by Isaac Asimov
We tried to stay mad at Ma and Harriet, but we had to admit the baby piglets were having fun. In another two days they were running all over the barrel, playing follow the leader in lines and squealing and rolling around like balls. We all got laughing so hard we forgot to be mad.
Ma announced that the next time we crossed the orbit of Sam’s Trading Post we’d trade some piglets for some banty chickens and then we’d really see some racketying around.
Bobby and me started hopping around pretending to be chickens and making chicken noises and I climbed the climbing net and hung in the middle of the air at zero gravity flapping my arms and pretending to be a hawk.
Somebody started to work the airlock door. I was almost into the airlock tunnel right in the middle of the barrelhead wall and I could see the airlock door open and a gold-colored head dome push through. Then a stranger in a pressure suit crawled into the tunnel. She was moving different from any of us, sort of wiggly and happy, and she pulled off her globe helmet and let out a lot of bright gold hair that floated in zero G all around and over her face. She looked like a dandelion.
“Hi,” she said to me through her hair. Behind her feet I could see Abe trying to push through the spin door, but her feet were in the way and it couldn’t spin.
I stopped flapping and grabbed the net. “Come over and catch onto the net here, Miss,” I said, feeling stunned. “Hang alongside of me and let Abe in.”
She launched in the weightless air of the tunnel like a goldfish, and floated to me through the air, and grabbed and hung so close to me her gold hair was brushing against my arm right up to my shoulder. I could smell flowers.
Abe crawled through the tunnel and stuck his head out opposite us. But there was no room on the net. The girl was staring around at a circle of faces. Everyone in the barrelhouse, including the pigs, was in a circle at the bottom of the net standing around her in all directions looking up, like spokes in a wheel.
We’d hardly seen anyone new except Sam and MacPherson whose orbit was almost the same as ours. She didn’t look like them. We only passed MacPherson twice a year, and then we took a look into his barrelhouse, but we didn’t stay long because it was full of flowers and bees. We’d have MacPherson over to dinner all of a week, because his orbit was almost the same as ours and took a long time to pass, and after he’d left we’d have honey enough to last until the next visit. But he was tall and wrinkled and squinty. He didn’t look like this girl. She didn’t look real. She looked like the girls in the stories on the video screen.
I don’t know what Ma said that got us off the net. She got us all introduced to the girl and the girl introduced to us. The girl’s name was Sylvia Saint Clair, and then Ma set us to running around straightening up, setting tables and making space. I cleared pump parts off Abe’s bunk and put them in a box.
I began to feel something going wrong when I heard Ma say for the fifth time, “Take off your space suit and stay a while, Miss Saint Clair.”
And Abe was trying to interrupt her, talking in a low fast voice. “Ma, there’s something I’ve got to explain to you.”
Then Ma had talked the girl into taking her pressure suit off, and she didn’t have anything on underneath, and we were all looking.
I mean she almost didn’t have anything on underneath. She was decorated with some jewelry draped around where a bathing suit would be if she was swimming. She looked like a swim queen wearing jewelry instead of a swimsuit.
We kids just stared. We didn’t know if it was right or wrong, what Miss Saint Clair was wearing.
Abe said, “Ma, we gotta explain. Miss Saint Clair had to leave in a hurry. She couldn’t bring her things. She came away in her bathing suit.”
Ma said, “Hush up Abe. Harriet, get the girl your bathrobe.” Her voice was very clear, every word separate, and we all got scared because that meant Ma was mad angry. She looked straight into Miss Saint Clair’s eyes, not looking again at what she was dressed in. “Where you from, Miss Saint Clair?”
Abe said, “Ma, it doesn’t matter where she’s from. She’s a good girl and we’re going to get married.”
It was the wrong time to say anything like that to Ma. She didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes on the girl. Her voice sounded like a hammer tapping a steel spike. “Where you from, Miss Saint Clair?”
“From Georgia, Earth,” the girl said and quickly got inside the bathrobe my sister Harriet held out for her. She was pale and scared of Ma. Ma is only five-foot-three, but sometimes everybody is scared of her.
