Podkayne of Mars (7 page)

“You know what I’m talking about! Smuggling!”

“Oh!” His face lit up in a sunny smile. “You mean those two kilograms of happy dust. Goodness, Sis, is that still worrying you? There never were any two kilos of happy dust; I was just having my little joke with that stuffy inspector. I thought you knew that.”

“I do not mean any ‘two kilos of happy dust’! I am talking about at least three kilos of something else that you hid in my baggage!”

He looked worried. “Pod, do you feel well?”

“Ooooooh!—
dandruff!
Clark Fries, you stop that! You know what I mean! When I was centrifuged, my bags and I weighed three kilos over my allowance. Well?”

He looked at me thoughtfully, sympathetically. “It
has
seemed to me that you were getting a bit fat—but I didn’t want to mention it. I thought it was all this rich food you’ve been tucking away here in the ship. You really ought to watch that sort of thing, Pod. After all, if a girl lets her figure go to pieces—Well, she doesn’t have much else. So I hear.”

Had that envelope been a blunt instrument I would have blunted him. I heard a low growling sound, and realized that I was making it. So I stopped. “Where’s the letter that was in this envelope?”

Clark looked surprised. “Why, it’s right there, in your other hand.”

“This? This is all there was? No letter from somebody else?”

“Why, just that note from me, Sis. Didn’t you like it? I thought that it just suited the occasion . . . I knew you would find it your very first chance.” He smiled. “Next time you want to paw through my things, let me know and I’ll help. Sometimes I have experiments running—and you might get hurt. That can happen to people who aren’t very bright and don’t look before they leap. I wouldn’t want that to happen to you, Sis.”

I didn’t bandy any more words; I brushed past him and went to my own room and locked the door and bawled.

Then I got up and did very careful things to my face. I know when I’m licked; I don’t have to have a full set of working drawings. I resolved never to mention the matter to Clark again.

But what was I to do? Go to the Captain? I already knew the Captain pretty well; his imagination extended as far as the next ballistic prediction and no further. Tell him that my brother had been smuggling something, I didn’t know what—and that he had better search the entire ship most carefully, because, whatever it was, it was not in my brother’s room? Don’t be triple silly, Poddy. In the first place, he would laugh at you; in the second place, you don’t
want
Clark to be caught—Mother and Daddy wouldn’t like it.

Tell Uncle Tom about it? He might be just as unbelieving . . . or, if he did believe me, he might go to the Captain himself—with just as disastrous results.

I decided not to go to Uncle Tom—at least not yet. Instead I would keep my eyes and ears open and try to find an answer myself.

In any case I did not waste much time on Clark’s sins (if any, I had to admit in bare honesty); I was in my first real spaceship—halfway to my ambition thereby—and there was much to learn and do.

Those travel brochures are honest enough, I guess—but they do not give you the full picture.

For example, take this phrase right out of the text of the Triangle Line’s fancy folder: . . .
romantic days in ancient Marsopolis, the city older than time; exotic nights under the hurtling moons of Mars . . .

Let’s rephrase it into everyday language, shall we? Marsopolis is my hometown and I love it—but it is as romantic as bread and butter with no jam. The parts people live in are new and were designed for function, not romance. As for the ruins outside town (which the Martians
never
called “Marsopolis”), a lot of high foreheads including Daddy have seen to it that the best parts are locked off so that tourists will not carve their initials in something that was old when stone axes were the latest thing in super-weapons. Furthermore, Martian ruins are neither beautiful, nor picturesque, nor impressive, to human eyes. The way to appreciate them is to read a really good book with illustrations, diagrams and simple explanations—such as Daddy’s
Other Paths Than Ours.
(Adv.)

As for those exotic nights, anybody who is outdoors after sundown on Mars other than through sheer necessity needs to have his head examined. It’s
chilly
out there. I’ve seen Deimos and Phobos at night exactly twice, each time through no fault of my own—and I was so busy keeping from freezing to death that I wasted no thought on “hurtling moons.”

