Off The Main Sequence

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “Thanks." The treasurer handed back a shilling. “Tenderfeet get by cheaper, under Troop by-laws. But every little bit helps. You know, when I took this job, the troop was in the hole. Now we got money in the bank."

  “I believe it!" Charlie agreed. He was secretly delighted at the transaction. Nixie was no longer an honorary Scout," he was a Scout — he kept the Law and his dues were paid.

  Nixie’s eligibility to take part in all troop doings was not questioned until the first hike thereafter. Mr. Qu’an looked troubled when Charlie showed up with him. “You had better take Nixie home. We’ll wait for you."

  Charlie was upset. “But, Mr. Qu’an, I thought — Well, Nixie always goes on hikes."

  “No doubt, back Earthside. Charlie, I’m not being arbitrary. I don’t want your dog to get hurt."

  “He won’t get hurt! He’s real smart."

  The Scoutmaster frowned. Hans Kuppenheimer spoke up. “I think Nixie could come along, Mr. Qu’an."

  “Eh?" The Scoutmaster looked at Hans thoughtfully.

  “You’ll have your hands full with Chuck, since it’s his first time out."

  Hans had a habit of saying nothing when he had nothing to say; he did so now. Mr. Qu’an persisted, “You’d have to look out for them both, you know."

  Hans still kept quiet. “Well," Mr. Qu’an said doubtfully, “Nixie is a member of the troop. If you can take care of him — and Charlie, too — I’ll let him come."

  “Yes, sir."

  The Scoutmaster turned away. Charlie whispered, “Thanks, Hans. That was swell." Hans said nothing.

  Hans had surprised Charlie by his first reaction to Nixie the night Nixie had been taken into the troop. While other boys were clustering around making much of Nixie, Hans had stayed a wary distance away. Charlie had felt offended. Since he was assigned with Hans as a buddy team, Charlie decided to do something about it.

  After the meeting he sought out Hans. “Don’t be in a hurry, Hans. I want you to get acquainted with Nixie."

  The country boy still avoided the dog. “Does it bite?"

  “Huh? Nixie? Of course not. Well, he would if you took a poke at me. Not otherwise."

  “I thought so. And suppose I gave you a friendly slap on the back. He could kill a man, huh?"

  Nixie had listened, tense and watchful. He could feel the fear in Hans’ mind; he understood, without understanding why, that his boy was arguing with this other boy. Charlie did not seem in immediate danger, but Nixie stayed at yellow alert.

  It showed. The savage carnivores who were Nixie’s remote ancestors showed in his stance and his watchful eyes. The Venus-born jungle rat, drilled since babyhood to keep his eyes open for just such unknown dangers could see the carnivore — and failed to see the gentle household pet. He watched the dog carefully.

  Charlie said, “Why, that’s nonsense, Hans. Pat him. Rough him up a bit. Shake hands with him. Let him learn your smell." When Hans still did not move Charlie asked incredulously, “Don’t you like dogs?"

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one before, up close." Charlie’s jaw dropped. But Hans had spoken the simple truth. Some town boys in the troop, immigrant like Charlie, had once owned dogs Earthside. Others had friends among the handful of dogs in Borealis. But Hans alone, born on Venus and living outside town, knew so little of dogs that they were as strange to him as a tiger shark would have been.

  When Charlie finally got this incredible fact firmly in his mind he persisted even more strongly in his effort to get his team buddy acquainted with his other partner. Before Hans went home that night he had touched the dog, patted him, even picked him up and held him. Nixie could feel the fear go away, to be replaced by a sudden warm feeling. So Nixie snuffled Hans and licked his chin.

  Hans showed up the next day at Charlie’s home. He wanted to see Nixie.

  In the two weeks that followed before the hike, Nixie adopted Hans as another member of Charlie’s family. Subject always to his first loyalty, he accepted the other boy, took orders from him, even worked to hand signals, which he had never done with anyone but Charlie. At first he did it to please Charlie, but in time he was doing so because it was right and proper in his doggy mind, as long as it was all right with Charlie.

