degrees of dive toward the big barn in the park, relative bearing broad on the port bow, approx – set! One unit transition, ten klicks – set!”
“I can see you now, I do believe,” came Mr. Bean’s voice. “Barely.”
“We’ll come lower.” Aunt Hilda chopped off the lieutenant. “Zebbie, put her into glide as soon as you execute. Deety, watch H-above-G and scram if necessary – don’t wait to be told. Zebbie, execute at will.”
“Jake, execute!” – and we were down so fast I got goose bumps… especially as Zebadiah then dived vertically to gain glide speed and that’s mushy, slow, slow, on Mars.
But soon Aunt Hilda was saying tranquilly, “We are over Imperial House. You see us?”
“Yes, yes! My word! Bloody!”
“Leftenant, watch your language!” Aunt Hilda winked at me and snickered silently.
“Madam, I apologize.”
“‘Captain,’ if you please,” she said, smiling while her voice dripped icicles.
“Captain, I apologize.”
“Accepted. Where am I to ground?”
“Ah, figured from Imperial House, there is a landing field due south of it twelve miles. I will tell them to expect you.”
Hilda let up on the button, said, “Gay Bounce” and racked the microphone. “How unfortunate that the lieutenant’s radio cut out before he could tell us how far away that field is. Or was it our radio?”
I said, “Captain, you know durn well both radios worked okay.”
“Mercy, I must be getting old. Was Smart Girl in recording mode?”
I said, “She always is, during maneuvers. She wipes it in a ten-hour cycle.”
“Then my bad hearing doesn’t matter. Please ask her to repeat the lieutenant’s last speech.” I did, and Gay did. “Deety, can you have her wipe it right after the word ‘it’?”
“Auntie, you ain’t goin’ to Heaven.” I had Gay wipe twelve-miles-I-will-tell-them-to-expect-you. “But you wouldn’t know anybody there.”
“Probably not, dear. Zebbie, how does one have Smart Girl ground herself without juice?”
“Deety had better go over it again. Unless – Jake, will you explain it?”
“It’s Deety’s caper. I could use another drill.”
“All right,” I agreed. “Switch off Gay’s ears, Zebadiah. Gay can make any transition exactly if she knows precisely where her target is. Even a jump of less than one minimum. I found that out the day we got here when we were testing remote control. The rest came from perfecting the ‘Bug-Out’ routine by having her pause and sweep the target and if it’s obstructed, she bounces. Aunt Hilda, if you intend to ground, we had better not be much under five klicks or we’ll have to bounce and start over.”
“I’ve got air bite, Captain. I’ll stretch it.”
“Thanks, Zebbie. Deety, you do it. Let us all learn.”
“Okay. I need both pilots. You haven’t said where to ground.”
“Wasn’t that clear? Due south of Imperial House. I think it is a parade ground. Nothing on it but a flagpole on the north side. Put her down in front of the building but miss that flagpole.”
“It would take override to hit that flagpole. Zebadiah, gunsight the spot you want to park on. I’ll talk to Gay. Then put her in level flight in the orientation you want, and give ‘Execute.’ Pop, Gay should pause at exactly one-half klick, to see that her parking spot is clear and to recheck distance. That stop won’t be long – a fraction of a second – but, if she fails to make it, try to bounce. Probably you can’t; if I missed in debugging, maybe we’ll all be radioactive. Been nice knowing you all. Okay, switch on her ears.” My husband did so.
“Gay Deceiver.”
“Hello, Deety. I’ve missed you.”
“Unpowered autogrounding mode.”
“Gonna ground by myself without a drop of juice! Where?”
“New target. Code word: ‘Parade Ground.’ Point of aim and range-finder method.”
“Show him to me. I can lick him!”
I touched my husband’s shoulder. “Let her know.”
“On target, Gay. Steady on target.”
“Range three-seven-two-nine, three-seven-naughty-nought, three-five-nine-nine – got him, Deety!”
Zebadiah leveled us out, headed us north. “Execute!”
We were parked facing the big front steps. That flagpole was ten meters from Gay’s nose.
Pop said, “Deety, I could see the check stop but it was too short for me to act. But your programs always work.”
“Until the day one blows up. Aunt Hilda, what do we do now?”
“We wait.”

