Methuselah's Children (2 page)

As Damon Knight describes her in his introduction to Heinlein’s
The Past Through Tomorrow,
Virginia Heinlein “is a chemist, biochemist, aviation test engineer, experimental horticulturalist; she earned varsity letters at N.Y.U. in swimming, diving, basketball and field hockey, and became a competitive figure skater after graduation; she speaks seven languages so far, and is starting on an eighth.”

There
is
one book in which Virginia and Heinlein himself are the main characters, and that is his travelogue of a year spent traveling around the world,
Tramp Royale.
One begins the book expecting to enjoy a few wacky and now retro descriptions of foreign locales and some ironic nostalgia for the past. What one receives instead is wave after wave of
frission
of recognition. Apart from the prices, the world hasn’t changed much. And after encountering a few of Heinlein’s excellent recreation of conversations with foreigners and his observations of them, it all becomes eerily familiar. The anti-Americanism he encounters is ludicrous and based upon as much ignorance as it is today.

In one telling passage, Heinlein describes how he spent a great deal of time explaining that Senator Joseph McCarthy, then in the news, was not about to take over the reins of power in America and start a nuclear war with Russia. Neither was America spinning into totalitarianism anytime soon. And since none of this was true, why wasn’t McCarthy taken out by the government and shot? Heinlein, who had been fairly left-leaning in his younger days and had campaigned for Sinclair Lewis’s run for the governorship of California, was as annoyed at McCarthy’s idiocy as anyone, but knew he was in no danger from it.

“I am not a constituent or admirer of the senator, but I found myself repeatedly in the odd position of trying to explain what he was doing, why it was legal in a free country for him to do it, and how it was impossible in a free country for a congressional investigation to cause a ‘reign of terror’ in 160,000,000 people…In the communist half of the world a man such as McCarthy would
really
have power. He would be a ‘people’s judge’ and his victims would never live to complain.”

Heinlein’s own observation of the vast array of countries he and Virginia visited is exquisite. This is travel writing at its best, and was years ahead of its time in judgment and outlook. As with many things Heinlein, this is one that has come back around into fashion and seems utterly contemporary. Furthermore, Heinlein’s advice on travel etiquette is timeless and useful and, at times, highly amusing.

Finally,
Grumbles from the Grave
is a kind of writer’s autobiography in letters. Collected and edited by Virginia Heinlein after Heinlein’s death, these are largely Heinlein’s letters first to John W. Campbell and then to his agent and long-time friend, Lurton Blassingame. If you were ever searching for the lost book Heinlein ought to have produced on the art of writing, you’ll find it here. Wonderful discussions of methods, overcoming blocks, writing on spec and to order can be found throughout, as well as expert (and still pertinent) commentary on the business of writing.

The letters also make for a most excellent “director’s commentary” while reading the stories and novels, and will provide insights and provoke second and third readings to find the good stuff that you may have missed the first go round.

So what follows in this collection is a passage through the Golden Age of science fiction that is, not coincidentally, the First Golden Age of Robert A. Heinlein. If it wasn’t for the juveniles and adult novels where Heinlein first laid down the themes and methods that defined a Heinlein tale, the mighty philosophical fiction triumvirate of
Starship Troopers
,
Stranger in a Strange Land
and
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
might well have become lost in the ether. Furthermore, an American literary masterwork,
Have Space Suit−Will Travel
, would never have existed at all.

PART ONE

1

"Mary Sperling, you're a fool not to marry him!" Mary Sperling added up her losses and wrote a check before answering, "There's too much difference in age." She passed over her credit voucher. "I shouldn't gamble with you-sometimes I think you're a sensitive."

"Nonsense! You're just trying to change the subject. You must be nearly thirty . . . and you won't be pretty forever." Mary smiled wryly. "Don't I know it!"

"Bork Vanning can't be much over forty and he's a plus citizen. You should jump at the chance."

"You jump at it. I must run now. Service, Ven."

"Service," Ven answered, then frowned at the door as it contracted after Mary Sperling. She itched to know why Mary would not marry a prime catch like the Honorable Bork Vanning and was almost as curious as to why and where Mary was going, but the custom of privacy stopped her.