This advertising brochure is just as meticulously accurate and just as deceptive in effect—concerning the ships themselves. Oh, the
Tricorn
is a palace; I’ll vouch for that. It really is a miracle of engineering that anything so huge, so luxurious, so fantastically adapted to the health and comfort of human beings, should be able to “hurtle” (pardon the word) through space.

But take those pictures—

You know the ones I mean: full color and depth, showing groups of handsome young people of both sexes chatting or playing games in the lounge, dancing gaily in the ballroom—or views of a “typical stateroom.”

That “typical stateroom” is not a fake. No, it has simply been photographed from an angle and with a lens that makes it look at least twice as big as it is. As for those handsome, gay, young people—well, they aren’t along on the trip I’m making. It’s my guess that they are professional models.

In the
Tricorn
this trip the young and handsome passengers like those in the pictures can be counted on the thumbs of one hand. The typical passenger we have with us is a great-grandmother, Terran citizenship, widowed, wealthy, making her first trip into space—and probably her last, for she is not sure she likes it.

Honest, I’m not exaggerating; our passengers look like refugees from a geriatrics clinic. I am not scoffing at old age. I understand that it is a condition I will one day attain myself, if I go on breathing in and out enough times—say about 900,000,000 more times, not counting heavy exercise. Old age can be a charming condition, as witness Uncle Tom. But old age is not an accomplishment; it is just something that happens to you despite yourself, like falling downstairs.

And I must say that I am getting a wee bit tired of having youth treated as a punishable offense.

Our typical male passenger is the same sort, only not nearly so numerous. He differs from his wife primarily in that, instead of looking down his nose at me, he is sometimes inclined to pat me in a “fatherly” way that I do not find fatherly, don’t like, avoid if humanly possible—and which nevertheless gets me talked about.

I suppose I should not have been surprised to find the
Tricorn
a super-deluxe old folks’ home, but (I may as well admit it) my experience is still limited and I was not aware of some of the economic facts of life.

The
Tricorn
is expensive. It is
very
expensive. Clark and I would not be in it at all if Uncle Tom had not twisted Dr. Schoenstein’s arm in our behalf. Oh, I suppose Uncle Tom can afford it, but, by age group though not by temperament, he fits the defined category. But Daddy and Mother had intended to take us in the
Wanderlust,
a low-fare, economy-orbit freighter. Daddy and Mother are not poor, but they are not rich—and after they finish raising and educating five children it is unlikely that they will ever be rich.

Who can afford to travel in luxury liners? Ans.: Rich old widows, wealthy retired couples, high-priced executives whose time is so valuable that their corporations gladly send them by the fastest ships—and an occasional rare exception of some other sort.

Clark and I are such exceptions. We have one other exception in the ship, Miss—well, I’ll call her Miss Girdle Fitz-Snugglie, because if I used her right name and perchance anybody ever sees this, it would be all too easily recognizable. I think Girdie is a good sort. I don’t care what the gossips in this ship say. She doesn’t act jealous of me even though it appears that the younger officers in the ship were all her personal property until I boarded—all the trip out from Earth, I mean. I’ve cut into her monopoly quite a bit, but she isn’t catty to me; she treats me warmly woman-to-woman, and I’ve learned quite a lot about Life and Men from her . . . more than Mother ever taught me.

(It is just possible that Mother is slightly naïve on subjects that Girdie knows best. A woman who tackles engineering and undertakes to beat men at their own game might have had a fairly limited social life, wouldn’t you think? I must study this seriously . . . because it seems possible that much the same might happen to a female space pilot and it is no part of my Master Plan to become a soured old maid.)

Girdie is about twice my age, which makes her awfully, young in this company; nevertheless it may be that I cause her to look just a bit wrinkled around the eyes. Contrariwise, my somewhat unfinished look may make her more mature contours appear even more Helen-of-Troyish. As may be, it is certain that my presence has relieved the pressure on her by giving the gossips two targets instead of one.

And gossip they do. I heard one of them say about her: “She’s been in more laps than a napkin!”

If so, I hope she had fun.