Chapter XXVI

The Keys to the City

Jake:
I do not believe that I am wrong in insisting that Zeb should lead us. I am forced to conclude that being right has little to do with holding a woman’s affections. I never intend to hurt Hilda’s feelings. I now plan to make a career of keeping my mouth shut.
But I do not think it was diplomatic to spat with that radio operator or proper to be – well, yes, rude – rude to his officer. As for grounding twelve miles, nineteen klicks, from where we were told to – is this the behavior of guests!
But we did ground where we should not have. I started to open the door to get out, then help Hilda to disembark, when I heard her say: “We wait.”
Hilda added, “Leave doors locked and belts fastened. Gay Deceiver, remain in maneuvering mode. Lock the bulkhead door.”
“Hot and rarin’ to go, Hilda. Bulkhead door locked.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“That makes two of us, Hilda.”
“Chief Pilot, in this mode does she record outside as well as inside?”
“She does if I switch on outside speakers and mikes, Captain.”
“Please do.”
“What volume, Captain? Outside, and inside.”
“I didn’t know they were separate. Straight-line gain?”
“Logarithmic, Ma’am. From a gnat’s whisper to a small earthquake.”
“I would like outside pickup to amplify enough that we won’t miss anything. What I send out should be a bit forceful.”
“Captain, I’ll give you a decibel advantage. You want it louder, squeeze my shoulder. I won’t turn it higher than seven – unless you want to use it as a weapon. But to talk privately inside I have to keep switching off, then on. As with the Russians – remember?”
“Oh, yes. All hands, I will speak for all of us. If anyone needs to speak to me, attract Zebbie’s attention – “
“Slap my shoulder.”
” – and he’ll give us privacy and confirm it with thumbs-up. Don’t ask for it unnecessarily.”
“Hilda, why these complex arrangements? Here comes someone now; it would be polite to go meet them. In any case, we can open the door to talk – these are not Russians.” I simply could not bear to watch my darling handle this delicate matter with such – well, rudeness!
Was I thanked? “Copilot, pipe down. All hands, we may go upstairs any instant; report readiness for space. Astrogator.”
“Ready, Captain.”
“Chief Pilot.”
“Still ready. Outside audio hot.”
“Copilot.”
“I’m checking this door seal again. Earlier I started to open it. There! Ready for space. Hilda, I don’t think – “
“Correct! But the Chief Pilot did think, and gave me thumbs-up as soon as you started to talk. Pipe down! Chief Pilot, cut in our sender as soon as one of them speaks. Copilot, call me ‘Captain’ as the others do. Protocol applies; I’ll explain family relationships later, when appropriate.”
I resolved not to open my mouth for any reason, feeling quite disgruntled. Disgruntled? I found myself giving serious thought to whether or not Hilda’s temporary and inappropriate authority could do permanent harm to her personality.
But the top of my mind was observing the Lord High Executioner, approaching us flanked by two henchmen. He was wearing a uniform more suited to musical comedy than to the field. Fierce moustaches, sunburn-pink complexion, service ribbons, and a swagger cane completed the effect.
His henchmen were younger, not so fancy, fewer ribbons, and appeared to be sergeants. I could not read the officer’s shoulder straps. A crown, I thought, but was there a pip beside it?
He strode toward us and was ten meters from my door when Hilda said firmly, “That’s close enough. Please tell the Governor General that Captain Burroughs has grounded as directed and awaits his pleasure.”
He stopped briefly and bellowed, “You were not directed to land here! You’re supposed to be at the field! Customs, immigration, health inspection, visas, tourist cards, intelligence -“
I saw Hilda squeeze Zeb’s shoulder. “Quiet!” Her voice came more loudly from outside than from her despite Gay’s soundproofing. Zeb reduced gain as she continued, “My good man, send one of your ratings to the Governor General to deliver my message. While we wait, state your name, rank, and regiment; I shall make formal report of your behavior.”
“Preeeposterous!”
“Behavior ‘unbecoming an officer and a gentleman,'” Hilda said with gentle sweetness, “since you insist. While you won’t tell your name, like a naughty boy, others know it. The Paymaster. The Governor General. Others.” She squeezed Zeb’s shoulder. “Deliver my message!”
“I’m Colonel Brumby, Chief Constable of the Imperial Household, and not your messenger boy! Open up! I’m going to parade you before the Governor General – under arrest!”
Hilda said quietly to Zeb, “Seven” – allowed the Chief Constable to stride two more steps before saying, “STOP!”