  The troop set out on the hike. Before they reached the jungle at the edge of town Hans said to Charlie, “Better have him heel."

  “Why? He likes to run around and poke his nose into things. But he always stays in earshot. He’ll come if he’s called."

  Hans scowled. “Suppose he can’t? Maybe he goes into bush and doesn’t come out. You want to lose him?"

  This was a long speech for Hans. Charlie looked surprised, then called, “Nixie! Heel!"

  The dog had been supervising the van; he turned and came at once to Charlie’s left and rear. Hans relaxed, said, “Better," and placed himself so that the dog trotted between them.

  When the jungle loomed up over them, pierced here by a road, Mr. Qu’an held up his arm and called out, “Halt! Check watches." He held up his wrist and waited; everybody else did the same.

  Jock Quentin, an Explorer Scout equipped with two-way radio, spoke into his microphone, then said, “Stand by … oh nine eleven."

  “Anybody fail to check?" continued Mr. Qu’an. “All you with polarizers, establish base line."

  Hans took out an odd-looking pair of spectacles with double lenses which rotated and a sighting device which snapped out. “Try it."

  “Okay." Charlie accepted them gingerly. He did not yet own a light-polarizing sighter. “Why are we going to establish base line if we’re going to stay on marked roads?"

  Hans did not answer and Charlie felt foolish, realizing that the time to learn how not to get lost was before you got lost. He put on the polarizers and tried to establish base line.

  “Base line" was the prime meridian of Venus, the direction from Borealis of the Sun at noon. To find that direction it was necessary first to find the Sun itself (in a grey, thickly overcast sky), then, using a watch, figure where the Sun would be at noon.

  That direction would be south — but all directions from Borealis were south; the city lay on the north pole of the planet. The mapmakers used Borealis as a zero point and the direction of the Sun at noon as a base line with the aid of transceivers, radar beacons, and radio compass, they were gradually establishing a grid o reference points for the few hundred square mile around Borealis. A similar project was going on at South Pole City. But the millions of square miles between poles were unknown country, more mysterious and incredible vaster than any jungle on Earth. There was a saying among the Scouts that streams at the equator were “hot enough to boil eggs," but nobody knew. As yet, no ship had landed near the equator and managed to come back.

  The difficulty of telling directions on Venus is very great. The stars are always invisible. Neither magnetic compasses nor gyro compasses were of any use at the poles. Nor is there moss on the north sides of trees, nor any shadows to read — Venus is not only the land that time forgot; it is also the place of no directions.

  So the colonists were forced to establish new directions. From Borealis toward the Sun at noon was prime meridian, called “base line," and any direction parallel to that was “base." Back the other way was “reverse"; the two intermediate directions were “Left demi" and “right demi." By counting clockwise from “base," any other direction could be named.

  It was not a perfect system since it used square coordinates for a spherical surface. But it was better than nothing in a place where the old directions had turned slippery — where all directions away from the city were “south" and where east and west, instead of being straight lines, were circular.

  At first, Charlie could not see why, if they were going to use four directions, they didn’t call them “north," “south," “east" and “west," instead of ringing in these silly names, “base," “reverse," “right demi," and “left demi." It was not until he saw in school a map of the colony, with the old familiar directions, north
, south, east, west, on it and a “base line" grid drawn on top of it that he realized that the problem was not that simple. To go east on that map you went counterclockwise on one of those little circles — but how could you tell what direction “east" was unless you knew where you were? And how could you tell how much to curve left in order to keep going east? When compasses were no good and the Sun might be in any direction, north, south, east, or west, depending on which side of the city you were on?

  So he buckled down and learned the new system.

  Charlie put on Hans’ polarizing spectacles and looked around. He could see nothing. Light leaked around the guards of the spectacles and the glass in front of his eyes seemed opaque. He knew that he should be able to pick out the Sun, for he knew that the light from the sky, dispersed by the clouds of Venus, was polarized, made to wiggle up-and-down or sideways, instead of in all directions. He knew that these spectacles were supposed to blank out polarized light, let him see the Sun itself. But he could not see anything.

