Podkayne of Mars (24 page)

“. . . very dark where I’m going. No man is an island complete in himself. Remember that, Clarkie. Oh, I’m sorry I fubbed it but remember that; it’s important. They all have to be cuddled sometimes. My shoulder—Saint Podkayne! Saint Podkayne, are you listening? UnkaTom, Mother, Daddy—is anybody listening? Do listen, please, because this is important. I love—”

It cuts off there. So we don’t know whom she loved.

Everybody, maybe.

 

 

I’m alone here, now. Mr. Cunha made them hold the
Tricorn
until it was certain whether Poddy would die or get well, then Uncle Tom left and left me behind—alone, that is, except for doctors, and nurses, and Dexter Cunha hanging around all the time, and a whole platoon of guards. I can’t go anywhere without one. I can’t go to the casinos at all any more—not that I want to, much.

I heard part of what Uncle Tom told Dad about it. Not all of it, as a phone conversation with a bounce time of over twenty minutes is episodic. I heard none of what Dad said and only one monologue of Uncle’s:

“Nonsense, sir! I am not dodging my own load of guilt; it will be with me always. Nor can I wait here until you arrive and you know it and you know why—and both children will be safer in Mr. Cunha’s hands and
not
close to me . . . and you know
that,
too! But I have a message for you, sir, one that you should pass on to your wife. Just this: people who will not take the trouble to raise children should not have them. You with your nose always in a book, your wife gallivanting off God knows where—between you, your daughter was almost killed. No credit to either of you that she wasn’t. Just blind luck. You should tell your wife, sir, that building bridges and space stations and such gadgets is all very well . . . but that a woman has more important work to do. I tried to suggest this to you years ago . . . and was told to mind my own business. Now I am saying it. Your daughter will get well, no thanks to either of you. But I have my doubts about Clark. With him it may be too late. God may give you a second chance if you hurry. Ending transmission!”

I faded into the woodwork then and didn’t get caught. But what did Uncle Tom mean by that—trying to scare Dad about
me?
I wasn’t hurt at all and he knows it. I just got a load of mud on me, not even a burn . . . whereas Poddy still looks like a corpse and they’ve got her piped and wired like a crèche.

I don’t see what he was driving at.

I’m taking care of that baby fairy because Poddy will want to see it when she gets well enough to notice things again; she’s always been a sentimentalist. It needs a lot of attention because it gets lonely and has to be held and cuddled, or it cries.

So I’m up a lot in the night—I guess it thinks I’m its mother. I don’t mind, I don’t have much else to do.

It seems to like me.

Robert Anson Heinlein was born in Missouri in 1907, and was raised there. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929, but was forced by illness to retire from the Navy in 1934. He settled in California and over the next five years held a variety of jobs while doing postgraduate work in mathematics and physics at the University of California. In 1939 he sold his first science fiction story to
Astounding
magazine and soon devoted himself to the genre.

He was a four-time winner of the Hugo Award for his novels
Stranger in a Strange Land
(1961),
Starship Troopers
(1959),
Double Star
(1956), and
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
(1966). His Future History series, incorporating both short stories and novels, was first mapped out in 1941. The series charts the social, political, and technological changes shaping human society from the present through several centuries into the future.

Robert A. Heinlein’s books were among the first works of science fiction to reach bestseller status in both hardcover and paperback. He continued working into his eighties, and his work never ceased to amaze, to entertain, and to generate controversy. By the time he died, in 1988, it was evident that he was one of the formative talents of science fiction: a writer whose unique vision, unflagging energy, and persistence, over the course of five decades, made a great impact on the American mind.