My ears hurt.
All three stopped. The old fool braced himself and started again. Hilda must have poked Zeb; he answered with thumbs-up. “Back to normal volume but be ready with that earthquake.”
He nodded; she went on, “Leftenant Colonel, is it not? I don’t see that extra pip. Leftenant Colonel, I warn you for your own safety not to come closer.”
He did not answer, kept coming, took his cane from under his arm. His sergeants followed – slowly, at a respectful distance. Hilda let him reach my door – I could see a network of broken veins on his nose-and for the second time in two days someone started to pound on Gay’s door. He raised his cane –
“Stop that!”
I was deafened. The Chief Constable was missing. The sergeants were a long way back. They stopped running, turned and faced us. I looked down through my door’s port, saw a pair of legs and a swagger cane – inferred a torso.
I turned my head, saw that Zeb had his thumb up. “Captain,” he said, “I disobeyed you.”
“How, Zebbie?”
“I gave him an eight; I wasn’t sure his heart could take a ten. He looks like an old bottle-a-day man.”
“An eight may have been too much,” I commented. “He’s on the ground. Dead, maybe.”
“Oh, I hope not!”
“Unlikely, Captain,” Zeb told her. “Shall I tell his noncoms to come get him?”
“I’ll tell them, Zebbie. Normal level.” Hilda waited until he signalled, then called out, “Sergeants! Colonel Brumby needs help. There will be no more loud noises.”
The sergeants hesitated, then hurried. Shortly they were dragging him away. Presently he came to life, fought them off – sent one chasing back for his cane. The man caught my eye – and winked. I concluded that Brumby was not popular.
There was now a man standing on the entrance stairs. (Perhaps there had been people nearby earlier – but not after the noise started.) Imperial House had its ground floor with no doors on the front side. The first floor was the main floor and was reached by wide, sweeping stairs. The man near the top was small, dapper, dressed in mufti. As Brumby reached him, Brumby saluted, stopped, and they talked. Brumby’s ramrod stiffness spoke for itself.
Shortly the smaller man trotted down the long steps, moved quickly toward us, stopped about thirty meters away, and called out, “In the landing craft! Is it safe to come closer?”
“Certainly,” agreed Hilda.
“Thank you, Ma’am.” He approached, talking as he walked. “I dare say we should introduce ourselves. I’m Lieutenant General Smythe-Carstairs, the Governor hereabouts. I take it you are Captain Burroughs?”
“That is correct, Excellency.”
“Thank you. Although I can’t tell, really, to whom I am speaking. Awkward, is it not, chatting via an announcing system? An open door would be pleasanter, don’t you think? More friendly.”
“You are right, Excellency. But the Russians gave us so unpleasant, so dangerous, a reception that I am nervous.”
“Those bounders. They have been making a bit of fuss over you, on the wireless. That was how I recognized your craft – smaller than they claimed but an accurate description – for a Russian. But surely you don’t think that we British wear our shirt tails out? You will receive decent treatment here.”
“That is pleasing to hear, Excellency. I was tempted to leave. That policeman chap is most unpleasant.”
“Sorry about that. Sheer mischance that he was first to greet you. Important as this colony is to the Empire, no doubt you have heard that being posted to it is not welcome to some. Not my own case, I asked for it. But some ranks and ratings. Now let’s have that door open, shall we? I dislike to insist but I am in charge here.”
Hilda looked thoughtful. “Governor General, I can either open the doors or leave. I prefer to stay. But the shocking treatment by the Russians followed by the totally unexpected behavior of your chief constable causes me to worry. I need a guarantee that our party will be permitted to remain together at all times, and a written safe-conduct for us, signed and sealed by you on behalf of H.I.M.”
“My dear Captain, a captain does not bargain with one who stands in place of and holds the authority of His Imperial Majesty. As a man, and you being a delightful lady, I would be happy to bargain with you endlessly just for the pleasure of your company. But I can’t.”
“I was not bargaining, Excellency; I was hoping for a boon. Since you will not grant it, I must leave at once.”
He shook his head. “I cannot permit you to leave as yet.”
“Gay Bounce. Zebbie, will you try to reach that nice Mr. Bean?”
Zeb had him shortly. “Leftenant Bean heah.”
“Captain Burroughs, Leftenant. Our radio chopped off while you were talking. No harm done; the important part got through. We grounded where you told us to, due south of Imperial House.”