‘Where were you when Abe met you, girl?” Ma asked.
“Jason’s Emporium.” The girl squirmed and giggled nervously, but squirming and giggling was the wrong thing to do with Ma standing so straight and quiet and staring, and everybody else frozen still, so scared of Ma we were afraid to twitch.
Ma asked, “That’s a Gambling Hell, isn’t it?”
The girl squirmed and giggled again weakly, “Well, I wouldn’t call it that.” Her blonde hair was hanging down limp over her face by now. I was awfully sorry for her. When Ma has you pinned to the wall, lying makes it worse, a lot worse. Suddenly she saw Ma’s steady gaze on her, and she froze. Ma just looked into her eyes and waited.
The girl whispered, “Yes, it’s a Gambling Hell.”
“Glad to hear you talk honest,” Ma said like a steel hammer. “What were you doing there, girl?”
“I was dancing,” the girl whispered and seemed like she was shrinking down. She wrapped the terry cloth robe tighter around her. “And . . . and things.”
“Things, eh?” Ma asked. “What do you think of yourself, girl? Abe is a good man. I raised my boy to be a good Christian man with a good future. Do you think you’re good enough for Abe?”
Miss Saint Clair shrank down so much her knees must have been bending inside the bathrobe. She looked up into Ma’s face and answered very low.
Ma said loud, “What’d you say, Miss Saint Clair? My boy would like to hear you say it.” And I was awful sorry for Miss Saint Clair. I wanted to get into my bunk and zip it closed over my head to get away, but I couldn’t move or make a sound because I didn’t want Ma to turn and look at me with that cold look.
The girl whispered something again, with her gold hair over her face and crouched down to the floor and started crying.
Ma said, “She said No, Abe. She don’t think she is good enough for you. She don’t want to marry you.”
“I’m going to marry her anyhow!” Abe roared suddenly and he was standing straight and tall past the zero spin center, looking down at us from awful high up, and he looked awful big and awful mad. “I know what’s good for her. And I’m going to get her out of that Gambling Dance Hall away from those dirty fingering drunks that say dirty words to a sweet girl.
It’s no place for Sylvy. She needs good people around her that treat her nice. You ain’t treating her nice and kind, Ma, and I’m ashamed of you.”
He looked as tall as God.
Ma looked from him down to the crouched crying girl in Harriet’s bathrobe and Ma’s face crinkled up like she was going to cry. “I’m not treating her nice. You’re right, Abe, I’m not.”
She started crying and bent over the girl, patting her shoulder. “Abe, sit down honey, before you get dizzy.”
Ma pulled at the girl’s shoulder, trying to get her to look up. “Girl, child, you’re welcome here. Don’t be scared. Have a cup of hot chocolate. I just ain’t used to strangers.”
We pulled over some cushions and Abe sat down next to the girl and Ma sent Harriet to get some brandy and I ran to pour hot water into the chocolate powder and honey, and we all sat on cushions on the floor in a circle and passed cookies, and Ma let us each have a little cup of the hot chocolate and brandy she mixed up for Sylvy. It tasted strange, but the girl pushed her hair back so we could see she was smiling and looking at each one of us, though her face was still a little red around the eyes.
A meteorite hit the side of the house with a clang, but we igno
red it because we were happy. You live in the Asteroid Belt you gotta expect some gravel. Ma said, “Tell us about Georgia on Earth, Miss Sylvy.”
Ma’s voice sounded sort of faraway and dim, like the air was thinning. I thought it was the brandy changing my ears, but I looked over the safety-patch balloons and saw that the whole cluster of them near the airlock that usually hung limp were puffing up round and one was already floating free carrying its big flat patch. Another pebble or something hit the side of the house with a loud clang.
I jumped up and yelled loud, “We’re losing air. We’re losing air,” and my voice sounded soft and faraway because there wasn’t enough air to carry it.