Those gay ship’s dances in the mammoth ballroom! Like this: they happen every Tuesday and Saturday night, when the ship is spacing. The music starts at 20.30 and the Ladies’ Society for Moral Rectitude is seated around the edge of the floor, as if for a wake. Uncle Tom is there, as a concession to me, and very proudsome and distinguished he looks in evening formal. I am there in a party dress which is not quite as girlish as it was when Mother helped me pick it out, in consequence of some
very
careful retailoring I have done with my door locked. Even Clark attends because there is nothing else going on and he’s afraid he might miss something—and looking so nice I’m proud of him, because he has to climb into his own monkey suit or he can’t come to the ball.

Over by the punch bowl are half a dozen of the ship’s junior officers, dressed in mess jacket uniforms and looking faintly uncomfortable.

The Captain, by some process known only to him, selects one of the widows and asks her to dance. Two husbands dance with their wives. Uncle Tom offers me his arm and leads me to the floor. Two or three of the junior officers follow the Captain’s example. Clark takes advantage of the breathless excitement to raid the punch bowl.

But
nobody
asks Girdie to dance.

This is no accident. The Captain has given the Word (I have this intelligence with utter certainty through My Spies) that no ship’s officer shall dance with Miss Fitz-Snugglie until he has danced at least two dances with other partners—and I am not an “other partner,” because the proscription, since leaving Mars, has been extended to me.

This should be proof to anyone that a captain of a ship is, in sober fact, the Last of the Absolute Monarchs.

There are now six or seven couples on the floor and the fun is at its riotous height. The floor will never again be so crowded. Nevertheless nine-tenths of the chairs are still occupied and you could ride a bicycle around the floor without endangering the dancers. The spectators look as if they were knitting at the tumbrels. The proper finishing touch would be a guillotine in the empty space in the middle of the floor.

The music stops; Uncle Tom takes me back to my chair, then asks Girdie to dance—since he is a Cash Customer, the Captain has not attempted to make him toe the mark. But I am still out of bounds, so I walk over to the punch bowl, take a cup out of Clark’s hands, finish it, and say, “Come on, Clark. I’ll let you practice on me.”

“Aw, it’s a waltz!” (Or a “flea hop,” or a “chassé,” or “five step”—but whatever it is, it is just too utterly impossible.)

“Do it—or I’ll tell Madame Grew that you want to dance with her, only you’re too shy to ask her.”

“You do and I’ll trip her! I’ll stumble and trip her.”

However, Clark is weakening, so I move in fast. “Look, Bub, you either take me out there and walk on my feet for a while—or I’ll see to it that Girdie doesn’t dance with you at all.”

That does it. Clark is in the throes of his first case of puppy love, and Girdie is such a gent that she treats him as an equal and accepts his attentions with warm courtesy. So Clark dances with me. Actually he is quite a good dancer, and I have to lead him only a tiny bit. He likes to dance—but he wouldn’t want anyone, especially me, to think that he likes to dance with his sister. We don’t look too badly matched, since I am short. In the meantime Girdie is looking very good indeed with Uncle Tom, which quite an accomplishment, as Uncle Tom dances with great enthusiasm and no rhythm. But Girdie can follow anyone—if her partner broke his leg, she would follow fracturing her own at the same spot. But the crowd is thinning out now; husbands that danced the first dance are too tired for the second and no one has replaced them.

Oh, we have gay times in the luxury line
Tricorn!
Truthfully we
do
have gay times. Starting with the third dance Girdie and I have our pick of the ship’s officers, most of whom are good dancers, or at least have had plenty of practice. About twenty-two o’clock the Captain goes to bed and shortly after that the chaperones start putting away their whetstones and fading, one by one. By midnight there is just Girdie and myself and half a dozen of the younger officers—and the Purser, who has dutifully danced with every woman and now feels that he owes himself the rest of the night. He is quite a good dancer, for an old man.

Oh, and there is usually Mrs. Grew, too—but she isn’t one of the chaperones and she is always nice to Girdie. She is a fat old woman, full of sin and chuckles. She doesn’t expect anyone to dance with her, but she likes to watch—and the officers who aren’t dancing at the moment like to sit with her; she’s fun.

About one o’clock Uncle Tom sends Clark to tell me to come to bed or he’ll lock me out. He wouldn’t but I do—my feet are tired.