“So that’s what happened? I must admit to feeling relieved.”
“Is your post of duty in Imperial House?”
“Yes, Ma’am. On it, rather. We have a small housing on the roof.”
“Good. I have a message for the Governor General. Will you record?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“This is Hilda Burroughs speaking, Master of Spacecraft Gay Deceiver out of Snug Harbor. I am sorry that I had to leave without saying good-bye. But your last statement forced me to take measures to protect my craft and crew.” My darling Hilda cut the mike. “Zebbie, when you have air, glide away from the city.” She continued, “In a small way my responsibilities parallel yours; I cannot bargain concerning the safety of my crew and my craft. I hope that you will reconsider, as I have no stomach for dealing with the Russians – even though they have more to offer us in exchange. I still ask for safe-conduct but now must ask for a still third item in such a document: that all four of us be allowed to leave at will. You have my name. My second-in-command is Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter, my chief pilot is Doctor Z. J. Carter, my copilot is Doctor Jacob Burroughs. You will have noticed surnames. Doctor Jacob is my husband; the other two are our daughter and her husband. I am Doctor Hilda Corners but I am much prouder of being Mrs. Jacob Burroughs – although at present I must use ‘Captain Hilda Burroughs’ since I am commanding. Sir, while dictating this I have made a decision. I will not make a second attempt to negotiate with Russians. We will wait thirty minutes in the warm hope of hearing from you… then return to Earth, report to our own government, send a detailed complaint to the Tsar of All the Russias, and make a formal report of our attempt here to His Imperial Majesty. Signed Respectfully yours, H. C. Burroughs, Commanding. Leftenant, what are the full names and titles of the Governor General?”
“Ah, His Excellency Lieutenant General the Right Honourable Herbert Evelyn James Smythe-Carstairs, K.G., V.C., C.B.E., Governor General of the Imperial Realms Beyond the Sky.”
“Preface it formally, please, and I will wait until oh-nine-hundred hours Greenwich time or thirty-six minutes from now. Mark!”
“I will add the heading, Captain, and deliver it by hand.”
After Hilda signed off she said, “I’m going to try to sleep thirty of those thirty-six minutes. Can anyone think of a program that will let all of us nap? This contact is more tiring than I had expected. Jacob, Deety, Zeb – don’t all speak at once.”
“I can, my dear,” I answered.
“Yes, Jacob?”
“Gay Termite.”
To my mild surprise it was night at our creek bank. To my pleasure my first attempt to maneuver by voice was smoothly successful. My daughter’s ingenuity in constructing voiced programs had left me little to do. While I did not resent it (I’m proud of Deety), nevertheless while sitting as copilot, I sometimes wondered whether anyone remembered that it was my brainchild that moved this chariot. Ah, vanity!
To my greater pleasure Hilda clapped her hands and looked delighted. “Jacob! How clever of you! How stupid of me! All right, everyone off duty for a half hour ‘cept the rule about always two and always a rifle. Gay, alert us in thirty minutes. And please unlock the bulkhead door.”
“Aunt Hillbilly, are you going to sleep back there?”
“I had thought of stretching out and inviting Jacob to join me. But the space belongs to you and Zebbie; I was thoughtless.”
“We aren’t going to sleep. But we had better drag those rifles out of that sack or you won’t sleep. I want to empty the oubliette and stow that pesky plastic potty under the cushion of my seat. Durned if I’ll use it when I have the whole outdoors at hand.”
“Most certainly – but stay inside Gay’s lights – and do please remind me before we leave. Deety, I’ve so much on my mind that I forget housekeeping details.”
“Hillbilly, you’re doing swell. I’ll handle housekeeping; you worry about the big picture.”
Hilda cuddled up to me in the after compartment and my nerves began to relax. Would the Governor General relent? Where would we go next? We had a myriad universes to choose from, a myriad myriad planets – but only one was home and we didn’t dare go there. What about juice for Zeb’s car and a thousand other things? Perhaps we should risk Earth-without-a-J. What about the time bomb, ticking away in my darling’s belly?
Hilda sniffed into my shoulder. I patted her head. “Relax, dearest.”
“I can’t. Jacob, I don’t like this job. I snap at you, you argue with me, we both get upset. It’s not good for us – we never behaved this way at Snug Harbor.”