Everyone jumped up and grabbed a handful of feathers and a balloon. Abe passed a handful of feathers and a balloon to the three little kids. Then he began to check out the airlock and the gear storage section around the airlock tunnel for holes. I went to my section I always check out in air drill, the floor around the aquarium where the sunlight comes pouring in through the green algae and seaweed and reflecting off the silver fish. I could see the water level was still up in the aquarium so I just let a trickle of feathers out of my fingers in the whole floor circle at the foot of the aquarium, looking for a draft.
Harriet let out a hoot. She’d been checking the garden and she was pointing to a hissing big hole in the dirt between the dandelions and oats with a pile of white feathers trying to suck in. Same time, Bobby and Renee let out a double yell where they’d found a hole under the bunks. I heard the slap and clunk as they let a balloon suck through their hole and pull its sticky patch into place, and then I was helping Beatrice dig the dirt away from her hole while Ma and Abe tried to get the hole plugged with a tapered cork until the steel bottom was clean enough for a steel patch. Then we stood panting and quiet, dizzy from running with not enough air, while the emergency air tanks popped their valves and hissed air slowly back up to normal.
The piglets were lying on their sides panting, and the whole place was white with feathers, like a picture of a snowstorm on Earth. We hadn’t taken a minute and Sylvy sat holding a cup of hot chocolate with white feathers all over her, looking surprised.
We didn’t get another minute. There was another clang and a roar that sounded something like a big voice shouting. Harriet and I dived on the spot that clanged and I got there first with my balloon and let the new hole pull the balloon through and pull the patch up tight.
The big voice roared again. “Saint Clair, ten minutes before ...” was all I could make out. The rest was roar.
“It’s a magnetic talk beam,” Abe said. “Maybe the radio’s not working. Maybe somebody out there’s trying to talk to us.”
“You mean somebody’s out there shooting at us,” Ma said. “Everybody get into pressure suits. Joey, turn on the radio.”
“It’s broken, Ma,” I said. “I mean I took parts out of it to make another videotape player cause Harriet always wants to watch love stories.”
“Put it back together and get it going. Right now. Never mind the pressure suit,” Ma commanded and turned to Abe. “Abe, are the police after this girl?”
Abe and Sylvy were crouched down helping the two little kids get into their pressure suits and get their airhelmets zipped tight. Abe shook his head. “No, Ma, these are bad men. Sylvy signed a contract to work for a year to pay back space transportation and training in being a singer and dancer. They sent these men to catch her and bring her back and make her dance with her clothes off for drunk men.”
Ma stiffened up. She looked at me fiercely. “Radio going yet?”
I finished plugging a part in and it all hummed. “Yes, Ma.”
“Tell them she’s going to stay here. She’s not going back there. Tell them we’ll let them talk to her over the radio if they promise to be polite and talk to her like gentlemen.”
I tuned around the dial until I hit a loud hum. I tuned into the middle of the hum and pushed the send button. Ma was angry and so I let myself talk as angry as I was. “You out there, the spaceboat shooting at our barrelhouse. My mother says you can’t talk to Sylvy without you being more polite. Anyhow, we’re not letting you take her away. Not if she wants to stay here.” Ma nodded at me and brought over my pressure suit. She watched until I let go of send so they couldn’t hear her on the radio, then she said, “Bandit drill. Stall them, Joey. Use strategy talk. Reinforcements.” The little kids started running and yelling, “Bandits! Bandits!” because they always liked the bandit drill games. Ma had rehearsed us on bandit drill every Fourth of July, Mayday, and Veterans Day all our lives. She said every citizen is his own police and has a patriotic duty to fight bandits and make space safe for other citizens. She said if you didn’t fight for your rights you don’t deserve any. We’d get out in space and practice war.
I could hit a moving target two miles away with a light beam two out of three and pretend it was a laser. If I had a real miner’s laser the house-sized nuggets floating by would have arrived at the foundry all chopped up.
There was muttering and clangs and noise from the radio and then a voice came in loud. “Who’s that? There other people in that rusty old barrel?”
I counted everybody and added one for strategy. “Five kids, and two men and Ma and Sylvia Saint Clair. And we’re all her friends. And we’re good shots. You can’t come in here without a warrant.”
