The Cat Who Walked Through Walls

by Robert A. Heinlein

  I looked at her again and felt that I had it figured out: She had to be the older sister of Laz and Lor-and Dr. Hubert was father (brother?) of all of them... which explained how Dr. Hubert was this "Lazarus" that I had heard of again and again but had not seen-except that I had, once, in Iowa.

  The third was a little china doll-porcelain china, not Xia-type China-not much over a hundred and fifty centimeters of her and perhaps forty kilos, with the ageless beauty of Queen Nefertiti. My darling paused for breath and this little elf whistled loudly and clapped. "Great going. Hazel! I'm in your corner."

  Hubert-Lazarus said, "Hilda, don't encourage her."

  "And why not? You've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, or Hazel would not be so boiling; that's certain. I know her, I know you-want to bet?"

  "I did nothing. I simply tried to implement a previously settled policy that Hazel needed help on."

  The tiny woman covered her eyes and said, "Dear Lord, forgive him; he's at it again." The redhead said gently, "Wood-row, just what did you do?"

  "I didn't do anything."

  "Woodrow." "I tell you, I did nothing to justify her diatribe. I was having a civilized discussion with Colonel Campbell when-" He broke off.

  "Well, Woodrow?"

  "We disagreed."

  The computer spoke up. "Maureen, do you want to know why they disagreed? Shall I play back this soi-disant 'civilized discussion'?"

  Lazarus said, "Athene, you are not to play back. That was a private discussion."

  I said quickly, "I don't agree. She can certainly play back what I said."

  "No. Athene, that's an order."

  The computer answered, "Rule One: I work for Ira, not for you. You yourself settled that when I was first activated. Do I ask Ira to adjudicate this? Or do I play back that half of the discussion that belongs to my bridegroom?"

  Lazarus-Hubert looked astounded. "Your what?"

  "My fiance, if you want to split rabbits. But in the near tomorrow when I put on my ravishingly beautiful body. Colonel Campbell will stand up in front of you and exchange vows with me for our family. So you see, Lazarus, you were trying to bully my betrothed as well as Hazel's benedict. We can't have that. No indeedy. You had better back down and apologize ... instead of trying to bluster your way out of it. You can't, you know; you've been caught cold. Not only did I hear what you said, but Hazel also heard every word."

  Lazarus looked still more annoyed. "Athene, you relayed a private conversation?"

  "You did not place it under privacy. Contrariwise, Hazel did place a monitor request on Richard. All kosher, so don't try to pull any after-the-fact rule on me. Lazarus, take the advice of the only friend you have whom you can't cheat and who loves you in spite of your evil ways, namely me: Cut your losses, pal, and sweet-talk your way out. Make the last hundred meters on your belly and maybe Richard will let you start over. He's not hard to get along with. Pet him, and he purrs, just like that kitten." (I had Pixel in my lap, petting him, he having climbed my old leg, driving pitons as he went-I lost some blood but not enough to require transfusion.) "Ask Minerva. Ask Galahad. Ask Gretchen or Xia. Ask Laz or Lor. Ask anybody."

  (I decided to ask Teena-privately-to fill me in on gaps in my memory. Or would that be wise?) Lazarus said, "I never intended to offend you. Colonel. If I spoke too bluntly, I'm sorry."

  "Forget it."

  "Shake on it?" "All right." I put out my hand, he took it. He gave a good grip, with no attempt to set a bonecrusher. He looked me in the eye and I felt his warmth. The bastich is hard to dislike- when he tries.

  My darling said, "Hang on to your wallet, dear; I'm still going to drag this out onto the floor."

  "Really, is it necessary?" "It is. You're new here, darling. Lazarus can steal the socks off your feet without taking off your shoes, sell them back to you, make you think you got a bargain-then steal your shoes when you sit down to put your socks on, and you'll end up thanking him."

  Lazarus said, "Now, Hazel-"

  "Shut up. Friends and family, Lazarus tried to coerce Richard into signing up blind for Operation Galactic Overlord by trying to make him feel guilty over that replacement foot. Lazarus implied that Richard was a deadbeat who was trying to run out on his debts."