“Then give it up.”
“I’m going to. After I finish the job I started. Jacob, when we lift from this planet, you will be captain.”
“Oh, no! Zeb.” (Hilda my only love, you should turn it over to him now.)
“Zebbie won’t take it. It’s you or Deety, Jacob. If Deety is our next captain, you will back-seat drive even more than you have with me. No, Jacob, you must be captain before Deety is, so that you will understand what she is up against.”
I felt that I had been scolded enough. I started to tell Hilda when that pejorative epithet played back in my mind: ” – back-seat drive -“
I trust that I am honest with myself. I know that I am not very sociable and I expect to go on being so; a man capable of creative work has no time to spare for fools who would like to visit. But a “back-seat driver”?
Some facts: Jane learned to drive before I did – her father’s duo. Our first car, a roadable, coincided with her pregnancy; I got instruction so that I could drive for Jane. She resumed driving after Deety was born but when both of us were in the car, I always drove. She drove with me as passenger once or twice before the custom became established – but she never complained that I had been back-seat driving.
But Jane never complained.
Deety laid it on the line. I don’t know who taught Deety to drive but I recall that she was driving, on roads as well as in the air, when she was twelve or thirteen. She had no occasion to drive for me until Jane’s illness. There was a time after we lost Jane that Deety often drove for me. After a while we alternated. Then came a day when she was driving and I pointed out that her H-above-G was, oh, some figure less than a thousand meters, with a town ahead.
She said, “Thanks, Pop” – and grounded at that town, an unplanned stop. She switched off, got out, walked around and said, “Shove over, Pop. From now on, I’ll enjoy the scenery while you herd us through the sky.”
I didn’t shove over, so Deety got into the back seat. Deety gets her stubbornness from both parents. Jane’s was covered with marshmallow that concealed chrome steel; mine is covered with a coat of sullen anger if frustrated. But Deety’s stubbornness isn’t concealed. She has a sweet disposition but Torquemada could not force Deety to do that which she decided against.
For four hours we ignored each other. Then I turned around (intending to start an argument, I suppose – I was in the mood for one) – and Deety was asleep, curled up in the back seat.
I wrote a note, stuck it to the wind screen, left the keys, got quietly out, made sure all doors were locked, hired another car and drove home – by air; I was too angry to risk roading.
Instead of going straight home I went to the Commons to eat, and found Deety already eating. So I took my tray and joined her. She looked up, smiled, and greeted me: “Hello, Pop! How nice we ran into each other!” She opened her purse. “Here are your keys.”
I took them. “Where is our car?”
“Your car, Pop. Where you left it.”
“I left it?”
“You had the keys; you were in the front seat; you hold title. You left a passenger asleep in the back seat. Good thing she’s over eighteen, isn’t it?” She added, “There is an Opel duo I have my eye on. Tried it once; it’s in good shape.”
“We don’t need two cars!”
“A matter of taste. Yours. And mine.”
“We can’t afford two cars.”
“How would you know, Pop? I handle the money.”
She did not buy the Opel. But she never again drove when we both were in our car.
Three data are not a statistical universe. But it appears that the three women I have loved most all consider me to be a back-seat driver. Jane never said so… but I realize today that she agreed with Deety and Hilda.
I don’t consider myself to be a back-seat driver! I don’t yell “Look out!” or “Watch what you’re doing!” But four eyes are better than two: Should not a passenger offer, simply as data, something the driver may not have seen? Criticism? Constructive criticism only and most sparingly and only to close friends.
But I try to be self-honest; my opinion is not important in this. I must convince Hilda and Deety, by deeds, not words. Long habit is not changed by mere good resolution; I must keep the matter at the top of my mind.
There was banging at the bulkhead; I realized that I had been asleep. The door opened a crack. “Lift in five minutes.”
“Okay, Deety,” Hilda answered. “Nice nap, beloved?”
“Yes indeed. Did you?”
As we crawled out, Deety said, “Starboard door is open; Pop’s rifle is leaning against it, locked. Captain, you asked to be reminded. Shall I take the conn?”
“Yes, thank you.”
We lost no time as Deety used two preprograms: Bingo Windsor, plus Gay Bounce. Zeb had the communication watch officer almost at once. ” – very well. I will see if the Captain will take the message. No over. Hold.”
Zeb looked around, ostentatiously counted ten seconds, then pointed at Hilda.