  He turned slowly, blind behind the spectacles.

  Hey, it was getting brighter! He swung his head back and forth, made sure he was not mistaken. “I got it!"

  “False sun," Hans announced dispassionately.

  “Huh?"

  “You’re a hundred and eighty degrees out of phase," Mr. Qu’an’s voice announced. “You’re looking at the reflection of the Sun. Never mind, other people have made that mistake. But it’s not a mistake you can afford to make even once out in the bush … so keep trying*"

  Charlie kept on turning — darn it, these specs fit so tight that he couldn’t even see his feet! There it was again! Was it false sun? Or the Sun itself? How far had he turned?

  He turned until he was dizzy, seeing brightness, then darkness, several times — and realized that one brightness was brighter than that which it alternated. Finally he stopped. “I’m looking at the Sun," he announced firmly.

  “Okay," Hans admitted. “Jigger with it. Fine it down."

  Charlie found that he could fiddle with screw settings on the sides of the spectacles and thereby kill the brightness almost completely. He did so, while swinging his head back and forth like a radar, trying to spot the smallest gleam that he could. “That’s the best I can do."

  “Hold still," Hans ordered. “Uncover your right eye. Mark me."

  Charlie did as ordered, found himself staring with one eye down the sighter in front of the spectacles. Hans was thirty feet away, holding his Scout staff upright. “Don’t move!" Hans cautioned. “Coach me on."

  “Uh … come right a couple of feet."

  “Here?"

  “I think so. Let me check." He covered his right eye again, but found that his eye, dazzled by brighter light, could no longer pick up the faint gleam he had marked. “That’s the best I can do."

  Hans stretched a string along the marked direction. “My turn. Note your time." He took the spectacles, quickly gave Charlie a direction, coached him into place. The two lines differed by about ten degrees.

  “Figure your hour angle," Hans said and looked at his watch.

  The time was nine-thirty .. and the Sun moved fifteen degrees each hour … two and a half hours to noon; that’s thirty-seven and a half degrees and each minute on the face of his watch was six degrees, so — Charlie was getting confused. He looked up, saw that Hans had placed his watch on the ground and was laying out base line. Hans’ watch had a twenty-four hour face; he simply pointed the hour hand at the Sun and the XII spot then pointed along base line.

  No mental arithmetic, no monkeying around — “Gosh, I wish I had a watch like that!"

  “Don’t need it," Hans answered without looking up.

  “But it makes it so simple. You just —"

  “Your watch is okay. Make yourself a twenty-four-hour dial out of cardboard."

  “That would work? Yeah, it would! I wish I had one now."

  Hans fumbled in his duffel bag. “Uh, I made you one." He handed it over without looking up — a cardboard clock face, laid out for twenty-four hours.

  Charlie was almost speechless. “Gee! Nixie, look at that! Say, Hans, I don’t know how to thank you."

  “Don’t want you and Nixie getting lost," Hans answered gruffly.

  Charlie took it, aimed nine-thirty along his line, marked noon and restretched the string to match. Base line, according to his sighting, differed by ten degrees from that of Hans. In the meantime, two patrol leaders had stretched a line at right angles to base line, along where the troop was spread out. One of them moved down the line, checking angles with a protractor. Mr. Qu’an followed, checked Charlie’s layout himself. “About nine degrees off," he told Charlie. “Not bad for a first try."

  Charlie felt crestfallen. He knew that he and Hans could not both be right but he had had a small hope that his answer was nearer the correct one. “Uh … which way am I wrong?"

  “Left-demi. Look at Hans — he’s dead on … as usual." The Scoutmaster raised his voice. “All right, gang! Bush formation, route march. Flamers out, right and left. Rusty on point, Bill on drag — shake it up!"

  “Heel, Nixie."

  The road cut straight through the jungle. The clearing had been flamed back wider than the road so that the jungle did not arch over it. The column kept to the middle where the ground was packed by vehicles running to and from outlying plantations. The flamers on the flanks, both of them Explorer Scouts, walked close to the walls of green and occasionally used their flame guns to cut back some new encroachment of vine or tree or grass. Each time they did so, they kept moving and a scavenger gang moved out, tossed the debris back into the living forest, and quickly rejoined the column. It was everybody’s business to keep the roads open; the colony depended on roads more than Ancient Rome had depended on theirs.