Behind me Ma was saying, “Don’t use the lasers. Those men probably have reflector shields. Just launch cargo. Who’s the best aim with the syrup?”
The barrelhouse spins for gravity so anything we store on the outside to sell at the trading post will fly off if it’s not held on tight. “A little at a time,” Ma said. “Fire whenever you’re sure it won’t miss.” She hates to waste good syrup that we can trade at the store. I took a look behind me and saw Harriet with her eye on the scope, watching a shiny spaceboat, and her hand on the faucet that controlled an outside pipe. Our barrelhouse turned around and the spaceboat swung out of sight and the stars turned by and then the spaceboat began to swing into sight again. Harriet turned the faucet full on and counted three, then turned it off.
Two tough voices were talking to me over the radio. “Kid, we didn’t come out here to get into a fight with a bunch of kids and an old lady. We don’t want to hurt you, or cut up your house. There won’t be any trouble if Miss Saint Clair comes back and gets back to her job.”
I put my finger on the talk button. I shouted, “What do you mean, no trouble? My brother works for Belt Foundry. We just used laserflash signal and told the manager at Belt Foundry how you just shot two holes in our house. They’re coming to get you.”
I looked back at Ma and she nodded. That’s what she meant, strategy talk. Always claim reinforcements are coming. Nobody can see a tight-beam laser message except the person it’s aimed at. The men in the spaceboat couldn’t be sure I was lying. Belt Foundry men are tough and their boats have cutting lasers that can carve a ship into little pieces.
Sylvia was trying to get to the radio. I pushed her back. “Don’t you talk to them, Sylvy. They already talked you into a contract. Don’t let them talk to you.”
“You don’t understand.” She was zipping up her pressure suit. “You people could all get killed. Those goons are bad people. I can get out there and give up to them before they start to shoot!”
The men in the spaceboat shouted over the radio. “You just gave us a reason to act tough. We don’t have time to be nice! Get into your space suits, we’re going to open that barrel up like a slice of cake, and take her.”
Abe reached out a long arm and pulled Sylvy away from me and the radio. “Stall him some more, Joey. Negotiate.” Ma nodded.
I pushed the send button. “My ma says she’ll negotiate with you for better work for Miss Saint Clair. She should sign a contract for doing something else she likes better.”
The radio sputtered and blurbled. “Our terms. Damn, something . . . burble ... We were sent to bring the gurble back, not negotiate no cur
ble, gurble.” It turned to a frying noise.
I figure the syrup had gotten to them and was sticking up their radio antenna surfaces. Abe let out a big last dose of syrup as we spun around again, and we could see the spaceboat wasn’t shiny any more. It was covered with streaks of sticky-looking foam. The syrup was foaming in space, and drying out to something like crunch molasses candy, on the boat, all over its view lenses. There isn’t much in the world that will dissolve hard molasses.
After a while of us watching, the boat started going slowly around and around like a pinwheel, so the molasses was into something else.
Abe took a special laser rig we had in a back locker, and recorded a help message on it with our orbit coordinates and the story about the men from the gambling place, Jason’s Emporium, and what they’d done to our house. He set it up outside the airlock to track the signal radio flashes from the Belt Foundry and flash back.
About an hour later two very big, tough tractor tugs armed with front-end cutters and handlers arrived and hovered on our view screens like giant lobsters. They talked with Abe. I mean the engineers in them talked with Abe while we kids danced around and begged for a ride inside a tug. Then the tugs sliced off all the gun barrels that were sticking out of the spaceboat and one tug towed the spaceboat off toward Jason’s Emporium and the other engineer stayed and said he’d take Abe and Sylvy off toward the Belt Foundry to get married.
The engineer explained to Abe that the Foundry would loan him money to buy Sylvy’s contract from the gambling hall. They said that other men had had to buy their wives’ contracts. The company had gotten used to giving out loans for a man to get a wife. Besides, they needed girls over at the Foundry to do office and thinking type work and brighten the place up. Sylvy could get a job there. They said everybody at the Belt Foundry agreed they needed to have more women around.