“Captain Burroughs speaking. Leftenant Bean?”
“Yes, yes! Oh, my word, I’ve been trying to reach you the past twenty minutes.”
“It is still a few seconds short of the time I gave you.”
“Nevertheless I am enormously relieved to hear your voice, Captain. I have a message from the Governor General. Are you ready to record?”
Zeb nodded; Hilda answered Yes; the lieutenant continued: “‘From the Governor General to H. C. Burroughs, Master Gay Deceiver.’ Hurry home, the children are crying. We all miss you. The fatted calf is turning on the spit. That document is signed and sealed, including the additional clause. Signed: “Bertie”‘ – Captain, that is the Governor’s way of signing a message to an intimate friend. A signal honor, if I may say so.”
“Gracious of him. Please tell the Governor General that I am ready to ground and will do so as soon as you tell me that the spot in which we were parked – the exact spot – is free of any obstruction whatever.”
Bean was back in about three minutes saying that our spot was clear and would be kept so. Hilda nodded to Deety, who said, “Gay Parade Ground.”
I had a flash of buildings fairly close, then we were back in the sky. Hilda snapped, “Chief Pilot, get Leftenant Bean!”
Then – c”Mr. Bean! Our spot was not clear.”
“It is now, Captain; I have just come from the parapet. The Governor’s poodle got loose and ran out. The Governor chased him and brought him back. Could that have been it?”
“It decidedly was it. You may tell the Governor – privately – that never in battle has he been so close to death. Astrogator, take her down!”
“GayParadeGround!”
Bean must have heard the gasp, then cheers, while Hilda’s words were still echoing in his radio shack. We were exactly as before, save that the wide, showy steps to the King-Emperor’s residence on Mars were jammed with people: officers, soldiers, civil servants with that slightly dusty look, women with children, and a few dogs, all under restraint.
I didn’t spot the Right Honourable “Bertie” until he moved toward us. He was no longer in mufti but in what I could call “service dress” or “undress” – not a dress uniform – but dressy. Ribbons, piping, wound stripes, etc. – sword when appropriate. Since he was not wearing sword I interpreted our status as “honored guests” rather than “official visitors” – he was ready to jump either way.
He had his wife on his arm – another smart move, our captain being female. His aide (? – left shoulder “chicken guts” but possibly a unit decoration) was with him, too – no one else. The crowd stayed back.
Hilda said, “Chief Pilot – ” then pointed to the mikes, drew her finger across her throat. Zeb said, “Outside audio is cold, Cap’n.”
“Thank you, Gay, lock the bulkhead door, open your doors.”
I jumped down and handed Hilda out, offered her my arm, while Zeb was doing the same with Deety portside. We met, four abreast at Gay’s nose, continued moving forward a few paces and halted facing the Governor’s party as they halted. It looked rehearsed but we had not even discussed it. This placed our ladies between us, with my tiny darling standing tall, opposite the Governor.
The aide boomed, “His Excellency Governor General the Lieutenant General the Right Honourable Herbert Evelyn James Smythe-Carstairs and Lady Herbert Evelyn James!”
The Governor grinned. “Dreadful,” he said quietly, “but worse with ruffles, flourishes, and the Viceroy’s March – I spared you that.” He raised his voice, did not shout but it projected – and saluted Hilda. “Captain Burroughs! We bid you welcome!”
Hilda bowed, returning the salute. “Excellency… Lady Herbert… thank you! We are happy to be here.”
Lady Herbert smiled at being included, and bobbed about two centimeters – a minimum curtsy, I suppose, but can’t swear to it, as she was swathed in one of those dreadful garden-party-formal things – big hat, long skirt, long gloves. Hilda answered with a smile and a minimum bow.
“Permit me to present my companions,” Hilda continued. “My family and also my crew. On my left my astrogator and second-in-command, our daughter Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter, and on her left is her husband our son-in-law, my chief pilot, Doctor Zebadiah John Carter, Captain U.S. Aerospace Reserve.” Deety dropped a curtsy as her name was mentioned, a 6-cm job, with spine straight. Zeb acknowledged his name with a slight bow.
Hilda turned her head and shoulders toward me. “It gives me more pride than I can express,” she sang, her eyes and mouth smiling, her whole being speaking such serene happiness that it made me choke up, “to present our copilot, my husband Doctor Jacob Jeremiah Burroughs, Colonel of Ordnance A.U.S.”
