The Menace From Earth ssc

by Robert A. Heinlein

  "Hi, Penalty Weight. Free to take a client?"

  "Well, I was supposed to guide a family party, but they're late."

  "Cancel them; Miss Brentwood ... step into pickup, please. This is Mr. Hardesty."

  Jeff's eyes widened and I felt uneasy. But it did not occur to me that Jeff could be attracted by a groundhog ... even though it is conceded that men are robot slaves of their body chemistry in such matters. I knew she was exceptionally decorative, but it was unthinkable that Jeff could be captivated by any groundhog, no matter how well designed. They don't speak our language!

  I am not romantic about Jeff; we are simply partners. But anything that affects Jones & Hardesty affects me.

  When we joined him at West Lock he almost stepped on his tongue in a disgusting display of adolescent rut. I was ashamed of him and, for the first time, apprehensive. Why are males so childish?

  Miss Brentwood didn't seem to mind his behavior. Jeff is a big hulk; suited up for outside he looks like a Frost Giant from Das Rheingold; she smiled up at him and thanked him for changing his schedule. He looked even sillier and told her it was a pleasure.

  I keep my pressure suit at West Lock so that when I switch a client to Jeff he can invite me to come along for the walk. This time he hardly spoke to me after that platinum menace was in sight. But I helped her pick out a suit and took her into the dressing room and fitted it. Those rental suits take careful adjusting or they will pinch you in tender places once out in vacuum ... besides there are things about them that one girl ought to explain to another.

  When I came out with her, not wearing my own, Jeff didn't even ask why I hadn't suited up — he took her arm and started toward the lock. I had to butt in to get her to sign my tariff card.

  The days that followed were the longest of my life. I saw Jeff only once ... on the slidebelt in Diana Boulevard, going the other way. She was with him.

  Though I saw him but once, I knew what was going on. He was cutting classes and three nights running he took her to the Earthview Room of the Duncan Hines. None of my business! — I hope she had more luck teaching him to dance than I had. Jeff is a free citizen and if he wanted to make an utter fool of himself neglecting school and losing sleep over an upholstered groundhog that was his business.

  But he should not have neglected the firm's business!

  Jones & Hardesty had a tremendous backlog, because we were designing Starship Prometheus. This project we had been slaving over for a year, flying not more than twice a week in order to devote time to it — and that's a sacrifice.

  Of course you can't build a starship today, because of the power plant. But Daddy thinks that there will soon be a technological break-through and mass-conversion power plants will be built — which means starships. Daddy ought to know — he's Luna Chief Engineer for Space Lanes and Fermi Lecturer at Goddard Institute. So Jeff and I are designing a self-supporting interstellar ship on that assumption: quarters, auxiliaries, surgery, labs — everything.

  Daddy thinks it's just practice but Mother knows better — Mother is a mathematical chemist for General Synthetics of Luna and is nearly as smart as I am. She realizes that Jones & Hardesty plans to be ready with a finished proposal while other designers are still floundering.

  Which was why I was furious with Jeff for wasting time over this creature. We had been working every possible chance. Jeff would show up after dinner, we would finish our homework, then get down to real work, the Prometheus ... checking each other's computations, fighting bitterly over details, and having a wonderful time. But the very day I introduced him to Ariel Brentwood, he failed to appear. I had finished my lessons and was wondering whether to start or wait for him — we were making a radical change in power plant shielding — when his mother phoned me. "Jeff asked me to call you, dear. He's having dinner with a tourist client and can't come over."

  Mrs. Hardesty was watching me so I looked puzzled and said, "Jeff thought I was expecting him? He has his dates mixed." I don't think she believed me; she agreed too quickly.

  All that week I was slowly convinced against my will that Jones & Hardesty was being liquidated. Jeff didn't break any more dates — how can you break a date that hasn't been made? — but we always went flying Thursday afternoons unless one of us was guiding. He didn't call. Oh, I know where he was; he took her iceskating in Fingal's Cave.

  I stayed home and worked on the Prometheus, recalculating masses and moment arms for hydroponics and stores on the basis of the shielding change. But I made mistakes and twice I had to look up logarithms instead of remembering ... I was so used to wrangling with Jeff over everything that I just couldn't function.