Mary had no intention of letting anyone know where she was going. Outside her friend's apartment she dropped down a bounce tube to the basement, claimed her car from the robopark, guided it up the ramp and set the controls for North Shore. The car waited for a break in the traffic, then dived into the high-speed stream and hurried north. Mary settled back for a nap.

When its setting was about to run out, the car beeped for instructions; Mary woke up and glanced out. Lake Michigan was a darker band of darkness on her right. She signaled traffic control to let her enter the local traffic lane; it sorted out her car and placed her there, then let her resume manual control. She fumbled in the glove compartment.

The license number which traffic control automatically photographed as she left the controlways was not the number the car had been wearing.

She followed a side road uncontrolled for several miles, turned into a narrow dirt road which led down to the shore, and stopped. There she waited, lights out, and listened. South of her the lights of Chicago glowed; a few hundred yards inland the controlways whined, but here there was nothing but the little timid noises of night creatures. She reached into the glove compartment, snapped a switch: the instrument panel glowed, uncovering other dials behind it. She studied these while making adjustments. Satisfied that no radar watched her and that nothing was moving near her, she snapped off the instruments, sealed the window by her and started up again.

What appeared to be a standard Camden speedster rose quietly up, moved out over the lake, skimming it-dropped into the water and sank. Mary waited until she was a quarter mile off shore in fifty feet of water; then called a station. "Answer," said a voice.

" 'Life is short-' "

" '-but the years are long.' "

" 'Not," Mary responded, " 'while the evil days come not.' "

"I sometimes wonder," the voice answered conversationally. "Okay, Mary. I've checked you."

"Tommy?"

"No-Cecil Hedrick. Are your controls cast loose?"

"Yes. Take over."

Seventeen minutes later the car surfaced in a pool which occupied much of an artificial cave. When the car was beached, Mary got out, said hello to the guards and went on through a tunnel into a large underground room where fifty or sixty men and women were seated. She chatted until a clock announced midnight, then she mounted a rostrum and faced them.

"I am," she stated, "one hundred and eighty-three years old. Is there anyone here who is older?"

No one spoke. After a decent wait she went on, "Then in accordance with our customs I declare this meeting opened. Will you choose a moderator?"

Someone said, "Go ahead, Mary." When no one else spoke up, she said, "Very well." She seemed indifferent to the honor and the group seemed to share her casual attitude-an air of never any hurry, of freedom from the tension of modern life.

"We are met as usual," she announced, "to discuss our welfare and that of our sisters and brothers. Does any Family representative have a message from his family? Or does anyone care to speak for himself?"

A man caught her eye and spoke up. "Ira Weatheral, speaking for the Johnson Family. We've met nearly two months early. The trustees must have a reason. Let's hear it."

She nodded and turned to a prim little man in the first row. "Justin . . . if you will, please."

The prim little man stood up and bowed stiffly. Skinny legs stuck out below his badly-cut kilt. He looked and acted like an elderly, dusty civil servant, but his black hair and the firm, healthy tone of his skin said that he was a man in his prime. "Justin Foote," he said precisely, "reporting for the trustees. It has been eleven years since the Families decided on the experiment of letting the public know that there were, living among them, persons who possessed a probable life expectancy far in excess of that anticipated by the average man, as well as other persons who had proved the scientific truth of such expectation by having lived more than twice the normal life span of human beings."

Although he spoke without notes he sounded as if he were reading aloud a prepared report. What he was saying they all knew but no one hurried him; his audience had none of the febrile impatience so common elsewhere. "In deciding," he droned on, "to reverse the previous long-standing policy of silence and concealment as to the peculiar aspect in which we differ from the balance of the human race, the Families were moved by several considerations. The reason for the original adoption of the policy of concealment should be noted:

"The first offspring resulting from unions assisted by the Howard Foundation were born in 1875. They aroused no comment, for they were in no way remarkable. The Foundation was an openly-chartered non-profit corporation-"

On March 17, 1874, Ira Johnson, medical student, sat in the law offices of Deems, Wingate, Alden, & Deems and listened to an unusual proposition. At last he interrupted the senior partner. "Just a moment! Do I understand that you are trying to
hire
me to marry one of these women?"