  "I didn't mean that." "I told you to shut up. You did mean that. Friends and family, my new husband comes from a culture in which debts are sacred. Their national motto is "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.' TANSTAAFL is embroidered on their flag. In Luna-the Luna of Richard's time line; not this one-a man might cut your throat but he would die before he would welch on a debt to you. Lazarus knew this, so he went straight for that most sensitive spot and jabbed it. Lazarus pitted his more than two thousand years of experience, his widest knowledge of cultures and human behavior, against a man of much less than a century of experience and that little only in his own solar system and time line. It was not a fair fight and Lazarus knew it. Grossly unfair. Like pitting that kitten against an old wildcat."

  I was sitting near Lazarus, having remained seated after that silly foot examination. I had my head down, ostensibly to play with the kitten, but in fact to avoid looking at Lazarus-or at anyone-as I was finding Hazel's insistence on airing everything quite disturbing. Embarrassing.

  In consequence I was looking down at my own feet and at his. Did I mention that Lazarus was barefooted? I had paid it no mind because one thing one becomes used to at once on Terdus is the absence of compelling dress customs. I don't mean absence of dress (Boondock sells more clothes than any groundhog city of similar size-about a million people-in part because garments are usually worn once, then recycled).

  I do mean that neither bare feet nor bare bodies are startling for more than five minutes. Lazarus was wearing a wrap-around, a lava-lava or it may have been a kilt; his feet I did not notice undl I stared at them.

  Hazel went on, "Lazarus took such cruel advantage of Richard's weak point-his compulsive hatred of being in debt- that Richard demanded that his new foot be amputated. In desperate need to cleanse his honor he said to Lazarus, 'Cut it off; put it back in stock'!"

  Lazarus said, "Oh, come now! He did not mean that seriously, and I did not take it seriously. A figure of speech. To show that he was annoyed with me. As well he might be. I made a mistake; I admit it."

  "You did indeed make a mistake!" I interrupted. "A grave mistake. Your grave perhaps, or mine. For it was not a figure of speech. I want that foot amputated. I demand that you take back your foot. Your foot, sir! Look here, all of you, and then look there! At my right foot, then his right foot."

  Anyone who bothered to look could not fail to see what I meant. Four masculine feet- Three were clearly from the same genes: Lazarus's two feet and my new foot. The fourth was the foot I was born with; it matched the other three only in size, not in skin color, texture, hairiness, or any detail.

  When Lazarus had dunned me for the cost of that transplant, it had offended me. But this new discovery, that Lazarus himself was the anonymous donor, that I had been made the unwitting recipient of his charity for the foot itself, the very meat and bone of it, was intolerable.

  I glared at Lazarus. "Doctor, behind my back and utterly without my consent you placed me under unbearable obligation. / will not tolerate it!" I was shaking with anger.

  "Richard, Richard! Please!" Hazel seemed about to cry.

  And I, too. That red-haired older lady hurried to me, bent over me and gathered my head to her motherly breasts, cuddled me and said, "No, Richard, no! You must not feel this way."

  We left later that day. But we stayed for dinner; we did not run away angry.

  Hazel and Maureen (the darling older lady who had comforted me) between them managed to convince me that hospital and surgery charges need not fret me because Hazel had plenty of the needful on deposit in a local bank-which Teena confirmed-and Hazel could and would cover my bills if it became appropriate to change the charge under which I was hospitalized. (I thought about asking my darling to reassi
gn the charges right then, through Teena. But I decided not to crowd her about it. Damn it, "tanstaafl" is a basic truth, but "beggars can't be choosers" is true, too-and at that moment I was a beggar. (Never a good bargaining position.)

  As for the foot itself, by invariant local custom "spare parts" (hands and feet and hearts and kidneys, etc.) were not bought or sold; there was only a service and handling charge billed with the cost of surgery.

  Galahad confirmed this. "We do it that way to avoid a black market. I could show you planets where there is indeed a black market, where a matching liver might mean a matching murder-but not here. Lazarus himself set up this rule, more than a century ago. We buy and sell everything else... but we don't traffic in human beings or pieces of human beings."