  Presently I looked at the name place of the sheet I was revising. "Jones & Hardesty" it read, like all the rest. I said to myself, "Holly Jones, quit bluffing; this may be The End. You know that someday Jeff would fall for somebody."

  "Of course ... but not a groundhog."

  "But he did. What kind of an engineer are you if you can't face facts? She's beautiful and rich -she'll get her father to give him a job Earthside. You hear me? Earthside! So you look for another partner ... or go into business on your own."

  I erased "Jones & Hardesty" and lettered "Jones & Company" and stared at it. Then I started to erase that, too — but it smeared; I had dripped a tear on it. Which was ridiculous!

  The following Tuesday both Daddy and Mother were home for lunch which was unusual as Daddy lunches at the spaceport. Now Daddy can't even see you unless you're a spaceship but that day he picked to notice that I had dialed only a salad and hadn't finished it. "That plate is about eight hundred calories short," he said, peering at it. "You can't boost without fuel — aren't you well?"

  "Quite well, thank you," I answered with dignity.

  "Mmm ... now that I think back, you've been moping for several days. Maybe you need a checkup." He looked at Mother.

  "I do not either need a checkup!" I had not been moping — doesn't a woman have a right not to chatter?

  But I hate to have doctors poking at me so I added, "It happens I'm eating lightly because I'm going flying this afternoon. But if you insist, I'll order pot roast and potatoes and sleep insead!"

  "Easy, punkin'," he answered gently. "I didn't mean to intrude. Get yourself a snack when you're through ... and say hello to Jeff for me."

  I simply answered, "OK," and asked to be excused; I was humiliated by the assumption that I couldn't fly without Mr. Jefferson Hardesty but did not wish to discuss it.

  Daddy called after me, "Don't be late for dinner," and Mother said, "Now, Jacob —" and to me, "Fly until you're tired, dear; you haven't been getting much exercise. I'll leave your dinner in the warmer. Anything you'd like?"

  "No, whatever you dial for yourself." I just wasn't interested in food, which isn't like me. As I headed for Bats' Cave I wondered if I had caught something. But my cheeks didn't feel warm and my stomach wasn't upset even if I wasn't hungry.

  Then I had a horrible thought. Could it be that I was jealous? Me?

  It was unthinkable. I am not romantic; I am a career woman. Jeff had been my partner and pal, and under my guidance he could have become a great spaceship designer, but our relationship was straightforward ... a mutual respect for each other's abilities, with never any of that lovey-dovey stuff. A career woman can't afford such things — why look at all the professional time Mother had lost over having me!

  No, I couldn't be jealous; I was simply worried sick because my partner had become involved with a groundhog. Jeff isn't bright about women and, besides, he's never been to Earth and has illusions about it. If she lured him Earthside, Jones & Hardesty was finished.

  And somehow, "Jones & Company" wasn't a substitute: the Prometheus might never be built.

  I was at Bats' Cave when I reached this dismal conclusion. I didn't feel like flying but I went to the locker room and got my wings anyhow.

  Most of the stuff written about Bats' Cave gives a wrong impression. It's the air storage tank for the city, ju
st like all the colonies have — the place where the scavenger pumps, deep down, deliver the air until it's needed. We just happen to be lucky enough to have one big enough to fly in. But it never was built, or anything like that; it's just a big volcanic bubble, two miles across, and if it had broken through, way back when, it would have been a crater.

  Tourists sometimes pity us loonies because we have no chance to swim. Well, I tried it in Omaha and got water up my nose and scared myself silly. Water is for drinking, not playing in; I'll take flying. I've heard groundhogs say, oh yes, they had "flown" many times. But that's not flying. I did what they talk about, between White Sands and Omaha. I felt awful and got sick. Those things aren't safe.

  I left my shoes and skirt in the locker room and slipped my tail surfaces on my feet, then zipped into my wings and got someone to tighten the shoulder straps. My wings aren't readymade condors; they are Storer-Gulls, custom-made for my weight distribution and dimensions. I've cost Daddy a pretty penny in wings, outgrowing them so often, but these latest I bought myself with guide fees.