The Governor stepped forward quickly and held out his hand. “Doctor, we are honored!” His handshake was firm.
I returned it in kind, saying in a nonprojecting voice, “Hilda should not have done that to me. Off campus, I’m ‘Mister’ to strangers and ‘Jake’ to my friends.”
“I’m Bertie, Jake,” he answered in his intimate voice, “other than on occasions when I can’t avoid that string of goods wagons. Or I’ll call you ‘Doctor.”
“You do and it’s fifty lines.” That made him laugh again.
“And I’m Betty, Jake,” Lady Herbert said, in closing in. “Captain Burroughs, may I call you ‘Hilda’?” (Was that a hiccup?)
“Call her ‘Doctor,'” I suggested. “She told on the rest of us. How many doctorates do you hold, dear? Seven? Or eight?”
“After the first one, it no longer matters. Of course I’m ‘Hilda,’ Betty. But, Bertie, we have yet to meet the Brigadier.”
I glanced at the tabs of the officer with the aiguillette and booming voice. Yes, A crown inboard and three pips – But when had Hilda learned British insignia? Many Americans can’t read their own. I am ceasing to be surprised at how many facts can be stuffed into so small a space.
“Sorry. Friends, this is Brigadier Iver Hird-Jones. Squeaky finds things I lose and remembers things I forget.”
“Ladies. Gentlemen. Charmed. Here is something you told me to remember, General.” The Brigadier handed a sealed envelope to his boss.
“Ah, yes!” Smythe-Carstairs handed it to my wife. “The Keys to the City, Ma’am. Phrased as you specified, each of you named, and that third factor included. Signed by me for the Sovereign and carrying the Imperial seal.”
“Your Excellency is most gracious,” Hilda said formally, and turned toward Deety. “Astrogator.”
“Aye, Captain.” Deety placed it in her purse.
Our host looked surprised. “Jake, doesn’t your wife have normal curiosity? She seems to have forgot my name, too.”
Hilda protested, “I haven’t forgotten your name, Bertie. It’s an official matter; I treated it formally. I shall read it when I have leisure to open that envelope without damaging the flap seal. To you this is one of thousands of papers; to me it is a once-in-a-lifetime souvenir. If I sound impressed, it’s because I am.”
Lady Herbert said, “Don’t flatter him, my deah.” (Yes, she had had a couple.) “You’ll turn his head, quite.” She added, “Bertie, you’re causing our guests to stand when we could be inside, sitting down.”
“You’re right, m’dear.” Bertie looked longingly at Zeb’s car.
Hilda played a trump. “Care to look inside, Bertie? Betty, you can sit down here; the captain’s chair is comfortable. Will you do me the honor? Someday I’ll tell my grandchildren that Lady Herbert sat in that very seat.”
“What a charming thought!”
Hilda tried to catch my eye but I was a jump ahead of her, handing Lady Herbert in, making certain that she didn’t miss the step, getting her turned around, making sure that she didn’t sit down on belts. “If we were about to lift,” I told her, while fastening the seat belt loosely (first, moving the buckle – she’s Hilda’s height but my thickness), “this safety belt would be fastened firmly.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dare!”
“Gangway, Pop! Another customer.” I got out of the way, and Deety installed Brigadier Hird-Jones in her seat. Deety said, “Pop, if you’ll put the Governor in your seat, Zebadiah will take his own and give his two-hour lecture on the care and feeding of spacecraft, while you and I and Hilda hang in the doorways and correct his errors.”
“I’m only up to chapter four,” Zeb said defensively. “Jake, make her quit picking on me.”
“You’re her husband; I’m merely her father. Bertie, I must ask one thing. Don’t touch anything. This car is not shut down; it is ready to go, instantly.”
“I’ll be careful, Jake. But we’re leaving the ladies standing. The Captain herself! This is not right.”
Deety said, “Bertie, I don’t want to sit down. This trip doesn’t give me nearly the exercise I need.”
“But I can’t permit Captain Hilda to stand. Sit here and I’ll stand.” (I appreciated his gallantry but I could see an impasse coming: two people, each aware of her/his prerogatives and they conflicted.)
Hilda avoided it by something she had discovered in working out how to rig a double bed in the control compartment. Although pilots have separate seats, the passenger’s seats are really one, built all the way across but separated by armrests… which could be removed with screwdriver and sweat.