  Galahad grinned at me. "But there is another reason why you should not fret. You had no say in the matter when a team of us hemstitched that foot to your stump; everybody knows that. But also everybody knows you can't get rid of it... unless you want to tackle it with your own jackknife. Because I won't cut it off. You won't find a surgeon anywhere on Tertius who will. Union rules, you know, and professional courtesy."

  He added, "But if you do decide to hack it off yourself, do please invite me; I want to watch." He said that with a straight face and Maureen scolded him for it. I'm not certain that he was joking.

  Nevertheless detente involved a major change in Hazel's plans. Lazarus was correct in saying that all he had been trying to do was to implement a previously agreed-on plan. But it had been further agreed that Hazel (not Lazarus) was to implement the plan.

  Hazel could have managed it, but Lazarus could not. Lazarus could never sell it to me because I thought the whole thing was ridiculous. On the other hand, if Hazel really wants something from me, I stand about as much chance of holding out as-well, as Jinx Henderson has of refusing a request from his daughter Gretchen.

  But Lazarus couldn't see that.

  I think Lazarus suffers from a compulsion to be the biggest frog in any pond. He expects to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral... while pretending that he has no ambitions-just a barefoot country boy with straw in his hair and manure between his toes.

  If you think that I am not overly fond of Lazarus Long, I won't argue.

  That plan was pretty much as Lazarus had described it. Hazel had expected that I would join her in the Time Corps, and had planned for me to be rejuvenated-systemic rejuvenation to biological age eighteen; cosmetic rejuvenation, my choice. While this was going on I was to be taught Galacta, study multiverse history at least for several time lines, and, after rejuvenation, again take military training of several sorts until I became a walking angel of death, armed or unarmed.

  When she judged that I was ready, she planned for us to carry out Task Adam Selene of Operation Galactic Overlord.

  If we lived through it, we could retire from the Time Corps, live out our days on an ample pension on the planet of our choice-fat and happy.

  Or we could stay in the Corps together just by my reenlisting for a hitch of fifty years-then rejuvenations each hitch and a chance for us eventually to become Time bosses ourselves. That was supposed to be the grand prize-more fun than baby kittens, more exciting than roller coasters, more satisfying than being seventeen and in love.

  Live or die, we would do it together-until at last one of us waited for the other at the end of that tunnel.

  But this program aborted because Lazarus butted in and tried to twist my arm (my foot?) to accept it.

  My darling had planned a pianissimo approach: Live for a time on Tertius (a heavenly place), get me hooked on multiverse history and time travel theory, et cetera. Not crowd me about signing up, but depend on the fact that she and Gretchen and Ezra and others (Uncle Jock, e.g.) were in the Corps... until I asked to be allowed to be sworn in.

  The cost of my new foot would not have bothered me: a) if Hazel had had time to convince me that the cost would be charged off to my increased efficiency in helping her with "Adam Selene" and the foot would thereby pay for itself (the simple truth!-and Lazarus knew it); b) if Lazarus had not dunned me about it, used it to pressure me; c) if Lazarus had stayed away from me (as he was supposed to) and thereby had never offered me any chance of spotting that he was my anonymous donor-bare feet or no bare feet.

  I suppose you could say that none of it would have happened if Hazel had not tried to manipulate me (and had, and did, and would) ... but a wife's unique right, fixed by tradition, to manipulate her own husband runs unbroken and invariant at least back to Eve and the Apple. I will not criticize a sacred tradition.

  Hazel did not give up her intention; she just changed her tactics. She decided to take me to Time Headquarters and let the high brass and the technical experts there answer my questions. "Darling man," she said to me, "you know that I want to rescue Adam Selene, and so does Mannie, my papa. But his reasons and mine are sentimental, not good enough to ask you to risk your life."

  "Oh, say not so, mistress mine! For you I'll swim the Hellespont. On a calm day, that is, with an escort boat at my heels. And a three-dee contract. Commercial rights. Residuals."

  "Be serious, dear. I had not planned to try to persuade you through explaining the greater purpose, the effect on the multiverse ... as I don't fully understand it myself. I don't have the math and I am not a Companion of the Circle-the Circle of Ouroboros that rules on all cosmic changes.