  They're lovely — titanalloy struts as light and strong as bird bones, tension-compensated wrist-pinion and shoulder joints, natural action in the alula slots, and automatic flap action in stalling. The wing skeleton is dressed in styrene feather-foils with individual quilling of scapulars and primaries. They almost fly themselves.

  I folded my wings and went into the lock. While it was cycling I opened my left wing and thumbed the alula control — I had noticed a tendency to sideslip the last time I was airborne. But the alula opened properly and I decided I must have been overcontrolling, easy to do with Storer-Gulls; they're extremely maneuverable. Then the door showed green and I folded the wing and hurried out, while glancing at the barometer. Seventeen pounds — two more than Earth sea-level and nearly twice what we use in the city; even an ostrich could fly in that. I perked up and felt sorry for all groundhogs, tied down by six times proper weight, who never, never, never could fly.

  Not even I could, on Earth. My wing loading is less than a pound per square foot, as wings and all I weigh less than twenty pounds. Earthside that would be over a hundred pounds and I could flap forever and never get off the ground.

  I felt so good that I forgot about Jeff and his weakness. I spread my wings, ran a few steps, warped for lift and grabbed air — lifted my feet and was airborne.

  I sculled gently and let myself glide towards the air intake at the middle of the floor — the Baby's Ladder, we call it, because you can ride the updraft clear to the roof, half a mile above, and never move a wing. When I felt it I leaned right, spoiling with right primaries, corrected, and settled in a counterclockwise soaring glide and let it carry me toward the roof.

  A couple of hundred feet up, I looked around. The cave was almost empty, not more than two hundred in the air and half that number perched or on the ground — room enough for didoes. So as soon as I was up five hundred feet I leaned out of the updraft and began to beat. Gliding is no effort but flying is as hard work as you care to make it. In gliding I support a mere ten pounds on each arm — shucks, on Earth you work harder than that lying in bed. The lift that keeps you in the air doesn't take any work; you get it free from the shape of your wings just as long as there is air pouring past them.

  Even without an updraft all a level glide takes is gentle sculling with your finger tips to maintain air speed; a feeble old lady could do it. The lift comes from differential air pressures but you don't have to understand it; you just scull a little and the air supports you, as if you were lying in an utterly perfect bed. Sculling keeps you moving forward just like sculling a rowboat ... or so I'm told; I've never been in a rowboat. I had a chance to in Nebraska but I'm not that foolhardy.

  But when you're really flying, you scull with forearms as well as hands and add power with your shoulder muscles. Instead of only the outer quills of your primaries changing pitch (as in gliding), now your primaries and secondaries clear back to the joint warp sharply on each downbeat and recovery; they no longer lift, they force you forward — while your weight is carried by your scapulars, up under your armpits.

  So you fly faster, or climb, or both, through controlling the angle of attack with your feet — with the tail surfaces you wear on your feet, I mean.

  Oh dear, this sounds complicated and isn't — you just do it. You fly exactly as a bird flies. Baby birds can learn it and they aren't very bright. Anyhow, it's easy as breathing after you learn .. and more fun than you can imagine!

  I climbed to the roof with powerful beats, increasing my angle of attack and slotting my alulae for lift without burble — climbing at an angle that would stall most fliers. I'm little but it's all muscle and I've been flying since I was six. Once up there I glided and looked around. Down at the floor near the south wall tourists were trying glide wings — if you call those things "wings." Along the west wall the visitors' gallery was loaded with goggling tourists. I wondered if Jeff and his Circe character were there and decided to go down and find out.

  So I went into a steep dive and swooped toward the gallery, leveled off and flew very fast along it. I didn't spot Jeff and his groundhoggess but I wasn't watching where I was going and overtook another flier, almost collided. I glimpsed him just in time to stall and drop under, and fell fifty feet before I got control. Neither of us was in danger as the gallery is two hundred feet up, but I looked silly and it was my own fault; I had violated a safety rule.

  There aren't many rules but they are necessary; the first is that orange wings always have the right of way — they're beginners. This flier did not have orange wings but I was overtaking. The flier underneath — or being overtaken — or nearer to wall — or turning counterclockwise, in that order, has the right of way.