The lawyer looked shocked. "Please, Mr. Johnson. Not at all."

"Well, it certainly sounded like it."

"No, no, such a contract would be void, against public policy. We are simply informing you, as administrators of a trust, that should it come about that you
do
marry one of the young ladies on this list it would then be our pleasant duty to endow each child of such a union according to the scale here set forth. But there would be no contract with us involved, nor is there any 'proposition' being made to you- and we certainly do not urge any course of action on you. We are simply informing you of certain facts."

Ira Johnson scowled and shuffled his feet. "What's it all about? Why?"

"That is the business of the Foundation. One might put it that we approve of your grandparents."

"Have you discussed me with them?" Johnson said sharply. He felt no affection for his grandparents. A tight-fisted foursome-if any one of them had had the grace to die at a reasonable age he would not now be worried about money enough to finish medical school.

"We have talked with them, yes. But not about you."

The lawyer shut off further discussion and young Johnson accepted gracelessly a list of young women, all strangers, with the intention of tearing it up the moment he was outside the office. Instead, that night he wrote seven drafts before he found the right words in which to start cooling off the relation between himself and his girl back home. He was glad that he had never actually popped the question to her-it would have been deucedly awkward.

When he did marry (from the list) it seemed a curious but not too remarkable coincidence that his wife as well as himself had four living, healthy, active grandparents.

"-an openly chartered non-profit corporation," Foote continued, "and its avowed purpose of encouraging births among persons of sound American stock was consonant with the customs of that century. By the simple expedient of being close-mouthed about the true purpose of the Foundation no unusual methods of concealment were necessary until late in that period during the World Wars sometimes loosely termed 'The Crazy Years-' "

Selected headlines April to June 1969:

BABY BILL BREAKS BANK
2-year toddler youngest winner $1,000,000 TV jackpot
White House phones congrats

COURT ORDERS STATEHQUSE SOLD
Colorado Supreme Bench Roles State Old Age Pension
Has First Lien All State Property

N.Y. YOUTH MEET DEMANDS UPPER LIMIT ON FRANCHISE

"U.S. BIRTH RATE 'TOP SECRET' "-DEFENSE SEC

CAROLINA CONGRESSMAN COPS BEAUTY CROWN
"Available for draft for President" she announces while starting tour to show her qualifications

IOWA RAISES VOTING AGE TO FORTY-ONE
Rioting on Des Moines Campus

EARTH-EATING FAD MOVES WEST: CHICAGO PARSON EATS CLAY SANDWICH IN PULPIT
"Back to simple things," he advises flock.

LOS ANGELES HI-SCHOOL MOB DEFIES SCHOOL BOARD
"Higher Pay, Shorter Hours, no Homework-We Demand Our Right to Elect Teachers, Coaches."

SUICIDE RATE UP NINTH SUCCESSIVE YEAR
AEC Denies Fall-Out to Blame

" '-The Crazy Years.' The trustees of that date decided-correctly, we now believe-that any minority during that period of semantic disorientation and mass hysteria was a probable target for persecution, discriminatory legislation, and even of mob violence. Furthermore the disturbed financial condition of the country and in particular the forced exchange of trust securities for government warrants threatened the solvency of the trust.

"Two courses of action were adopted: the assets of the Foundation were converted into real wealth and distributed widely among members of the Families to be held by them as owners-of-record; and the so-called 'Masquerade' was adopted as a permanent policy. Means were found to simulate the death of any member of the Families who lived to a socially embarrassing age and to provide him with a new identity in another part of the country.

"The wisdom of this later policy, though irksome to some, became evident at once during the Interregnum of the Prophets. The Families at the beginning of the reign of the First Prophet had ninety-seven per cent of their members with publicly avowed ages of less than fifty years. The close public registration enforced by the secret police of the Prophets made changes of public identity difficult, although a few were accomplished with the aid of the revolutionary Cabal.