  "But Lazarus bungled things by trying to hustle you. So I feel that you are entitled to know exactly why this rescue is necessary and why you are being asked to take part in it. We'll go to Headquarters and let them try to convince you; I wash my hands of that part of the job. It is up to the Companions, the high brass of time manipulation. I told Lazarus so-be is a Companion of the Circle."

  "Sweetheart, I am much more likely to listen to you. Lazarus would have trouble selling me ten-crown notes for two crowns."

  "His problem. But he has only one vote in the Circle, even though he is senior. Of course he is always senior, anywhere."

  That caught my ear. "This notion that Lazarus is two thousand years old-"

  "More than that. Over twenty-four hundred."

  "Either way. Who says that he is more than two millennia old? He looks younger than I do."

  "He's been rejuvenated several times."

  "But who claims that he is that old? Forgive me, my love, but you can't testify to it. Even if we credit you with every fortnight you claim, he would still be more than ten times your age. If he is. Again, who says?"

  "Uh... not me, that's true. But I have never had any reason to doubt it. I think you should talk to Justin Foote." Hazel looked around. We were in that lovely garden court outside the room in which I woke up. (Her room, I learned later-or hers when she wanted it; such things were fluid. Other times use other customs.) We were in that garden with other members of the Long family and guests and friends and relations, eating tasty tidbits and getting quietly slopped. Hazel picked out a mousy little man, the sort who is always elected treasurer of any organization he belongs to. "Justin! Over here, dear. Spare me a moment."

  He worked his way toward us, stepping over children and dogs, and on arrival bussed my bride in the all-out fashion she always received. He said to her, "Fluttermouse, you've been away too long."

  "Business, dear. Justin, this is my beloved husband Richard."

  "Our house is yours." He kissed me. Well, I was braced for it; it had happened so often. These people kissed as often as early Christians. However, this was an aunt's peck, all protocol and bone dry.

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Please be assured that it is not our custom to put pressure on guests. Lazarus is a law unto himself but he does not act for the rest of us." Justin Foote smiled at me, then turned his attention to my bride. "Hazel, will you permit me to obtain from Athene a copy, for the Archives, of your remarks to Lazarus?"

  "Whatever for? I chewed him out; it's done with." "It is of historical interest. No one else, not ev
en Ishtar, has ever spanked the Senior as thoroughly as you did. There is scant disapproval of him on record, of any degree. Most people find it hard to disagree with him openly even when they disagree most. So it is not only an interesting item for future scholars, but it could also be of service to Lazarus himself if he ever scanned it. He is so used to getting his own way that it is good for him to be reminded now and then that he is not God." Justin smiled. "And it's a breath of fresh air for the rest of us. In addition. Hazel love, its literary quality is great and unique. I do want it for the Archives."

  "Uh... poppycock, dear. See Lazarus. Nihil obstat but it requires his permission."

  "Consider it done; I know how to use his stubborn pride. The piglet principle. All I have to do is to offer to censor it, keep it out of the Archives. With a hint that I wish to spare his feelings. He will then scowl and insist that it be placed in the Archives... unedited, unbowdlerized."

  "Well- Okay if he says yes."

  "May I ask, dear, where you picked up some of the more scabrous of those expressions?"

  "You may not. Justin, Richard asked me a question I can't answer. How do we know that the Senior is more than two thousand years old? To me, it's like asking, 'How do I know that the Sun will rise tomorrow?' I just know it."

  "No, it's like asking, 'How do you know that the Sun rose long before you were bom?' The answer is that you don't know.

  Hmm- Interesting."

  He blinked at me. "Part of the problem, I am sure, lies in the fact that you come from a universe in which the Howard Families phenomenon never took place."

  "I don't think I've ever heard of it. What is it?" "It is a code name for people with exceptionally long lives.

  But I must first lay a foundation. The Companions of the Circle of Ouroboros designate universes by serial numbers... but a more meaningful way, for terrestrials, is to ask who first set foot on Luna. Who in your world?"