  I felt foolish and wondered who had seen me, so I went all the way back up, made sure I had clear air, then stooped like a hawk toward the gallery, spilling wings, lifting tail, and letting myself fall like a rock.

  I completed my stoop in front of the gallery, lowering and spreading my tail so hard I could feel leg muscles knot and grabbing air with both wings, alulae slotted. I pulled level in an extremely fast glide along the gallery. I could see their eyes pop and thought smugly, "There! That'll show 'em!"

  When darn if somebody didn't stoop on me! The blast from a flier braking right over me almost knocked me out of control. I grabbed air and stopped a sideslip, used some shipyard words and looked around to see who had blitzed me. I knew the black-and-gold wing pattern — Mary Muhlenburg, my best girl friend. She swung toward me, pivoting on a wing tip. "Hi, Holly! Scared you, didn't I?"

  "You did not! You better be careful; the flightmaster'll ground you for a month."

  "Slim chance! He's down for coffee."

  I flew away, still annoyed, and started to climb. Mary called after me, but I ignored her, thinking, "Mary my girl, I'm going to get over you and fly you right out of the air."

  That was a foolish thought as Mary flies every day and has shoulders and pectoral muscles like Mrs. Hercules. By the time she caught up with me I had cooled off and we flew side by side, still climbing. "Perch?" she called out.

  "Perch," I agreed. Mary has lovely gossip and I could use a breather. We turned toward our usual perch, a ceiling brace for flood lamps — it isn't supposed to be a perch but the flightmaster hardly ever comes up there.

  Mary flew in ahead of me, braked and stalled dead to a perfect landing. I skidded a little but Mary stuck out a wing and steadied me. It isn't easy to come into a perch, especially when you have to approach level. Two years ago a boy who had just graduated from orange wings tried it ... knocked off his left alula and primaries on a strut — went fluttering and spinning down two thousand feet and crashed. He could have saved himself — you can come in safely with a badly damaged wing if you spill air with the other and accept the steeper glide, then stall as you land. But this poor kid didn't know how; he broke his neck, dead as Icarus. I haven't used that perch since.

  We folded
our wings and Mary sidled over. "Jeff is looking for you," she said with a sly grin.

  My insides jumped but I answered coolly, "So? I didn't know he was here."

  "Sure. Down there," she added, pointing with her left wing. "Spot him?"

  Jeff wears striped red and silver, but she was pointing at the tourist guide slope, a mile away. "No."

  "He's there all right." She looked at me sidewise. "But I wouldn't look him up if I were you."

  "Why not? Or for that matter, why should I?" Mary can be exasperating.

  "Huh? You always run when he whistles. But he has that Earthside siren in tow again today; you might find it embarrasing?"

  "Mary, whatever are you talking about?"

  "Huh? Don't kid me, Holly Jones; you know what I mean."

  "I'm sure I don't," I answered with cold dignity.

  "Humph! Then you're the only person in Luna City who doesn't. Everybody knows you're crazy about Jeff; everybody knows she's cut you out ... and that you are simply simmering with jealousy."

  Mary is my dearest friend but someday I'm going to skin her for a rug. "Mary, that's preposterously ridiculous! How can you even think such a thing?"

  "Look, darling, you don't have to pretend. I'm for you." She patted my shoulders with her secondaries.

  So I pushed her over backwards. She fell a hundred feet, straightened out, circled and climbed, and came in beside me, still grinning. It gave me time to decide what to say.

  "Mary Muhlenburg, in the first place I am not crazy about anyone, least of all Jeff Hardesty. He and I are simply friends. So it's utterly nonsensical to talk about me being 'jealous.' In the second place Miss Brentwood is a lady and doesn't go around 'cutting out' anyone, least of all me. In the third place she is simply a tourist Jeff is guiding — business, nothing more."

  "Sure, sure," Mary agreed placidly. "I was wrong. Still —" She shrugged her wings and shut up.

  " 'Still' what? Mary, dont be mealy-mouthed."

  "Mmm ... I was wondering how you knew I was talking about Ariel Brentwood — since there isn't anything to it."