  Presently it began to rain. No one paid attention; rain was as normal as ice in Greenland. Rain was welcome; it washed off ever-present sweat and gave an illusion of coolness.

  Presently Point (Rusty Dunlop) stopped, sighted back at Drag, and shouted, “Right demi fifteen degrees!"

  Drag answered, “Check!" Point continued around the slight bend in the road. They had left Borealis heading “south" of course, since no other direction was possible, but that particular south was base thirty-two degrees right demi, to which was now added fifteen degrees clockwise.

  It was Point’s duty to set trail, keep lookout ahead, and announce his estimate of every change in direction. It was Drag’s business to have eyes in the back of his head (since even here the jungle was not without power to strike), keep count of his paces, and keep written record of all course changes and the number of paces between each — dead reckoning navigation marked down in a waterproof notebook strapped to his wrist. He was picked for his reliability and the evenness of his strides.

  A dozen other boys were doing the same things, imitating both Point and Drag, and recording everything, paces, times, and course changes, in preparation for Pathfinder merit badges. Each time the troop stopped, each would again establish base direction and record it. Later, after the hike, they would attempt to map where they-had been, using only their notes.

  It was just practice, since the road was surveyed and mapped, but practice that could determine later whether they lived, or died miserably in the jungle. Mr. Qu’an had no intention of taking the troop, including tenderfoot town boys not yet twenty Venus years old, into unexplored jungle. But older boys, seasoned explorer Scouts did go into trackless bush; some were already marking out land they would claim and try to conquer. On their ability to proceed by dead reckoning through bush and swamp and return to where they had started depended both their lives and their future livelihoods.

  Mr. Qu’an dropped back, fell in beside Charlie. “Counting paces?"

  “Yes, sir."

  “Where’s your notebook?"

  “Uh, it was getting soggy in the rain, so I put it away. I’m keeping track in my head."

  “That’s a fine way to wind up at South Pole.
Next time, bring a waterproof one."

  Charlie didn’t answer. He had wanted one, as he had wanted a polarizing sighter and many other things. But the Vaughn family was still scratching for a toehold; luxuries had to wait.

  Mr. Qu’an looked at Charlie. “If convenient, that is," he went on gently. “Right now I don’t want you to count paces anyhow."

  “Sir?"

  “You can’t learn everything at once, and today you can’t get lost. I want you to soak up junglecraft. Hans, you two move to the flank. Give Charlie a chance to see what we’re passing through. Lecture him about it, and for goodness’ sake try to say more than two words at a time!"

  “Yes, sir."

  “And —" The Scoutmaster got no further; he was hailed by the boss of the scavenger gang. “Mr. Qu’an! Squint’s got a screwbug!"

  The man said something bitter under his breath, started to run. The two boys followed. The scavengers had been moving a large branch, freshly flamed down. Now they were clustered around one boy, who was gripping his forearm. Mr. Qu’an burst into the group, grabbed the kid by that arm without saying a word, and examined it.

  He shifted his grip so that the skin was drawn tight at one spot, reached for his belt and drew a knife — dug the point into skin, and, as if he were cutting a bad spot out of an apple, excised a small chunk of flesh. Squint screwed up his face and tears came into his eyes, but he did not cry out.

  The scavenger boss had his first-aid kit open. As the Scoutmaster handed his knife to a boy near him, the gang boss placed a shaker bottle in Mr. Qu’an’s hand. The Scoutmaster squirted powder into the wound, accepted a pressure patch and plastered it over the cut.

  Then he turned sternly to the gang boss. “Pete, why didn’t you do it?"

  “Squint wanted you."

  “So? Squint, you know better. Next time, let the boy closest to you get it — or cut it out yourself. It could have gone in another half inch while I was getting to you. And next time be more careful where you put your hands!"