I had eliminated sweat and screwdriver; a natural mechanic, such as Zeb, accumulates miscellaneous hardware. Those armrests could now be removed and clamped out of the way with butterfly nuts. Hilda started to do so; the Brigadier dismounted them once he saw what she was doing.
It was a snug fit, but Hird-Jones has trim hips and Hilda has the slimmest bottom in town (any town).
“An important feature,” said Zeb, “of this design is a voice-controlled autopilot -“

Chapter XXXVII

“Are you open to a bribe?”

Deety:
Zebadiah, for seventeen dull minutes, said nothing and said it very well. During that plethora of polysyllabic nullities, I was beginning to think that I would have to take Pop to a quiet spot and reason with him with a club – when Captain Auntie showed that she needed no help.
Pop had interrupted with: “Let me put it simply. What Zeb said is -“
“Copilot.” Cap’n Hilda did not speak loudly but Pop should know that when she says “Copilot,” she does not mean: “Jacob darling, this is your little wifey.” Pop is a slow learner. But he can learn. Just drop an anvil on him.
“Yes, Hilda?” Aunt Hilda let the seconds creep past, never took her eyes off Pop. I was embarrassed; Pop isn’t usually that slow – then the anvil hit. “Yes, Captain?”
“Please do not interrupt the Chief Pilot’s presentation.” Her tone was warm and sweet: I don’t think our guests realized that Pop had just been courtmartialed, convicted, keelhauled, and restored to duty – on probation. But I knew it, Zeb knew it – Pop knew it. “Aye aye, Captain!”
I concluded that Captain Auntie never intended to stand outside. She had told me to offer my seat to Squeaky and had added, “Why don’t you suggest to your father that he offer his to the Governor?” I don’t need an anvil.
It was a foregone conclusion that Bertie would object to ladies having to stand while he sat. But if he had not, I feel certain that the Hillbilly would have held up proceedings until she was seated where she could watch everyone but our visitors could not watch her.
How tall was Machiavelli?
As they were climbing out the Brigadier was telling me that he understood how she was controlled – but how did she flap her wings? – land I answered that technical questions were best put to the Captain – I was unsurprised to hear Cap’n Auntie say, “Certainly, Bertie… if you don’t mind being squeezed between Deety and me.”
“‘Mind’? I should pay for the privilege!”
“Certainly you should,” I agreed – the Hillbilly’s eyes widened but she let me talk. “What am I offered to scrunch over?” I slapped myself where I’m widest. “Squeaky is a snake’s hips – not me!”
“Are you open to a bribe?”
“How big a bribe?”
“A purse of gold and half the county? Or cream tarts at tea?”
“Oh, much more! A bath. A bath in a tub, with loads of hot water and lots of suds. The last time I bathed was in a stream and it was coooold!” I shivered for him.
The Governor appeared to think. “Squeaky, do we have a bathtub?”
Lady Herbert interrupted. “Bertie, I was thinking of the Princess Suite. My deah, since you are all one family, it popped into mind. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two bathtubs. The drawing room is gloomy, rather.”
I answered, “Bertie, you didn’t talk fast enough; Betty gets the first ride.”
“Oh, no, no, no! I don’t fly even in our own flying carriage.”
“Hahrooomph!” Squeaky boomed. “Are you still open to a bribe?”
“You might try our captain; she’s as corruptible as I am.”
Aunt Hilda picked it up. “Now that I’ve heard that two bathtubs go with the suite, my cup runneth over. But my husband and my son-in-law have matters to discuss with the Governor’s technical staff. I don’t have to be bribed to offer a few joy rides, Brigadier – one passenger at a time and, as Deety implies, not too wide a passenger.” Aunt Hilda added, “Betty, I must confess my own weakness. Clothes. What I am wearing, for example. A Ferrara original. An exclusive – Mario himself created it for me. While it is intended for salt-water yachting, it is just as practical for space yachting – and I couldn’t resist it. Do you have nice shops here?”
Bertie answered for his wife. “Hilda, there are shops – but Windsor City is not London. However, Betty has a seamstress who is clever at copying styles from pictures in periodicals from home – old but new to us.” He added, “She’ll show you what we have. Now concerning this ride you so kindly offered me – does it suit you to give me an appointment?”
“Is right now soon enough?”